Jimmy Hanley (1918 - 1970)

For much of his career Jimmy Hanley represented the acceptable face of Youth. When he wasn't playing the ideal son, he was playing the ideal boy next door you'd want to marry your ideal daughter.

He was born in Norwich and trained at the Italia Conti stage school. His first professional engagement, at the age of 12, was in Peter Pan at the Palladium. He briefly joined a circus before making his film debut at the age of 16 in Red Wagon - a tale of circus life. A succession of roles followed in which he played the son, best friend or love interest of the leading player, with a bit of Will Hay-baiting in Boys Will be Boys for variety. 

His career was interrupted by the war. In 1942 he was wounded during a commando raid on Norway and invalided out of the army. Now an authentic war hero he came to represent all those young men in uniform away from home. The Way Ahead, in which he was in a group of conscripts working their way through training, was a big hit.

Towards the end of the war he married Dinah Sheridan who he first played opposite in Landslide. The marriage ended in 1953 and he married Margaret Avery in 1955.

During the 1950s he rapidly started to look middle-aged and the film work gradually dried up. However, he was welcomed on television both as an actor and presenter. He presented the quiz show Dotto and was the lead in the long-running ad-mag drama Jim's Inn.

He died of cancer but before he went there was still time for one last adventure when, as a contestant in a sea fishing competition in 1969, he was arrested by the Egyptian navy on suspicion of carrying Israeli commandos.

Filmography 

 Jimmy Hanley at Amazon UK

 Jimmy Hanley at Amazon US