Actor - Donald Sinden in The Relapse, Aldwych Theatre, London 1967 - postcard

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Donald Sinden as Lord Foppington in 'The Relapse', Aldwych Theatre, 1967
• Publisher:  Royal Shakespear Theatre series No. 75 / photo by Douglas Jeffrey
• Postally used:  no
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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE FRSA (9 October 1923 – 11 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, he then became highly regarded as a 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^[1] and later trained as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.^[1]

In the 1940s, 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 people who attended his funeral.^[2] He is believed to have been the last living person to have known 'Bosie' Douglas.^[3][4]

After the huge success of his first film The Cruel Sea, made by Sir Michael Balcon for Ealing Studios in 1953, in which he co-starred and received top-billing with Jack Hawkins, Sinden was contracted for 7 years to the Rank Organisation at Pinewood Studios and subsequently starred in 23 movies, many of them outstanding British films of 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.

He became popularly associated with his character of ""Benskin"" in the Doctor film series, as the duffel-coated medical student, regularly failing his finals and spending most of his time chasing pretty nurses, accompanied by his trade-mark 'wolf-growl'.^[5]

He was the recipient of several 'audience-based' awards during this period, including ""The actor who made most progress during 1954"".^[6] In 1956, a profile was written on him which stated:

In the three years since his début in The Cruel Sea, the un-temperamental Sinden has moved steadily up the British film ladder until people are noticing, not without surprise, that he is suddenly one of the country's prime box-office favourites. It's as though he arrived on tiptoe. He is not colourful or flamboyant, yet he has his niche in public favour, as a recent poll proved: British women-folk voted him ""The face we'd most like to see across our breakfast table."" This defines with a certain accuracy the sure, dependable appeal of the man who, so far, has shared star billing with some other more boisterous male idols. He has usually been left, crestfallen and jilted, in the last reel.^[7]

In 1949, he appeared in The Heiress at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket opposite Ralph Richardson and Peggy Ashcroft, directed by John Gielgud. In his Sky Arts documentary series Great West End Theatres, Sinden said that the play ran for 644 performances (19 months) and he was the only member of the cast not to have missed a performance: ""As the play is the longest run in the [Haymarket] theatre's history, I therefore gave more consecutive performances in this theatre than any other actor since it was built in 1820"". The management gave him an engraved silver ashtray as a present in recognition of the fact, which he showed in the episode.^[8]

Theatre being his first 'love',^[9] he was a noted farceur and won Best Actor awards for his appearances in the Ray Cooney farces Not Now, Darling (1967); Two into One (1984) and Out of Order (1990). In 1976 he was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actor for his performance on Broadway as Arthur Wicksteed in Alan Bennett's comedy Habeas Corpus. His Other memorable leading performances in the commercial theatre included roles in productions such as There's a Girl in My Soup (1966); In Praise of Love (1973); An Enemy of the People (1975); Present Laughter (1981); The School for Scandal (1983); The Scarlet Pimpernel (1985); Major Barbara (1988); Diversions and Delights (one-man show as Oscar Wilde, 1989); That Good Night (1996) and Quartet (1999).^[10][11]

Sinden was a leading figure in the fight to launch the Theatre Museum in London's Covent Garden in the 1980s.^[1] In 2007, Sinden embarked on a UK, European and American theatre tour to talk about his life, work and anecdotes in An Evening with... Sir Donald Sinden. Produced by his son Marc, this included, on 8 November 2007 as part of Marc's British Theatre Season, Monaco, a performance in front of Prince Albert of Monaco (the son of Grace Kelly, his co-star in the film Mogambo) at the Théâtre Princesse Grace, Monte Carlo.^[12]

Joining the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company in 1946, Sinden was an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) from 1967.

Outstanding among his many notable stage appearances for the RSC, both at Stratford-upon-Avon and in London's West End (usually at the Aldwych Theatre), was his performance in 1963 as the Duke of York in The Wars of the Roses opposite Peggy Ashcroft as Queen Margaret.

Other memorable performances by Sinden for the company were as Lord Foppington in The Relapse in 1967; Malvolio in Twelfth Night (opposite Judi Dench as Viola) in 1969^[13] and again with Judi Dench and her husband Michael Williams in 1974, as Sir Harcourt Courtly in London Assurance (Albery Theatre) for which, after the production transferred to New York in 1975, Sinden was the first recipient of the Broadway Drama Desk Special Award.^[11][14] Sinden sought and received advice about the character's costume and mannerisms in the role from the Regency novelist Georgette Heyer.^[15]

For the 1976 Stratford season and then at the Aldwych Theatre in 1977, he won the Evening Standard Award as Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear (with Michael Williams as the Fool). Meanwhile he was also portraying in repertory, Benedick (regarded as ""the most admired Benedick in living memory"")^[16] opposite Judi Dench's Beatrice in John Barton's highly acclaimed^[17] 'British Raj' revival of Much Ado About Nothing,^[18] and in the same time frame also rehearsing the third season of the LWT sitcom Two's Company with Elaine Stritch during the daytime and filming the show at the studio in front of a live audience on Sunday evenings.^[19] He claimed ""RSC money isn't very good compared with a normal commercial theatre rate. I was on their 'star' salary, which meant it worked out at about £47 per performance! You work for them 'for the honour' of doing the greatest classical plays, not for the money, so you have to make up the financial short-fall somewhere"".^[12]

In 1979 he played the title role in Othello, directed by Ronald Eyre, becoming the last 'blacked-up white' actor to play the role for the RSC. Everyman editor and critic Gareth Lloyd Evans noted that his interpretation was ""not…about colour or racialism"" but one that illuminated the character's personal tragedy.^[20][21]

type=printed

actor=donald sinden

period=post-war (1945-present)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=continental/ modern (150x100 mm)

county/ country=london