Anthony Quayle

Sir John Anthony Quayle, CBE (7 September 1913 – 20 October 1989) was a British-born actor, film star and director.

Early life

Quayle was born in Ainsdale, Southport, Lancashire, to a Manx family.

He was educated at the private Abberley Hall School and Rugby School and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After appearing in music hall, he joined the Old Vic in 1932. During World War II, he was a British Army officer and was made one of the area commanders of the Auxiliary Units in Northumberland.

Later he joined the Special Operations Executive and served as a liaison officer with the partisans in Albania (reportedly; his service with the SOE seriously affected him, and he never felt comfortable talking about it). He described his experiences in a fictionalised form in Eight Hours from England. He was an aide to the Governor of Gibraltar at the time of the air crash of General Władysław Sikorski's aircraft on 4 July 1943. He fictionalised his Gibraltar experience in his second novel On Such a Night, published by Heinemann.