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Donald Sinden

Sir Donald Sinden
CBE, FRSA
Donald Sinden press photo.JPG
Pinewood Studios publicity shot, circa 1956
Born Donald Alfred Sinden
(1923-10-09)9 October 1923
St Budeaux, Plymouth, Devon, England
Died 12 September 2014(2014-09-12) (aged 90)
Wittersham, Isle of Oxney, Kent, England
Cause of death Prostate cancer
Occupation Actor
Years active 1942–2012
Spouse(s) Diana Mahony
(m. 1948–2004, her death)
Children Jeremy Sinden (1950–1996)
Marc Sinden (b. 1954)
Awards KB; CBE; FRSA; D.Litt; D.Arts;
Evening Standard Awards Best Actor;
Society of West End Theatre Awards Actor of the Year;
Drama Desk Special Award;
BAFTA (3 nominations);
Tony Award Best Actor (nomination);
Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts (posthumous)

Sir Donald Alfred Sinden, CBE FRSA (9 October 1923 – 12 September 2014) was an English actor in theatre, film, television and radio as well as an author.

Achieving early fame as a Rank Organisation film star in the 1950s, Sinden then became highly regarded as an award-winning Shakespearean and West End theatre actor and television sit-com star.

Sinden made his first stage appearance at the amateur Brighton Little Theatre (of which he later became President) in 1941, stepping into a part in place of his cousin Frank, who had been called up to war and so was unable to appear. Offered a professional acting part by the Brighton impresario Charles F. Smith, he made his first professional appearance in January 1942, playing Dudley in a production of George and Margaret for the Mobile Entertainments Southern Area company (known as MESA) and in other modern comedies, playing to the armed forces all along the South Coast of England during World War II and later trained as an actor for two terms at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

In 1942, in Hove, Sinden befriended Lord Alfred Douglas (known as "Bosie"), who had been Oscar Wilde's lover. On 23 March 1945, he was one of only two persons who attended his funeral. He is believed to have been the last living person to have known Douglas.

After the critical and financial success of his first screen leading role in The Cruel Sea (1953), made by Ealing Studios, in which he co-starred and received top-billing with Jack Hawkins, Sinden was contracted for seven years to the Rank Organisation at Pinewood Studios and subsequently starred in 23 movies during the 1950s and early 1960s, including Mogambo; Doctor in the House; Above Us the Waves; The Black Tent; Eyewitness; Doctor at Large; The Siege of Sidney Street and Twice Round the Daffodils.


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