Dinah Sheridan was considered the quintessential English rose. With an alertness, elegance and quiet beauty second to none, she won the hearts of war-torn England during WWII. Born Dinah Nadyejda Mec in Hampstead in 1920, her Russian father and German mother were photographers to the Royal Family, by appointment to both the Queen and Queen Mum. Dinah's first stage role was at age 12 and she subsequently went on tour as Wendy in "Peter Pan" starring Charles Laughton as Captain Hook and wife Elsa Lanchester as the titular hero(ine).

Lovely Dinah broke into films at age 16 and appeared in such films as Irish and Proud of It until her momentum was interrupted by WWII. In 1942 she married actor Jimmy Hanley and had three children. One daughter, Jenny Hanley, followed in her parents' footsteps and became a noted actress. Dinah and Jimmy appeared winningly together in such popular features as Salute John Citizen, The Facts of Love and The Huggetts Abroad. Dinah's acting career, however, peaked with the sparkling comedy Genevieve co-starring John Gregson, Kenneth More and the sublime Kay Kendall. Despite the fact this sparkling classic made her an "overnight" success and opened many doors, she did not achieve the stardom expected for her.

Divorced from Hanley, she abruptly retired following her 1954 marriage to Sir John Davis, the President of the Rank Organization. Following her second divorce 11 years later, she returned to the stage and eventually was seen on film and TV again. She has worked at a relatively easy pace since. She married for a third time to actor John Merivale in 1986, but he died four years later.



She and actor Jimmy Hanley had three children, one died at birth. Mother of the politician Sir Jeremy Hanley and actress Jenny Hanley. Dinah Sheridan (by then Mrs Dinah Davis) and her husband, Managing Director of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, Mr John Davis attended the opening on 28 November 1955 of the new Cecil Theatre (a.k.a. Cecil Cinema) in Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom. The original cinema, sited across the road from the new one, having been destroyed during World War II. During the opening ceremony Dinah Sheridan gave the cinema's Managing Director Mr Brinley Evans a black kitten for luck. Newsreel footage of the opening ceremony is now on the Internet (search for "Opening of the Cecil Theatre").