Catapulted to Fame

Robbie McGuire remembers Jack Hawkins, one of Britain's greatest postwar film stars

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Not many of the great postwar British film stars found box office fame in their early 40s, yet the gravel-voiced and charming Jack Hawkins did just that. His career is perhaps best remembered for his turns in The Cruel Sea (1953), The League of Gentlemen (1960) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

Jack Edward Hawkins was born in Wood Green, Middlesex in 1910. He was the youngest of three siblings and referred to himself as “the afterthought” in his family. Aged 10, Jack appeared in front of his first audience, being part of the St Michael's parish church choir. Around this time, he was introduced to a family friend who was under the guidance of revered theatre practitioner Italia Conti. This chance meeting would lead to him being taught at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.

Jack recalled the feeling he received from his time there in his 1973 autobiography, Anything for a Quiet Life: “That’s how it started, I adored it from the first moment. The excitement, the thrill, the smell of the theatre right down to one’s toes. Indeed, it had to if one were to stay the course.” He made his London stage debut aged just 11 on Boxing Day 1923, at the Holborn Empire alongside a 12-year-old Noël Coward in a production of Where the Rainbow Ends by John Ramsey.