Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born British Jewish actor. In a career that spanned a quarter of a century, Harvey appeared in stage and television productions in the United Kingdom and the United States, his performance in Room at the Top resulted in an Academy Award nomination. That success was followed by the role of William Barret Travis in The Alamo, as the brainwashed Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate. Harvey's civil birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne, his Hebrew name was Zvi Mosheh. He was born in Joniškis, the youngest of three sons of Ella and Ber Skikne, Lithuanian Jewish parents; when he was five years old, his family travelled with the family of Riva Segal and her two sons and Charles Segal on the ship, the SS Adolph Woermann to South Africa, where he was known as Harry Skikne. Harvey grew up in Johannesburg, was in his teens when he served with the entertainment unit of the South African Army during the Second World War; as the Mystery Guest on USA TV show What's My Line screened May 1, 1960, he states he arrived in South Africa in 1934 and moved to the UK in 1946.
After moving to London, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but left RADA after three months, began to perform on stage and film. Harvey made his cinema debut in the British film House of Darkness, but its distributor British Lion thought someone named Larry Skikne was not commercially viable. Accounts vary as to. One version has it that it was the idea of talent agent Gordon Harbord who decided Laurence would be an appropriate first name. In choosing a British-sounding last name, Harbord thought of two British retail institutions, Harvey Nichols and Harrods. Another is that Skikne was travelling on a London bus with Sid James who exclaimed during their journey: "It's either Laurence Nichols or Laurence Harvey." Harvey's own account differed over time. Associated British Picture Corporation offered him a two-year contract, which Harvey accepted, he appeared in supporting roles in several of their lower-budget films such as Man on the Run and The Dancing Years. For International Motion Pictures he was in The Man from Yesterday.
He had a small role in the Hollywood financed The Black Rose, starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles Associated British gave him his first lead, appearing alongside Eric Portman in the Egypt-set police film, Cairo Road. Harvey starred in leading roles for two movies with Lewis Gilbert, Scarlet Thread and There Is Another Sun. For Ealing he made I Believe in You he starred in a low budget thriller, A Killer Walks. Harvey's career gained a boost. James Woolf in particular was a big admirer of Harvey, he had an uncredited role in the comedy Innocents in Paris, in a Hollywood film, Knights of the Round Table. Romulus have him a good part in a thriller directed by The Good Die Young, he was given the romantic male lead in another Hollywood spectacular, King Richard and the Crusaders, supporting Rex Harrison and George Sanders. It was a box office disappointment; that year he played Romeo in Renato Castellani's adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, narrated by John Gielgud. He was now established as an emerging British star.
According to a contemporary interview, he turned down an offer to appear in Helen of Troy to act at Stratford-upon-Avon. Romulus came to the rescue again when Harvey was cast as the writer Christopher Isherwood in I Am A Camera, with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles, he appeared on American television and on Broadway, making his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play Island of Goats, a flop that closed after one week, though his performance won him a 1956 Theatre World Award. Harvey appeared twice more on Broadway, in 1957 with Julie Harris, Pamela Brown and Colleen Dewhurst in William Wycherley's The Country Wife, as Shakespeare's Henry V in 1959, as part of the Old Vic company, which featured a young Judi Dench as Katherine, the daughter of the King of France. Zoltan Korda used him as one of the soldiers in Storm Over the Nile, a remake of The Four Feathers, playing the part taken by Ralph Richardson in the 1939 version, it was popular in Britain. After the Ball was a biopic of Vesta Tilley, in which Harvey played Walter de Frece.
The Truth About Women was a comedy. Harvey's breakthrough to international stardom came after he was cast by director Jack Clayton as the social climber Joe Lampton in Room at the Top, produced by British film producer brothers John and James Woolf of Romulus Films. For his performance, Harvey received a BAFTA Award nomination and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Simone Signoret and Heather Sears co-starred as Lampton's married lover and eventual wife respectively, it was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1959 and a hit in the USA. Harvey followed it with a musical, Expresso Bongo, a film best remembered for introducing Cliff Richard. Room at the Top led to Hollywood offers starting with John Wayne's epic The Alamo. Harvey was John Wayne's personal choice to play Alamo commandant William Barret Travis, he had been impressed by Harvey's talent and ability to project the aristocratic demeanor Wayne believed Travis possessed. Harvey and Wayne would express their mutual admiration and satisfaction at having worked together.
The Alamo was
Royal Dramatic Theatre
The Royal Dramatic Theatre is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's eight running stages; the theatre has been at its present location in the Art Nouveau building at Nybroplan, since 1908. The theatre was built by the architect Fredrik Lilljekvist. Famous artists like Carl Milles and Carl Larsson were involved in making the decorations, some of the interior decorations were made by Prince Eugen; the theatre's acting school, Dramatens elevskola, produced many actors and directors who would go on to be famous, including Gustaf Molander, Alf Sjöberg, Greta Garbo, Vera Schmiterlöw, Signe Hasso, Ingrid Bergman, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson. The school was split off as a separate institution in 1967; the first Swedish theatre opened in Bollhuset and Lejonkulan in 1667 and employed only foreign companies. While the plays were sometimes open to the public, it remained less a court theatre; the first Swedish play, Den Svenska Sprätthöken, was performed in 1737 by the first Swedish theatre company.
The Swedish theatre was turned out of their playhouse by Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia after the 1753-54 season, the playhouse was given to a French company. In 1771, king Gustav III fired the French company and encouraged Swedish talents, thus, the Royal Swedish Opera was founded in Bollhuset. A theatre of spoken drama was founded by Fredrik Ristell in the same building in 1787, but was not to last long. In 1788 Ristell fled the country to escape his creditors; the actors formed a company and asked for the king's protection, which led to the establishment of the national theatre. Sweden's national stage for dramatic art was established by King Gustav III in 1788, it was that the Royal Theatre in Sweden was split in two, the Royal Theatre became thereafter an opera stage. For spoken drama a new theatre was built called Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern—the Royal Dramatic Theatre, to distinguish it from the Royal Theatre; the king became the formal director and placed the theatre under Royal protection, to be ruled by the actors themselves by votes every fourteenth day under the supervision of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts.
This rule was quite chaotic, the voting is described as capricious and temperamental: "The male actors arguing with each other, one of the ladies voting yes because another lady voted no, others of them counting their buttons and letting fate decide", in 1803, the actors themselves asked for the system to be replaced by a director. The Royal Dramatic Theatre was located in the old premises at Bollhuset during its first years, but in 1792, the old building was deemed to be to run down, 1 November 1793, the theatre was opened in the Palace of Makalös called Arsenalen, where the theatre was to be located for the next thirty years. In 1798, the theatres and operas of Stockholm were united by a royal monopoly, the "Two Stages" ruled uncontested over the city for over forty years. In 1825, the old Palace building of the theatre caught fire and burned down in the middle of a performance; the theatre was now located in the same building as the Opera, an arrangement, to continue for forty years. The middle of the 19th century was to mean changes both without the theatre.
In 1834, the actors, infuriated by a new system that replaced their percent of the theatre income by a set salary, went on strike, knowing they had succeeded with a similar action against an unpopular director in 1828. This time, the strike was broken by the government, which gave some of them raised salaries and fired the others with pensions; the fired actors founded a theatre company that performed all around town, in 1842, the theatre monopoly was broken and a second theatre was founded in Stockholm. There was much criticism about the sharing of localities between the opera and the theatre, as the localities of the Opera were built for singing and considered unsuitable for spoken drama. In 1863, the Royal Dramatic Theatre purchased the playhouse of an old rival theatre, Mindre teatern, moved the theatre to it. Here the Royal Dramatic Theatre remained until 1907, it was here new dramas of the 19th Century were performed: the pioneering plays of Ibsen and Chekov, as well as August Strindberg's late dramatic works, for example Till Damaskus.
But at the beginning of the 20th century, the playhouse was rundown and in desperate need of renovation and a more modern, functional stage. From the 1880s the national stage had suffered stiff competition from several new private theatres in Stockholm, in particular, the Svenska teatern, run by the charismatic theatre personality Albert Ranft. Many of the original Swedish stagings of Ibsen's plays had been produced at the Swedish Theatre instead of the national stage, as well as new German and French dramatic works, the national stage was at the same time accused of being old and overcrowded. There was lively debate in the press on the subject of refurbishing the national stage at Kungsträdgården. Many different kinds of restoration were proposed, but King Oscar II was not satisfied with any of the suggestions. Instead, the decision was soon made to tear down the old theatre building and to build a new, fresher a
David Farrar (actor)
David Farrar was an English stage and film actor. His best remembered movie roles were as the male lead in the Powell and Pressburger films Black Narcissus, The Small Back Room and Gone to Earth. According to one obituary, "He was adept at conveying the weaknesses and human qualities in figures of authority and intelligence... and he could be considered an early exponent of'anti-hero' roles." In 1949 exhibitors voted him the ninth-most popular British star. Director Michael Powell once spoke of his handsome appearance and distinctive "violet eyes", his exceptional timing in films. Powell stated that had Farrar been more interested in cinema and cared more about his career he could have been a much more high-profile actor, as successful as any. Farrar was born in Essex, he joined the Morning Advertiser on leaving school at 14 and worked as a journalist for a number of years. He became an assistant editor at 17 and earned a BA through night school when 19 whilst becoming interested in amateur theatricals.
In 1932 Farrar received an offer to tour with a repertory company at ₤7 a week. He went on tour for 18 months, he ran a repertory company with his wife for 18 months until 1937 went on tour again. He was seen in a play by an employee of the American RKO studio, interested in Farrar’s potential as a film actor, his first film role was in the Jessie Matthews musical Head Over Heels. He had small roles in Return of a Stranger, Silver Top, A Royal Divorce, he played agent Granite Grant in Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror and had a small role in Q Planes. Farrar performed in a production of the Wandering Jew for seven months. However, after a bomb damaged the theatre he decided to try films again. Farrar had his first leading role in Danny Boy, which he followed with Sheepdog of the Hills and Suspected Person; these were "B" movies but Farrar had a good role in an "A", Went the Day Well?, as a villainous German. He had strong roles in The Dark Tower and They Met in the Dark, as well as the leads in Headline and The Night Invader.
He was a heroic commander of an air-sea rescue unit in For Those in Peril, an accountant in The Hundred Pound Window, a pilot in The World Owes Me a Living. Farrar starred as Sexton Blake in two films, Meet Sexton Blake and The Echo Murders, was an intelligence officer in Lisbon Story; these low-budget thrillers were enormously popular in their day. By 1945 he was receiving 800 fan letters a week. Farrar was transformed into a star when he was cast as the British agent Mr. Dean in Black Narcissus who arouses the passions of the nuns played by Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron. Made by the team of Powell and Pressburger, the movie was popular and has since come to be regarded as one of the finest films in British cinema. Farrar followed it up by playing the officer who brings home a German wife in Frieda, directed by Basil Dearden. Farrar played a charismatic school teacher in Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill and was reunited with Powell and Pressburger for The Small Back Room in which he played an alcoholic bomb disposal expert.
According to his obituary, "Farrar was given a true star's entrance in the film, the camera tracking along a bar of customers until coming to rest upon the actor's back. His character's name is called and he turns to face the camera in full close-up."Gainsborough Pictures next gave him the lead of a "British Western" shot in South Africa, Diamond City, playing Stafford Parker but the film was a flop. He reunited with Dearden for Cage of Gold and Powell and Pressburger for Gone to Earth, another box office disappointment. Farrar would cite his three films for Powell and Pressburger, Cage of Gold, as the artistic highlights of his career; however Farrar's stardom soon lost momentum with the low-key films The Late Edwina Black, Night Without Stars. He was offered a heroic part in The Golden Horde, at Universal with Ann Blyth, the film was a minor hit, he was in I Vinti in Italy played villains in Hollywood films such as Duel in the Jungle, The Black Shield of Falworth. He supported Anna Neagle in Lilacs in the Spring and was a supporting actor in Escape to Burma, The Sea Chase, Pearl of the South Pacific.
Farrar returned to the UK for the lead in Lost, was back to supporting parts in I Accuse!, The Son of Robin Hood, John Paul Jones, Solomon and Sheba. He returned to Britain for Beat Girl, The Webster Boy, but following his role as Xerxes in The 300 Spartans he retired from the screen. Farrar admitted, "I'd always been the upstanding young man and I was afraid of the parts that were being hinted at for uncles or for the girl's father instead of her lover! I just felt'the hell with it all' and walked out into the sunset." After the death of his wife Irene in 1976, he moved to South Africa to be with their daughter, Barbara. He died on 31 August 1995 in South Africa, ten days after his 87th birthday. David Farrar at Find a Grave David Farrar on IMDb David Farrar biography and credits at the BFI's Screenonline
Loving Couples (1964 film)
Loving Couples is a 1964 Swedish drama film directed by Mai Zetterling. It was entered into the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. Harriet Andersson as Agda Frideborg Gunnel Lindblom as Adele Holmström - née Silfverstjerna Gio Petré as Angela von Pahlen Anita Björk as Petra von Pahlen Gunnar Björnstrand as Dr. Jacob Lewin Eva Dahlbeck as Mrs. Landborg Jan Malmsjö as Stellan von Pahlen Lissi Alandh as Bell Bengt Brunskog as Tord Holmström Anja Boman as Stanny, Bernhard's sister Åke Grönberg as The fat man Margit Carlqvist as Dora Macson Heinz Hopf as Lt. Bernhard Landborg Märta Dorff as Alexandra Vind-Frija Jan-Eric Lindquist as Peter von Pahlen Loving Couples on IMDb Loving Couples at the Swedish Film Institute Database
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film and television actor and producer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Early in his career, Widmark was typecast in similar villainous or anti-hero roles in films noir, but he branched out into more heroic leading and supporting roles in Westerns, mainstream dramas, horror films among others. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Widmark was born December 26, 1914, in Sunrise Township, the son of Ethel Mae and Carl Henry Widmark, his father was of Swedish descent, his mother was of English and Scottish ancestry. Widmark grew up in Princeton and lived in Henry, for a short time, moving because of his father's work as a traveling salesman.
He attended Lake Forest College, where he studied acting and taught acting after he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in speech in 1936. Widmark made his debut as a radio actor in 1938 on Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories. In 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the title role of the daytime serial Front Page Farrell, introduced each afternoon as "the exciting, unforgettable radio drama... the story of a crack newspaperman and his wife, the story of David and Sally Farrell." Farrell was a top reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle. When the series moved to NBC, Widmark turned the role over to Carleton G. Young and Staats Cotsworth. During the 1940s, Widmark was heard on such network radio programs as Gang Busters, The Shadow, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Joyce Jordan, M. D. Molle Mystery Theater and Ethel and Albert. In 1952, he portrayed Cincinnatus Shryock in an episode of Cavalcade of America titled "Adventure on the Kentucky", he returned to radio drama decades performing on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, was one of the five hosts on Sears Radio Theater from 1979–81.
Widmark appeared on Broadway in 1943 in F. Hugh Herbert's Kiss and Tell and in William Saroyan's "Get Away Old Man," directed by George Abbott, which ran for 13 performances, he was unable to join the military during World War II because of a perforated eardrum. He was in Chicago appearing in a stage production of Dream Girl with June Havoc when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year contract. Widmark's first movie appearance was in Kiss of Death, as the giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo. In his most notorious scene, Udo pushed a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs to her death. Widmark was not cast, he said, "Henry Hathaway, didn't want me. I have a high forehead. Hathaway was overruled by studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave me kind of a bad time," recalled Widmark. Kiss of Death was a commercial and critical success: Widmark won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
Widmark followed Kiss of Death with other villainous performances in The Street with No Name, Road House, the Western Yellow Sky, the latter film with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter. Another standout villainous role was in the racial melodrama No Way Out, alongside Sidney Poitier in his film debut. Widmark and Poitier would become good friends and work in a number of films together in years. Widmark played heroic roles in films including Down to the Sea in Ships, Slattery's Hurricane, Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets, he featured in Halls of Montezuma and Don't Bother to Knock, would go on to appear in two films for director Samuel Fuller. Widmark continued to appear in a number of successful films including The Tunnel of Love with Doris Day, the Westerns Warlock with Henry Fonda, John Wayne's The Alamo, the courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg, reuniting with Sidney Poitier in the adventure The Long Ships. Widmark produced and starred in the films Time Limit, The Secret Ways — based on a novel by Alistair MacLean, which Widmark directed due to clashes with original director Phil Karlson's proposed tongue-in-cheek direction of the screenplay — and The Bedford Incident, his third film with Sidney Poitier and loosely based on the Herman Melville novel Moby Dick.
Widmark began to drift into supporting roles during the 1970s, though he still played the occasional lead. He was part of an all-star cast in the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express, The Swarm, he had a prominent supporting role in Michael Crichton's Coma, alongside Geneviève Bujold and Michael Douglas. Widmark continued to appear in a number of films during the 1980s, reuniting again with Sidney Poitier who directed him in the comedy Hanky Panky, alongside Gene Wilder, he featured in the political thriller Who Dares Wins, Against All Odds, with Jeff Bridges and James Woods. In all, Widmark appeared in over 60 films during his career, before making his final movie appearance in the 1991 drama True Colors. In an interview with Michael Shelden in 2002, Widmark complained that "movie-making has lost a lot of its magic." He thought it had become "mostly a mechan
Västerås
Västerås is a city in central Sweden, located on the shore of Lake Mälaren in the province Västmanland, some 100 kilometres west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 119,372 inhabitants in 2016, out of the municipal total of 150,000. Västerås is the seat of Västerås Municipality, the capital of Västmanland County and an episcopal see. Västerås is one of the oldest cities in Northern Europe; the name originates from Västra Aros. The area has been populated since the Nordic Viking Age, before 1000 AD. In the beginning of the 11th century it was the second largest city in Sweden, by the 12th century had become the seat of the bishop. Anundshög is located just outside the City of Västerås. Anundshög is Sweden's largest burial mound. "Hög" is derived from the Old Norse word haugr meaning barrow. It was built about 500 AD and is over 74 yards wide and is 10 yd high. In the ensuing centuries, a cathedral and a monastery were built; the first City Arms date from the end of the 13th century. A castle commands the town from an eminence.
Gustav called together the riksdag in Västerås. During the riksdag assembly, the decision was made to convert Sweden into a Protestant state and to remove the power of the Catholic Church. Rudbeckianska gymnasiet, the oldest gymnasium in Sweden, was built in Västerås by Johannes Rudbeckius in 1623. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the growing of cucumber became popular, Västerås received the nickname Gurkstaden, which it still retains today. Västerås is predominantly known as an industrial city, but a retailing and logistics city; the city wants to distinguish itself as Västerås – Mälarstaden, meaning "Västerås—the city by Lake Mälaren", in order to attract tourists and new inhabitants, as well as students to the local university college, Mälardalen University. To this effect, the city has started using a designed logo as branding in some official contexts replacing the coat of arms, as well as rebuilding several old harbor areas to make them more attractive to live in. Västerås has the largest lakeside commercial and recreational port in Scandinavia on Lake Mälaren.
The city has a skyscraper cordially nicknamed "Skrapan" which has Sweden's highest-located cocktail bar, called Sky Bar, on the 24th floor of the building. Västerås hosts an annual event where owners of high-powered American cars can meet. According to the Köppen climate classification, Västerås experiences a humid continental climate with cold winters and warm summers. Summers tend to be quite unpredictable with sunny spells but with a risk of sudden showers; the sunniest weather occurs when high-pressure systems are blocking the low-pressure systems that move in from the Atlantic Ocean. Daytime temperatures in July hover around 22 °C, but may sometimes exceed 25 °C and even 30 °C. Winters are cold with a snow cover that lasts for several months; some winters can be mild with longer spells without snow on the ground. The weather differs a lot whether the air masses are coming from the Atlantic Ocean or from the Eurasian continent. In the first case, temperatures over 5 °C might be expected. In the second case, the temperature may not rise above −15 °C in the middle of the day.
Lake Mälaren is frozen from December until the end of March. The highest official temperature reading of 36.0 °C was recorded on July 9, 1966. The lowest temperature of −36.5 °C was recorded on January 24, 1875. In 1891, the Turbine House, a small hydroelectric dam was built in central Västerås; this early electrification encouraged ASEA, a large electricity equipment manufacturer, to concentrate its operations in Västerås, shifting focus away from Arboga. After the 1988 merger with the power systems company Brown, Boveri & Cie, ASEA became ABB Group; as a result, Västerås is home to its ABB AB Swedish subsidiary headquarters. ABB in Västerås produces e.g. robots and drive systems for the industry, high-voltage direct current transmission and power grids. Since the Westinghouse takeover of ABB's nuclear business it is owned by Westinghouse Electric Company, it is situated in Finnslätten, an industrial area in the northern part of Västerås. Westinghouse Sweden produces nuclear fuel and offers nuclear services for Boiling Water Reactors and Pressurized water reactors.
As of 2014, Westinghouse Sweden had more than 1000 employees. The plant has provided fuel for Ukraine since 2005. On 11 April 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea, the contract with Energoatom for the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant was extended through 2020. Mälarenergi AB is a city-owned district heating and electric power provider for Västerås and surrounding area. Mälarenergi owns and operates a number of plants of which the biggest one is the heat and power plant in Västerås, it is Sweden’s largest combined heat and power plant, the latest unit uses waste as fuel. Other major industries include Bombardier Transportation, active in railway business with production of propulsion systems for trains with world wide customers, GE Power Sweden and Quintus Technologies AB. One of the historical reasons t
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, was an English actor, filmmaker and politician. He was the President of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Attenborough served in the film unit, he went on filmed action from the rear gunner's position. He was the older brother of Sir David Attenborough, a naturalist and broadcaster, John Attenborough, an executive at Alfa Romeo, he was married to actress Sheila Sim from 1945 until his death. As a film director and producer, Attenborough won two Academy Awards for Gandhi in 1983, receiving awards for Best Picture and Best Director; the BFI ranked Gandhi the 34th greatest British film of the 20th century. He won four BAFTA Awards and four Golden Globe Awards; as an actor, he is best known for his roles in Brighton Rock, The Great Escape, 10 Rillington Place, The Sand Pebbles, Miracle on 34th Street and Jurassic Park. Attenborough was born on 29 August 1923 in Cambridge, the eldest of three sons of Mary Attenborough, a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator, a fellow at Emmanuel College and wrote a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law.
Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and studied at RADA. In September 1939, the Attenboroughs took in two German Jewish refugee girls and Irene Bejach, who lived with them in College House and were adopted by the family after the war when it was discovered that their parents had been killed; the sisters moved to the United States in the 1950s and lived with an uncle, where they married and took American citizenship. During World War II, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force. After initial pilot training he was seconded to the newly formed Royal Air Force Film Production Unit at Pinewood Studios, under the command of Flight Lieutenant John Boulting where he appeared with Edward G. Robinson in the propaganda film Journey Together, he volunteered to fly with the Film Unit and after further training, where he sustained permanent ear damage, qualified as a sergeant, flying on several missions over Europe filming from the rear gunner's position to record the outcome of RAF Bomber Command sorties.
Attenborough's acting career started on stage and he appeared in shows at Leicester's Little Theatre, Dover Street, prior to his going to RADA, where he remained Patron until his death. Attenborough's first major credited role was provided in Brian Desmond Hurst's The Hundred Pound Window playing Tommy Draper who helps rescue his accountant father who has taken a wrong turn in life. Attenborough's film career had, began in 1942 in an uncredited role as a sailor deserting his post under fire in the Noël Coward/David Lean production In Which We Serve, a role that helped type-cast him for many years as a spiv, or coward, in films like London Belongs to Me, Morning Departure and his breakthrough role as Pinkie Brown in John Boulting's film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel Brighton Rock, a part that he had played to great acclaim at the Garrick Theatre in 1942. In 1949, exhibitors voted him the sixth most popular British actor at the box office. Early in his stage career, Attenborough starred in the West End production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, which went on to become the world's longest running stage production.
Both he and his wife were among the original cast members of the production, which opened in 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre and as of 2019 is still running at the St Martins Theatre. They took a 10 per cent profit-participation in the production, paid for out of their combined weekly salary At the beginning of the 1950s Attenborough featured on radio on the BBC Light Programme introducing records. Attenborough worked prolifically in British films for the next 30 years, including in the 1950s, appearing in several successful comedies for John and Roy Boulting, such as Private's Progress and I'm All Right Jack. In 1963, he appeared alongside Steve McQueen and James Garner in The Great Escape as RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett, the head of the escape committee, based on the real-life exploits of Roger Bushell, it was his first appearance in a major Hollywood film blockbuster and his most successful film thus far. During the 1960s, he expanded his range of character roles in films such as Séance on a Wet Afternoon and Guns at Batasi, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the Regimental Sergeant Major.
In 1965 he played Lew Moran opposite James Stewart in The Flight of the Phoenix and in 1967 and 1968, he won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards in the category of Best Supporting Actor, the first time for The Sand Pebbles, again co-starring Steve McQueen, the second time for Doctor Dolittle starring Rex Harrison. He won the 1967 Best Supporting Actor Award for The Sand Pebbles, his portrayal of the serial killer John Christie in 10 Rillington Place garnered excellent reviews. In 1977, he played the ruthless General Outram, again to great acclaim, in the Indian director Satyajit Ray's period piece The
