In England at Christmas special plays are produced for children. Jack Hawkins made his London theatrical debut at age 12, playing the elf king in "Where The Rainbow Ends". At 17, he got the lead role of St. George in the same play. At 18, he made his debut on Broadway in "Journey's End". At 21, he was back in London playing a young lover in "Autumn Crocus". He married his leading lady, Jessica Tandy. That year he also played his first real film role in the 1931 sound version of Alfred Hitchcock 's The Phantom Fiend . During the 30s, he took his roles in plays more seriously than the films he made. In 1940, Jessica accepted a role in America and Jack volunteered to serve in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He spent most of his military career arranging entertainment for the British forces in India. One of the actresses who came out to India was Doreen Lawrence who became his second wife after the war. Alexander Kordaadvised Jack to go into films and offered him a three-year contract. In his autobiography, Jack recalled: "Eight years later I was voted the number one box office draw of 1954. I was even credited with irresistible sex appeal, which is another quality I had not imagined I possessed." A late 1940s film where he played a secondary role to Tyrone Power The Black Rose , would be one of his most fortunate choices of roles. The director was Henry Hathaway who Jack said was "probably the most feared, yet respected director in America, for he had a sharp tongue and fired people at the drop of a hat...Years later, after my operation when I lost my voice, he went out of his way to help me get back into films...What I did not know was that during the filming of 'The Black Rose' he was himself suffering from cancer." In the 1950s came the film that made Hawkins a star, The Cruel Sea . Suffering from life long real life sea sickness, he played the captain of the Compass Rose. After surgery for throat cancer, Jack continued to make films. He mimed his lines and the voice was dubbed by either Charles Gray or Robert Rietty . His motto during those last years came from Milton's "Comus", a verse play in which he acted early in his career in Regent's Park. The lines: "Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear does arbitrate the event, my nature is that I incline to hope, rather than to fear."


The Poppy Is Also a Flower (1966): £ 1
To Bury Caesar (1963): £ 10,000
The Lodger (1932): £ 8 a day

He died three months after an operation to insert an artificial voice box in April 1973. He was voted Number 1 star at the British Box Office in 1954. Resented the idea that he was typecast in war movies, pointing out in his 1973 autobiography "Anything for a Quiet Life" that he had in fact played fewer military roles than John Mills, Trevor Howard and Richard Attenborough. Hawkins joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1940, was commissioned and served with the Second British Division in India. In 1944 he was seconded to GHQ India and soon afterwards succeeded to the command, as a colonel, of ENSA administration in India and South East Asia. He was demobilized in 1946. In his will published on September 20 1973 he left just £13,019 gross but the net amount was shown as nil. This was a result of high UK taxes and a reduction in his income following the surgery in 1966 which resulted in the loss of his voice. The family home at 34 Ennismore Gardens, South Kensington was left to his wife and his three children were provided for through a trust fund. He had a daughter, Caroline with Jessica Tandy and two sons, Nicholas & Andrew, with Doreen Lawrence.