Editing Cornel Wilde (section)

===Theatre===
After studying at Theodora Irvine's Studio of the Theatre, Wilde began appearing in plays in stock and in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1935 in ''Moon Over Mulberry Street''. He also appeared in ''Love Is Not So Simple'', ''Daughters of Etreus'', and ''[[Having Wonderful Time]]''.

He did the illustrations for ''Fencing'', a 1936 textbook on fencing<ref>{{cite news |date=October 1, 1947 |title=Cornel Wilde adds new skill |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |id={{ProQuest|151896525}}}} {{closed access|date=November 2017}}</ref> and wrote a fencing play, ''Touché'', under the pseudonym of Clark Wales in 1937.<ref name="ReferenceA">Ingram, Frances ''Cornel Wilde: Gentle Swashbuckler'', Classic Images, February 5, 2009</ref> He toured with [[Tallulah Bankhead]] in a production of ''Antony and Cleopatra''; during the run he married his co-star Patricia Knight.

Acting jobs were sporadic over the next few years. Wilde supplemented his income with exhibition fencing matches; his wife also did modelling work. Wilde wrote plays, some of which were performed by the New York Drama Guild.<ref>{{cite news |last=Masters, M. |date=December 23, 1945 |title=Cornel Wilde strong on psychological drama |newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}</ref>

Wilde was hired as a fencing teacher by [[Laurence Olivier]] for his 1940 Broadway production of ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' and was given the role of Tybalt in the production. Although the show had only a small run, his performance in this role netted him a Hollywood film contract with [[Warner Bros]].<ref name="ReferenceA" />