Jack Hawkins
John Edward Hawkins, CBE was an English actor, who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s. He was known for his portrayal of military men, said to "endow the countless figures of authority he played with a formidable screen presence." One of the most popular British film stars of the 1950s, he was nominated for four BAFTA Awards for Best British Actor.
Biography
Hawkins was born at 45 Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, in Middlesex , the son of a builder. He was educated at Wood Green's Trinity County Grammar School, where, aged eight, he joined the school choir.By the age of ten Hawkins had joined the local operatic society, and made his stage debut in Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan. His parents enrolled him in the Italia Conti Academy, and whilst he was studying there he made his London stage debut, when aged thirteen, playing the Elf King in Where the Rainbow Ends at the Holborn Empire on Boxing Day, December 1923, a production that also included the young Noël Coward. The following year, aged 14, he played the page in a production of Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw. Five years later he was in a production of Beau Geste alongside Laurence Olivier.
He appeared on Broadway in Journey's End at the age of 18.
1930s
In the 1930s Hawkins's focus was on the stage. He worked in the companies of Sybil Thorndike, John Gielgud and Basil Dean. His performances included Port Said by Emlyn Williams, Below the Surface by HL Stoker and LS Hunt, Red Triangle by Val Gielgud, Service by CI Anthony, for director Basil Dean, One of Us by Frank Howard, As You Like It by William Shakespeare, and Iron Flowers by Cecil Lewis.He started appearing in films, including Birds of Prey, The Lodger , The Good Companions, The Lost Chord, I Lived with You, The Jewel, A Shot in the Dark, and Autumn Crocus.
In 1932 he was in a radio production of Hamlet with John Gielgud and Robert Donat and the following year he was in Danger. He was also in Death at Broadcasting House, Lorna Doone, and Peg of Old Drury.
Stage roles included While Parents Sleep by Anthony Kimmins, Iron Mistress by Arthur Macrae; then an open air Shakespeare festival – As You Like It , Twelfth Night, and The Comedy of Errors. Some of these productions were broadcast on radio. The Maitlands by Ronald Mackenzie was for John Gielgud's company. He was Horatio to Gielgud's Hamlet. He also appeared in Accidentally Yours by Clifford Grey, The World Waits by Clifford Hummel, Coincidence by Bryce Robertson and The Frog.
Films in the late 1930s included Beauty and the Barge, The Frog,, Who Goes Next?, A Royal Divorce, Murder Will Out, and The Flying Squad.
Theatre appearances included A Winter's Tale, Autumn by Margaret Kennedy and Gregory Ratoff, The King's Breakfast by Rita Welman and Maurice Marks, No More Music by Rosamund Lehman, Can We Tell? by Robert Gore Brown, Traitors Gate by Norma Stuart, and Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith.
Second World War
Having attended an Officer Cadet Training Unit, he was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers, British Army, as a second lieutenant on 8 March 1941. On 22 January 1944, he transferred to the Expeditionary Force Institutes in the rank of lieutenant. He served with ENSA in India and Southeast Asia. He relinquished his commission as a lieutenant 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.
Post-war career
Hawkins left the army in July 1946. Two weeks later he appeared on stage in The Apple Cart at £10 per week. The following year he starred in Othello, to a mixed reception.Hawkins's wife became pregnant and he became concerned about his future. He decided to accept a contract with Sir Alexander Korda for three years at £50 per week. Hawkins had been recommended to Korda by the latter's production executive, Bill Bryden, who was married to Elizabeth Allen, who had worked with Hawkins.
The association began badly when Hawkins was cast in Korda's notorious flop Bonnie Prince Charlie, as Lord George Murray. However, he followed it with a good role in the successful, highly acclaimed The Fallen Idol, for Carol Reed. He appeared in The Small Back Room, for Powell and Pressburger; he starred as the villain alongside Douglas Fairbanks Jr in the Sidney Gilliat directed State Secret.
He was recruited by 20th Century Fox to support Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, by playing the Prince of Wales in the expensive epic The Black Rose. He made another with Powell and Pressburger for Korda, The Elusive Pimpernel.
Hawkins played the lead in The Adventurers, shot in South Africa, then had a good role in another Hollywood-financed film shot in Britain, No Highway in the Sky, with James Stewart. It was followed by a British thriller with Ralph Richardson, Home at Seven.
In the spring of 1951 he went to Broadway and played Mercutio in a production of Romeo and Juliet with Olivia de Havilland.
Stardom
Hawkins became a star with the release of three successful films in which he played stern but sympathetic authority figures: Angels One Five, as an RAF officer during the war; The Planter's Wife, as a rubber planter combating communists in the Malayan Emergency ; and Mandy, as the headmaster of a school for the deaf. All films ranked among the top ten most popular films at the British box office in 1952 and British exhibitors voted him the fourth most popular British star at the local box office.Hawkins starred in The Cruel Sea, playing a driven naval officer in World War II. Sir Michael Balcon said: "Even before the script was written, we knew it had to be Jack Hawkins. If he hadn't been free to play the part, then there wouldn't have been a film." The Cruel Sea was the most successful film of the year and saw Hawkins voted the most popular star in Britain regardless of nationality.
According to his Guardian obituary, he "exemplified for many cinemagoers the stiff upper lip tradition prevalent in post-war British films. His craggy looks and authoritative bearing were used to good effect whatever branch of the services he represented."
Malta Story was another military story, with Hawkins as an RAF officer in the Siege of Malta during the war. It too was a hit, the ninth most popular film in Britain in 1953.
He had a guest role in Twice Upon a Time for Emeric Pressburger. He followed this with two mildly popular dramas – The Intruder and Front Page Story.
The Seekers was partly shot in New Zealand and cast Hawkins in a rare romantic role. "My film wives to date usually stay home and knit, or else have conveniently died before the film starts," he said. It was followed by The Prisoner, an unconventional drama, playing the shrewd interrogator in an authoritarian country who gets a respected priest to discredit himself. None of these films was commercially successful but Hawkins was still voted the fifth biggest star at the British box office for 1954, and the most popular British one. "It's an enviable position, I know", said Hawkins. "But I have to be more careful now about the parts I choose, and it's hard not to offend people. Everyone thinks his own script is the best."
He turned down the role of Colonel Carne in The Glorious Gloucesters for Warwick Films, and Captain Cook for a project for the Rank organisation.
"I'm tired of playing decent fellows", he said in a 1954 interview, "with stiff upper lip and even stiffer morals. I'm going to kill them off before they kill me as an actor. And I want stories written for me, not rejects intended for other fellows... I just inherit them from other people. Often, I find they've left the name of the actor originally suggested for the role. Always the same old names... Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck... five or six others. Before the script reaches them, somebody remembers me – especially if it's one of those infernally nice characters."
International star
Hawkins got his wish when he received a Hollywood offer to play a pharaoh for Howard Hawks in Land of the Pharaohs.He returned home to make an Ealing comedy, Touch and Go, which was not particularly popular. He was more comfortably cast as a police officer in The Long Arm, and a test pilot in The Man in the Sky. He was an insurance investigator in Sidney Gilliat's Fortune Is a Woman.
Hawkins's career received a major boost when supporting William Holden and Alec Guinness in the highly acclaimed The Bridge on the River Kwai.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1958.
Hawkins played the lead role in a film for John Ford, playing a police officer in Gideon's Day . He had a good role as a double agent in a war film, The Two-Headed Spy, then was given another third lead in a Hollywood blockbuster Ben-Hur, playing the Roman admiral who befriends Charlton Heston. It was even more successful than Bridge on the River Kwai.
He appeared as one of The Four Just Men in the Sapphire Films TV series for ITV. He also played the lead in an American TV version of The Fallen Idol.
He appeared in a heist film considered ground-breaking at the time for its references to sex, and popular at the British box office, also providing Hawkins with his final lead role in The League of Gentlemen.
However, though initially sought for the role of a gay barrister in Victim, he turned it down fearing that it might conflict with his masculine image. The role was eventually played by Dirk Bogarde.