Leslie Banks

Leslie James Banks CBE (9 June 1890 – 21 April 1952) was an English actor, director, and producer who worked extensively on both stage and screen. Born in West Derby, Liverpool, Lancashire, to George and Emily (née Dalby) Banks, he was educated at Glenalmond College in Scotland before reading at Keble College, Oxford, where he initially intended to enter the clergy before abandoning that path for the theatre.

Banks began his acting career with Frank Benson's company, making his debut in October 1911 at the town hall in Brechin, where he played Old Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice. He subsequently toured the United States and Canada in 1912 and 1913 alongside Henry V. Esmond and Eva Moore. His West End debut followed on 5 May 1914, when he appeared as Lord Murdon in The Dangerous Age at the Vaudeville Theatre. That same year he made his American stage debut in Eliza Comes to Stay.

Service with the Essex Regiment during the First World War left Banks with partial facial scarring and paralysis. He turned this physical asymmetry into a deliberate performance technique, presenting the unmarked side of his face in comedic and romantic roles while using the scarred side for dramatic and tragic material. After the war he joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre before returning to London in 1921, where he established himself as a leading dramatic actor on the West End.

His Broadway career spanned 1914 to 1949 and encompassed a range of productions. He made his New York stage debut in 1924 playing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. He later starred in Wine of Choice and appeared in The Man in Possession. His final Broadway credits included the Kurt Weill musical Lost in the Stars, in which he played James Jarvis. His other stage work included the title role in Clive of India in 1934, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew in 1937, the schoolmaster in Goodbye, Mr Chips in 1938, and Peter Pan.

Banks transitioned to film after producer Kenneth Macgowan, encountering him in New York, persuaded him to travel to Hollywood. His first credited screen role came in The Most Dangerous Game in 1932, in which he played a Russian aristocrat who hunts human prey; the film also featured Joel McCrea and Fay Wray. He subsequently divided his professional life between Britain and the United States, working in both film and theatre. His screen credits included Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934, Erich Pommer's Fire Over England in 1937, Jamaica Inn in 1939 for Hitchcock and Pommer, and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery in 1939, in which he played the eccentric Inspector Anthony Slade. He appeared as the Chorus in Laurence Olivier's wartime production of Henry V in 1944, and in David Lean's Madeleine in 1950.

Banks married Gwendoline Haldane Unwin in 1915, and the couple had three daughters: Daphne, Virginia, and Evangeline. In 1950, the year of his final stage and screen appearances, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to theatre. He died on 21 April 1952 at the age of 61 following a stroke suffered while walking, and is buried in St Nicholas Churchyard in Worth Matravers, Dorset.