Jack Hawkins

Jack Hawkins, born John Edward Hawkins on 14 September 1910 in Wood Green, Middlesex, was an English actor whose career spanned stage, film, and radio from the 1920s through the 1970s. The son of a builder, he was educated at Trinity County Grammar School in Wood Green, where he joined the school choir at age eight. By ten he had become a member of the local operatic society, making his stage debut in Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience. His parents subsequently enrolled him at the Italia Conti Academy, and at thirteen he made his London stage debut playing the Elf King in Where the Rainbow Ends at the Holborn Empire on Boxing Day 1923, a production that also featured the young Noël Coward. The following year he played the page in a production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan, and five years after that appeared in Beau Geste alongside Laurence Olivier.

Hawkins made his Broadway debut at eighteen in Journey's End, one of three Broadway productions in which he would appear between 1929 and 1951. During the 1930s his primary focus remained the stage, and he worked within the companies of Sybil Thorndike, John Gielgud, and Basil Dean. His stage credits from that decade included Port Said by Emlyn Williams in 1931, Below the Surface in 1932, Red Triangle in 1932, Service directed by Basil Dean in 1933, As You Like It in both 1933 and 1934, and Iron Flowers in 1933, the last of which featured Jessica Tandy. He served as Horatio to Gielgud's Hamlet in 1934, and appeared in The Maitlands that same year for Gielgud's company. Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith, which ran from 1938 to 1939, was among his later stage credits from the period.

Alongside his theatre work, Hawkins began appearing in films during the 1930s, with credits including Birds of Prey in 1930, The Lodger in 1932 starring Ivor Novello, The Good Companions in 1933, and Autumn Crocus in 1934. He also participated in radio productions, including a 1932 broadcast of Hamlet with John Gielgud and Robert Donat.

During the Second World War, Hawkins was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers as a second lieutenant on 8 March 1941. He transferred to the Expeditionary Force Institutes as a lieutenant on 22 January 1944 and served with ENSA in India and Southeast Asia. He relinquished his commission on 11 October 1946 and was granted the honorary rank of colonel. During his military service he was employed by Ealing Studios to make The Next of Kin in 1942.

After leaving the army in July 1946, Hawkins returned to the stage within two weeks, appearing in The Apple Cart at £10 per week. He subsequently signed a three-year contract with Sir Alexander Korda at £50 per week. His work under that arrangement began inauspiciously with the widely criticized Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1948, in which he played Lord George Murray, but he recovered with a well-regarded role in Carol Reed's acclaimed The Fallen Idol that same year. Further film work followed, including The Small Back Room in 1949 for Powell and Pressburger, State Secret in 1950 directed by Sidney Gilliat alongside Douglas Fairbanks Jr., The Black Rose in 1950 in which he played the Prince of Wales opposite Tyrone Power and Orson Welles for 20th Century Fox, and The Elusive Pimpernel in 1950, also for Powell and Pressburger.

In the spring of 1951 Hawkins returned to Broadway, playing Mercutio opposite Olivia de Havilland in a production of Romeo and Juliet, his third and final Broadway credit. That same year he starred in The Adventurers, shot in South Africa, and appeared in No Highway in the Sky alongside James Stewart.

Hawkins rose to prominent stardom in 1952 through three films in which he portrayed stern but sympathetic authority figures: Angels One Five, in which he played an RAF officer during the war; The Planter's Wife, in which he appeared opposite Claudette Colbert as a rubber planter during the Malayan Emergency; and Mandy, in which he played the headmaster of a school for the deaf. All three ranked among the ten most popular films at the British box office that year, and British exhibitors voted him the fourth most popular British star domestically. His standing rose further with The Cruel Sea in 1953, in which he played a driven naval officer during the Second World War. The film was the most successful British release of that year, and Hawkins was voted the most popular film star in Britain regardless of nationality. Malta Story, also released in 1953, in which he again portrayed an RAF officer, became the ninth most popular film in Britain that year.

Hawkins was nominated for four BAFTA Awards for Best British Actor over the course of his career and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He died on 18 July 1973.