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Richard Greene 1941.
The descendant of four generations of stage actors, Richard Marius Joseph Greene was born in Plymouth on 25th August 1918. Educated at Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, Kensington, he started his stage career as a spear- carrier in a production of Julius Caesar, supplementing his income by modelling hats and shirts. After two years on the stage, he was spotted by Hollywood talent scouts and, after a bidding war with another studio, signed for 20th Century Fox as a rival to Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Robert Taylor.
Greene’s first film was Four Men and a Prayer (1938) and he was soon elevated to top billing in Submarine Patrol (1939) and The Hound of The Baskervilles the same year, which paired Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce for the first time as Holmes and
Watson. MGM executives realised they had a megastar on their hands when they had to employ several secretaries to process the mountains of fan mail from female admirers. However, in 1940, at the height of his fame, and with no physical obligation to return to the UK, he secured a release from MGM and returned home to ‘do his bit.’
Commissioned from Sandhurst into the 27th Lancers on 19th April 1941, he was one of the first officers in a newly formed regiment that was disbanded at the end of the war. During his early service in the UK, Greene was released from duties in 1942 to star in two propaganda films,
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