Erskine Sanford was born on November 19, 1885 in Trinidad, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and The Lady from Shanghai (1947). He died on July 7, 1969 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Character actor, associated for 15 years with the Theatre Guild, which he left in 1936 to join Orson Welles' Mercury Players. The story goes, that 17 year old Welles had first been introduced to Sanford backstage, much taken with his performance in "Mr.Pim Passes By" (Welles' first exposure to the stage, in his hometown, Kenosha, Wisconsin). After congratulating Sanford on an 'admirable performance', he was strongly encouraged to chose the performing arts as a career path for himself. He appeared in five films directed by Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Macbeth (1948). He has appeared in six films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Citizen Kane (1941), The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948).