Jack Hawkins

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John Edward "Jack" Hawkins (September 14, 1910 - July 18, 1973) was a British film actor of the 1950s and 1960s.

Hawkins made his London stage debut aged 12, and was appearing on Broadway in Journey's End by the age of 18. Although he appeared in several films during the 1930s, it was only after service in The Second World War that he began to build a successful career in the cinema, often playing stern but sympathetic authority figures in films like Angels One Five (1952), The Long Arm (1956) and The Cruel Sea (1953), the film that made him a star. Ironically Hawkins was politically liberal and an emotional man, in sharp contrast to his conservative screen image.

From the late 1950s he mostly appeared in character roles, often in epic films like The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (playing General Edmund Allenby) and Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). For Kwai, he had to convince his good friend, Alec Guinness, to take the lead role, which would ultimately win Guinness an Oscar.

Some of his more unusual roles included an Egyptian Pharaoh in Land of the Pharaohs (1955), Ben Hur's adoptive Roman father Quintus Arrius in Ben-Hur (1959), and Zulu (1964), where he played against type as the fanatical Rev. Otto Witt.

He was married to Jessica Tandy from 1932 to 1942 and later to Doreen Lawrence from 1946 until his death in 1973. In 1966, Hawkins was diagnosed with throat cancer and his entire larynx was removed; thereafter his performances were dubbed, often (and to Hawkins's approval) by actor Charles Gray. In private, he used a mechanical larynx to aid his speech. Hawkins died in 1973 following an operation to insert an artificial voicebox. He was 62.

Selected filmography

• Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
• Theatre of Blood (1973)
• Young Winston (1972)
• Kidnapped (1971)
• Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)
• Jane Eyre (1970)
• Waterloo (1970)
• Monte Carlo or Bust (1969)
• Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
• Lord Jim (1965)
• Guns at Batasi (1964)
• Zulu (1964)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• The League of Gentlemen (1959)
• Gideon's Day (1958)
• The Two-Headed Spy (1958)
• The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
• The Man in the Sky (1957)
• The Long Arm (1956)
• The Prisoner (1955)
• Land of the Pharaohs (1955)
• Front Page Story (1954)
• The Intruder (1954)
• Angels One Five (1953)
• The Cruel Sea (1953)
• Malta Story (1953)
• Mandy (1952)
• No Highway (1951)
• The Black Rose (1950)
• State Secret (1950)
• The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)
• The Small Back Room (1949)
• Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948)
• The Fallen Idol (1948)
• Next of Kin (1942)
• Peg of Old Drury (1935)
• The Good Companions (1933)
• The Lodger (1932)

References