Donald Sinden

Sir Donald Alfred Sinden (9 October 1923 – 12 September 2014) was a British actor. Sinden featured in the film Mogambo (1953), and achieved early fame as a Rank Organisation film star in the 1950s in films including The Cruel Sea (1953), Doctor in the House (1954), Simba (1955), Eyewitness (1956) and Doctor at Large (1957). He then became highly regarded as an award-winning Shakespearean and West End theatre actor and television sitcom star, winning the 1977 Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for King Lear, and starring in the sitcoms Two's Company (1975–79) and Never the Twain (1981–91). Early life Sinden was born in St Budeaux, Plymouth, Devon on 9 October 1923, the middle child of chemist Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes (née Fuller). His elder sister Joy became an English teacher at Claverham Community College in Battle, East Sussex, and younger brother Leon (1927–2015) became an actor. They grew up in Ditchling, East Sussex, where their home 'The Limes' doubled as the local chemist's shop. After attending a number of private schools, Donald was sent to Hassocks Primary, and thence to Burgess Hill Secondary School after failing his 11-plus qualifying test. Career 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 the Second World War and later trained as an actor for two terms at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.