Movie Stars Medals

[kaisersoffensive]

Basil Rathbone was a officer in the 10th Battalion the King's Liverpool Regiment  The Liverpool Scottish. I think?

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Somewhere in the back of this old fuddled mind of mine I thought he won the M.C. and had some connection with the RFC?

Help put me out of my misery.

Regards,

Bob

[Kate Wills]

Bob,

I don't know about a connection with the RFC, but Basil Rathbone served in the ranks of the London Scottish, and was commissioned into the Liverpool Scottish, winning his MC in September 1918.

Maybe his choice of regiments was connected with pre-war employment with the Liverpool, London and Globe Insurance Co.

I think he had a brother who was KIA.

[DMcNay]

Jon Pertwee was a member of the crew of the HMS Hood, but missed its final voyage as he had been sent away for training. I've read an interview where he mentions this, and his time on the Isle of Man where he got the island on full alert one evening when he spotted a submarine in the harbour. It turned out to be the island that has a castle on it.

I think I read somewhere that Stan Laurel tried to enlist in WWI but was turned away as he failed the medical. I may be mangling the truth with that one though. Might even have been Chaplin...

[Mark Hone]

AA Milne was in the 1st Royal Warwicks along with Bruce Bairnsfather and somewhat lower down the scale, Private John Hone, my great-uncle.

[DaveBrigg]

How about those stars tha you wished had served in a theatre of war? Why couldn't Bernard Manning have been in the first attack wave on D-Day? And surely Noel Edmonds was the right age for Malaya? Sometimes there's no justice.

[DMcNay]

Patrick Troughton – RN

Served on a Motor Torpedo Boat and apparently wore a tea-cosy on his head to keep warm (according to Jon Pertwee).

Joss Ackland did National Service. Not sure if he saw action, but he was interviewed on one of the series of Bad Lads Army, as were a number of folk.

[CROONAERT]

I see no one's mentioned one who wrote several books on his experiences, which was turned into a film - Spike Milligan!

Dave.

(Also Billy Connolly and a myriad of others)

[bernardmcilwaine]

jrr tolkiens brother served in the birmingham pals.

denis healey was a beach master at anzio and was MIDs

ludovic kennedy RNVR

roald dahl 80th fighter squadron

sir john mills,RE then monmouthshire regt,invalided out in 1942

peter ryan author of FEAR DRIVE MY FEET,won the MM and MIDs for intelligence work behind the jap lines

leslie howard,ashley in gone with the wind,shot down in a airliner enroute to portugal.

glen miller,according to david niven,was having lunch in a french cafe days after he went missing,niven said he actually sat and had lunch with him,there was some rumour that miller was being investigated by the US government,i think it was something to do with smuggling,his second in command in the band who was also on the plane was also a suspect ,i wouldnt doubt the word of a man like niven,but we will never know.bernard

[BeppoSapone]

glen miller,according to david niven,was having lunch in a french cafe days after he went missing,niven said he actually sat and had lunch with him,there was some rumour that miller was being investigated by the US government,i think it was something to do with smuggling,his second in command in the band who was also on the plane was also a suspect ,i wouldnt doubt the word of a man like niven,but we will never know.bernard

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There is a book about what happened to Glenn Miller, called "Millergate".

I can't quite remember the name of the author, but it is either Orville Wright or Wilber Wright. In either case I doubt that it is the authors true name!

[BeppoSapone]

There is a book about what happened to Glenn Miller, called "Millergate".

I can't quite remember the name of the author, but it is either Orville Wright or Wilbur Wright. In either case I doubt that it is the authors true name! 

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It's Wilbur!

See here: http://glennmiller.us/MillerOhio.html

Conspiracy theorist? moi?

[CROONAERT]

A couple more who spring to mind - Robert Maxwell (MC?) and Benny Hill(?)

Dave.

[Guest C729LEE]

Chaps

Wasn't Clark Gable an Air Gunner - cum - Gunnery instructor at Goxhill, Lincs.

My old man, an ex - 100 sqn. WOP/AG from Brigg, Lincs said that the man himself had been having a bevvy in the old Black Bull and Butchers Arms in Brigg with a few of his mates, when they had a bit of a kick off with some Canadian or KOYLI soldiers who were based in Brigg at that time.

Of course it was hushed up.

LinL

[Martin Felstead]

Ronald Coleman was mentioned early on, but no-one mentioned he was in the 14th Londons (London Scottish) at Messines.

The Pte Godfrey thing - he was about to be drummed out because he didn't want to carry a rifle, was injured (I forget how, but it was doing something brave).  When the platoon visited (he was being attended by Dolly and Cissy - his sisters), there was a pictire over the bed of him in uniform with MM ribbon.  he had been a 'conchie', but acted as a stretcher-bearer.  The platoon then decided he could be their medic, so he spent the rest of the war carrying the platoon's first-aid box.

I really must get out more.

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Steve - how are you? Going to Loos on Friday?

[Essexboy68]

Hello

I know that I am mentioning a post that was made quite a while ago on this thread, but cannot see that anyone else has followed it up. Those of you who have sharp eyes & good memories, may recall that I have made mention odf this before, but decided not to name the actor concerned......

James Mason is said to have been a conscientous objector during WW2 & as a result David Niven refused to work with him, so it it said. I cannot confirm Niven's refusal to work with the man, but do recall, whilst watching a "tribute" , it was said that James Mason took a conscious decision not to register as a CO, realising that it would damage his career. What he did do was attend various tribunals each time he received his call-up papers requesting suspensions, citing work, family & his age (I believe he was in his 30s) as reasons.

We must also remember that whilst Mason (it seems) refused to don uniform & serve, he was quite happy to act in films about the war, although whether he did whilst the conflict was ongoing I do not know. I cannot help thinking that Mason possibly thought that by staying home & alive, he would be able to further his career, with less competition.

Many people, famous or otherwise did not serve in the armed forces, but did nevertheless do things to help, such as ARP, recsue teams, Friends Ambulance Unit etc.

If I have made any errors in my post, I apologise & can only cite time & poor memory as the reason.

Cheers

Mark

[Moonraker]

Niven like Ustinov and Trevor Howard were both spies  for the UK.

I also believe that the band leader Glenn Miller was a spy for the USA, hence the secrecy to his missing in a flight over the Channel.

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Um. I wonder how far this string is recycling misremembered info, as I may now proceed to do.

The conspiracy theorists have got to work on Glenn Miller's last days but I can't see that he would have much opportunity as a band leader to be a spy.(Perhaps he merely reported back on morale among the troops he visited?) As for Trevor Howard...

There were newspaper stories two or three years back about the PRO releasing a file on a police investigation into Howards's wrongly claiming to have won a WWII medal, with strong hints that he had been discharged because of pychological unsuitability. It appears that a film company publicist puffed up Howard's war record for a newspaper article and that Howard himself was embarrassed by this. (Of course, in the best Hollywood tradition this could have been a cunning plan: discredit an officer so he can disappear on a secret mission!) I wonder when Howard's war record will find its way into the public domain?

I believe John Mills and Stewart Granger also had medical discharges for genuuine physical complaints, as did Alan Ladd. Robert Mitchum was a medical orderly who claimed to have spent the war intimately examing recruits' nether regions. Gregory Peck didn't serve because of a injury incurred when dancing. Ward Bond suffered from epilepsy so couldn't serve.

Which just goes to show that tough-looking guys don't always make heroes, John Wayne and Errol Flynn being the prime examples. I believe that Flynn did have genuine medical problems that precluded his serving and that Wayne, whilst technically exempt because of age and children, could have volunteered. John Ford, whose own war service producing films was distinguished, was disgusted with Wayne. In Ford's 1945 film They were Expendable, about torpedo boats in the Pacific after Pearl Harbour, co-star Robert Montgomery was billed with his naval rank, whereas Wayne appeared as just "John Wayne". Apparently Ford put him through it during the film, making him stand unnecessarily in cold water.

I think that Sterling Hayden was a member of the OSS or a similar shadowy organisation and have a vague recollection that another Hollywood actor was disgusted when Hayden refused to sail a boat into a bay to pick him up from enemy territory.

There's a telling scene in one film it, (possiblyThe Great Waldo Pepper) about WWI aviators struggling to make a living in peacetime, including flying planes for a war film. A former German ace is on set and is a weedy, balding guy, but he's being played by a macho hunk straight off a recuiting poster.

I think most of the above is accurate, but the trouble with film stars, especially Americans, is that their failings were covered up by the studio system and their biographies as issued by the studios often at least half fictitious, so one can't rely on contemporary accounts. David Niven's autobiographies are now regarded as being embroidered, but

When I see a Western or war film made between 1939 and 1945 I do wonder why all those fit looking young men weren't in the services. (I believe Mormons took the role of US Cavalry in some Westerns because they were exempt from service on grounds of conscience.)

To change the period,I believe that Ronnie Corbett was a squadron leader during his National Service.

[mcderms]

Niven a spy? When did he find the time, inbetween film making and sh**gging anything in a skirt he was in the Phantom recon sqdn... Also what was he spying on and for whom? Did the govt really need to know that much about thespians ability to drink scotch and chase tail?!!?!?

Similarly, Glenn Miller?! Was was he doing - looking for fifth columnists in the Brass Section?

;-)

[Moonraker]

Niven like Ustinov and Trevor Howard were both spies  for the UK.

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Looking again at British Sapper's suggestion that Niven was a spy, I think this idea might have arisen from his having served in a Pathfinder unit that recced in uniform behind enemy lines after the invasion. Unless he had his make-up artist with him from Hollywood he would have been too recognisable to have been a spy.

I also read in a Clark Gable biography that the Amercian top brass were worried that he might be shot down and exploited as a "trophy prisoner" so his aircraft received extra protection on its raids. This doesn't seem to have been the case with James Stewart, whose biography by Donald Dewey I've read recently, though at first the US Air Force was reluctant to post him outside the USA.

Dewey's book also has a good quote from Sterling Hayden, who told his studio when he enlisted: "I don't want to go on imitating men, and that's all there is to it."

[At Home Dad]

Here's more for you

I never knew why Stanley Baker wanted to play the

role of First Lieutenant in The Cruel Sea so very much..

Quote from IMDB: "Stanley Baker fought for the part of

Bennett, and actually replaced another actor who had

originally been cast."

There was a real rivalry between Baker and Connery,

and one I think that Baker knew he would always lose,

to the younger, sexier man.

Here's the point: Bennett is a skiver and will do anything

to avoid work. When the ship is ready to finally go to war

in the Atlantic, he is overtaken by an illness of such severity

that it will guarentee him a cushty shore job for the duration....

A duodenal ulcer!

and Sean Connery joined the Royal Navy in 1946/7, but only served a year or so before being discharged after having been diagnosed with a duodenal ulcer.

Richard

"Thy Name is Trivia"

[At Home Dad]

I think there are what look to be clips here:

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/730052/

Pte Peter Ustinov is a classic example. He did his work in uniform (for most part of his time in the war) butdid it what he did best - acting, screen writing and directing. As a result some of the best of British wartime films were made - "The Way Ahead" and "One of our aircraft is missing".

Similar efforts from Niven, Coward (never in the services), Ambler, etc.

Found this little gem - wonder what it was really like - just look at the names.....

The New Lot (1943)

Directed by

Carol Reed

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)

Eric Ambler

Peter Ustinov

Cast (in alphabetical order)

Bernard Lee .... Interviewing officer

Stewart Rome .... Officer

Robert Donat .... Actor (uncredited)

Raymond Huntley .... Barrington (uncredited)

Geoffrey Keen .... Corporal (uncredited)

John Laurie .... Harry Fyfe (uncredited)

Bernard Miles .... Ted Loman (uncredited)

John Slater .... Soldier in truck (uncredited)

Peter Ustinov .... Keith (uncredited)

And I wonder about the service of Keen, Miles and Donat......

Edward

[Qumok]

Frederick Treves got a British Empire Medal while serving in the Merchant Navy relating to his adventures during Operation Pedestal (WWII)

Interesting account here.

[woolly]

Victor MacLaglen become the Provost Marshal, Bagdhad about 1920. This was before officers were directly commissioned into the Royal Military Police, but were merely 'attached' and retained their own capbadge.

Leslie Grantham served with the Royal Fusiliers in Germany around 1960. However, his tour ended with a starring role in a Courts Martial for the murder of a German taxi driver in Osnabruck and he was sent down. As an aside the skull of the taxi driver used to be in the 'Black Museum' of the Royal Military Police at the Depot in Chichester!

Kind regards

Woolly

[izzy]

michael caine served in the korean war as i beleive so did clint eastwood anybody else heard of this ?

[At Home Dad]

Does anyone have any information regarding German soldiers of WW1

who went on to become film stars in Hollywood or Europe afterwards?

Kind regards

[Nigel Marshall]

No one has mentioned Wilfred Brambles - The 'dirty old man' of Steptoe and son.

Nor Wilfred Hyde White who was, among other characters, Colonel Pickering, sidekick of Prof. Henry Higgins in 'My Fair Lady'.

Playwright William Barrow served and was a flight cadet at wars end with the RAF.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Andrew Upton]

No one has mentioned Wilfred Brambles - The 'dirty old man' of Steptoe and son.

Because despite the fact he played a veteran of the Great War in Steptoe and Son, he wasn't actually born until 1912, making him only 6 years old at the end of the war:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Brambell