Ex-Film Star Now Leading Man for Area

Although he hasn’t made a movie in nearly 40 years, Francis Lederer, Canoga Park resident and former matinee idol, still has plenty to keep himself busy.

Lederer, longtime honorary mayor of Canoga Park, was born in Prague in November 1906. After becoming a well-established film star in Berlin and Vienna, Lederer moved to Hollywood in 1934 and over the next 20 years played a series of leading-man roles, usually the continental lover with an occasional mean streak. His most famous movies from that era were “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” in 1939 and “The Man I Married” in 1940.

Thinking about life after movies, Lederer wanted to move to a place away from the hoopla of Hollywood. He ended up in the West Valley, buying 300 acres surrounding and including Canoga Hill, located near the intersection of Sherman Way and Woodlake Avenue. Saying that the countryside reminded him of Spain, Lederer and his wife, Marion, built an 18th century Spanish mission-style home out of local stone, including a stable that in 1967 became the Canoga Mission Gallery, at 23130 Sherman Way.

The 90-year-old Lederer continues to be involved in entertainment-related activities and civic affairs.

He established the Canoga Park/Taxco, Mexico Sister City program in 1963, is a founder of the Hollywood Museum and served a term as president of the Southern California chapter of the American National Theatre and Academy.

At times, however, Lederer’s political activism and outspokenness put him at odds with colleagues and government officials.

In 1940, Lederer was exonerated by a U.S. House subcommittee of being a communist sympathizer, and in a bitter 1982 dispute with board members of the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Lederer withdrew a $17-million bequest because he felt that the board was not receptive to how he wanted his money used.

He and his wife continue to live in the house they built on Canoga Hill.