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Contact Info
Home Town Washington, DC
Last Address Westport, Connecticut
Date of Passing Oct 29, 1985
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Wall/Plot Coordinates Section 30 Lot 8966 Grid AA-39
John Davis Lodge
Captain, United States Naval Reserve
Lawyer - Actor - Member of Congress - Governor of Connecticut American Diplomat on special presidential missions to
Puerto Rico, Panama, and Costa Rica United States Ambassador to Spain, Argentina, Switzerland and the U.N.
He received a direct commission in the Naval Reserve in 1939, a Lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve on 19 January 1940, and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, 29 May 1944, and to Commander 1 July 1950. He retired from the United States Naval Reserve in 1966 with the rank of Captain.
Reporting for active Naval service in August 1942, he was assigned to the Special Events Section, Public Relations Office in the Third Naval District, with headquarters in New York, New York. He remained there until April 1943 and in June of that year joined the staff of Commander Naval Forces, Northwest African Waters, as French Naval Rearmament and Naval Liaison Officer.
From 1 August to 10 December 1944, he had successive service as Executive Officer in the Office of the Senior US Naval Liaison Office, Algiers; as Assistant Liaison Officer on the staff of the US Naval Liaison Officer, French Ports; as Headquarters Liaison Officer at the US Naval Detachment, Toulon, France; and as Headquarters Liaison Officer on the Staff of the Commander Naval Advance Bases and Commodore Liaison, American-British Staff. During that period he also served as Public Relations Officer and Press Censor for the Sicilian Operation and for the landings at Salerno and Southern France.
He had the Naval Reserve Medal; the American Campaign Medal; the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal; and the World War II Victory Medal. He was also decorated with: Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur and Honneur Croix de Guerre with Palm, France; Grand officer Order of Merit, Italy; Grand Cross Noble Order of Charles III, Spain; Grand Cross Orden de Mayo, Argentina; Order Polonia Restituta, Poland; recipient Gold medal, Madrid, Spanish Institute.
He was a resident of Westport, Connecticut, until his death in New York City on October 29, 1985. His private memorial in Section 30 of Arlington National Cemetery reads:
"To be useful to our fellow man is a noble aspiration.
A life of service is still a life well spent."
Lawyer, 1929-32; Actor, 1932-42; Naval Officer, 1942-46; U.S. Congressman, 1947-51; Governor of Connecticut, 1951-55; U.S. Ambassador to Spain, 1955-61, to Argentina, 1969-74, to Switzerland, 1983-85; U.S. Delegate, 1984-85.
Other Comments:
Courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives:
LODGE, John Davis, (grandson of Henry Cabot Lodge, brother of Henry Cabot Lodge II, and nephew of Augustus P. Gardner), a Representative from Connecticut; born in Washington, D.C., October 20, 1903; attended the Evans School, Mesa, Ariz., the Middlesex School, Concord, Mass., and Ecole de Droit, Paris, France; was graduated from Harvard University in 1925 and from the Harvard Law School in 1929; was admitted to the New York bar in 1932 and commenced practice in New York City; affiliated with the motion-picture industry and the theater 1933-1942; served with the United States Navy as a lieutenant and lieutenant commander August 1942 to January 1946 and was a liason officer between the French and American fleets; was decorated with the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor and with the Croix de Guerre with palm by General de Gaulle; engaged in research work in economics; elected as a Republican to the Eightieth and Eighty-first Congresses (January 3, 1947-January 3, 1951); was not a candidate for renomination in 1950; Governor of Connecticut from January 1951 to January 1955; unsuccessful for reelection as Governor in 1954; United States Ambassador to Spain from January 1955 until January 1961; National president, Junior Achievement, Inc., 1963-1964; chairman, Committee Foreign Policy Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania, 1964-1969; delegate and assistant floor leader, Connecticut Constitutional Convention, in 1965; United States Ambassador to Argentina, 1969 to 1974; Ambassador to Switzerland, 1983; was a resident of Westport, Connecticut until his death in New York City, October 29, 1985; intermant in Arlington National Cemetery.
Membership: National president, Junior Achievement, 1963-1964. Committee chairman Foreign Policy Research Institute University Pennsylvania, 1964-1969. Member of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Inter-American Bar Association, New York Bar Association, Mexican Academy International Law, Foreign Service Association, Former Members of Congress, Harvard Alumni Association, Connecticut Republican Labor League, American Legion, Western Connecticut Retired Officers Association, Reserve Officers Association, Navy League, Association Former Intelligence Officers, Army & Navy Club, Dutch Treat Club, Harvard Club, Chowder & Marching Club (founding member), Explorers Club, Grange Club, Fairfield County Hunt Club, National Press Club, DACOR House Club, Phi Beta Kappa, French Legion of Honor.
Also, from the book: "JOHN DAVIS LODGE, a life in three acts: actor, politician, diplomat" by Thomas A. DeLong, chapter 10 "A Military Bearing".
NEW YORK -- John Davis Lodge, the grandson of statesman Henry Cabot Lodge, was a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who also served as the governor of Connecticut and was a one-time movie star.
Lodge, who starred in 'Bulldog Drummond at Bay' and several other films, campaigned in 1980 for another actor-turned politician -- Ronald Reagan -- against President Carter. President Reagan named Lodge the U.S. representative to the United Nations and later, in 1983, as ambassador to Switzerland.
Previously Lodge had served as ambassador to Spain and Argentina and in the House of Representatives from Connecticut when he replaced Rep. Clare Boothe Luce. He was governor of Connecticut from 1951 to 1955.
He played a variety of roles during his movie career, including that of Bulldog Drummond in a series of movies made to be shown in England while Englishman Ronald Colman played Drummond in the Hollywood version.
He also played Katharine Hepburn's boyfriend in 'Little Women,' Shirley Temple's father in 'The Little Colonel,' and Marlene Dietrich's lover in the 'Scarlet Empress.'
He said a kissing scene with Dietrich was spoiled because 50 extras and technicians were watching and the action took place in a hayloft, a sad setting since he had hay fever.
As U.N. ambassador, Lodge saved his best lines for the Soviet delegate and liked to turn the verbal screw. The Russian claimed, for example, that the United States was exploiting the internal problems of Poland and spoke of the right of Poles to resolve their own problems.
'As we all know, Russian troops remain in Poland precisely to prevent Poles from resolving their own problems,' Lodge said. Then he reminded the delegate of Russia's World War II association with Adolf Hitler.
'Forty-three years is surely too short a time for any of us to forget the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of August 1939,' he said. 'It was just after its signature that on Sept. 1, the Hitlerite armies attacked Poland from the west, while from the east, Hitler's Russian allies invaded the very same Poland whose right to solve its own problems Moscow asserts today.'
During the early years of World War II, before the U.S. entry into the conflict, Lodge left the cast of Lillian Hellman's play 'Watch on the Rhine' to join the Navy. He served as a liaison officer between the French and American fleets. Gen. Charles deGaulle awarded him the Croix de Guerre and the French Legion of Honor.
After the war ended, Lodge went into politics, at a time when professional politicians dismissed actors as frivolous candidates. He served two terms in Congress from Fairfield County and beat Gov. Chester Bowles, a Democrat, in Bowles's 1951 re-election bid.
He recalls a flustered aide calling him to say that Dick Lee, the New Haven Democrat, was bad-mouthing him on the stump because he was an actor. 'Marvelous,' Lodge told the aide.
He was well aware that many show business people lived in Fairfield County and suggested two things: one, that Lee -- later elected mayor of New Haven -- did not figure that angle, and two, that times were changing - an actor could get elected, some day even as president.
Lodge was ambassador to Spain from 1955 to 1961 under Dwight D. Eisenhower and to Argentina from 1969 to 1973 under Richard Nixon.
The Spanish Institute presented him with its highest award, a gold medal, in 1982 and said in a program reference, 'He is married to the former Francesca Braggiotti, beloved by all.'
Lodge, who was born Oct. 20, 1903, in Washington, D.C., met Braggiotti in Boston while he was a student in the Harvard class of 1925 and she was a ballet dancer from Florence, Italy. They were married in 1929.
When Lodge was envoy to Argentina, the foreign minister told him, 'Your greatest asset is your fluency in Spanish.'
