Here in Hungerford we see our fair share of famous or notable people who pass along our streets and lanes. Celebrity has never meant anything to me as I have always considered all people equal.
Over the years, I have met various well-known people but to me it is not a special event and if I ever considered taking a selfie with them then I would expect the same punishment as Lot’s wife, or even worse. Many famous people who are no longer with us would have visited Hungerford such as Virginia Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury Group. I wonder if John Steinbeck looked out of his train window as his express thundered across our railway bridge as he travelled towards Bruton in 1959.
The list is endless, but I must say on Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I was somewhat surprised to see Douglas Fairbanks Jr staring at me from across the street considering that this lovely actor died in May 2000. But obviously it was not Douglas in person but a photograph of this impossibly handsome man complete with an authentic autograph. For once, I was not looking into the windows of the Arcade but at a stall that was part of the Antiques Market which is held in the Town Hall every couple of weeks. Braving the Saturday traffic, I crossed the road to take a closer look at this interesting item and found that the vendor was asking a tenner for it, which I thought was a fair price. I do not usually buy autographed photographs (which are quite easily available these days) but Douglas was from a different and more elegant era and it was unlikely that he would visit Hungerford again.
But what of Douglas Fairbanks Jr?
Well as his name implies, he was the son of the famous Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939) and was probably even better looking than his father.
Fairbanks Snr was an action hero that our my grandparents would of have seen in action at the local fleapit. But instead of using the violent hardware of today, Fairbanks Snr would have made his way through the baddies with nothing but a sword. These action sequences were immaculately choreographed with Fairbanks (it was reported), doing a lot of his own stunts.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr was born on the 9th of December 1909 and was the only child of his father’s marriage to Anna Beth Sully. His parents divorced when he was nine and he lived with his mother for the next few years.
However, having a famous father did have its advantages and he was given a Paramount contact at the age of fourteen and starred in the long forgotten and now lost silent film called Stephen Steps Out (1923). In the next few years he starred in a number of movies often opposite the leading ladies of the day. When the Talkies arrived he moved seamlessly across the divide (unlike many other actors) and continued his career.
On one of his last silent films, Our Modern Maidens (1929) he met Joan Crawford (1905-1977) who he later married. He also appeared in Outward Bound (1930) with the ill-fated Leslie Howard (1893-1943) and Edward G Robinson in Little Caesar (1931).
What is little known is that Douglas spoke fluent French and appeared in a French flic called L’athlet incomplete which was shownonly in France.
In the next few years he supported many of the famous actresses of the day such Loretta Young, Betty Davis and Katherine Hepburn.
In 1934 after a fight with his studio, Douglas moved to the UK where he spent the next few years. He returned to Hollywood in 1937 to star in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and two years later starred in Gunga Din (1939) which was a box-office hit. He continued to star in adventure movies but as the war was on, he enlisted in 1941 when the US entered the conflict and was assigned to Lord Mountbatten’s Commando staff in the UK.
After later service on board the USS Wichita he became involved in the theatre of military deception which had not had much exposure in the US at the time. He worked with Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt (1887-1972) and together they helped to create the Beach Jumper program. In short, the Beach Jumpers would simulate landings from the sea with a very limited number of men and rather like the phony lead up to the D Day landings, this would confuse the enemy. Although dangerous this deception worked in various theatres of war and for his part in it, Douglas was awarded the Legion of Merit amongst other awards.
He returned to Hollywood at the end of the war and managed to star in two dud movies Sinbad the Sailor and That Lady in Ermine which both harmed his career.
As the 1940s drew to close he returned to the UK where he received a KBE in 1949. After that, he starred in a number of British movies such as State Secret (1950) and Mr Drakes Duck (1951). Later, he worked on Douglas Fairbanks Presents a syndicated anthology series out of Elstree Studios (which I can just about remember). Jumping forward a shade, Douglas appeared in the stage versions of My Fair Lady and The Pleasure of His Company in the late 1960s and 1970s. He did a few TV Movies and his last appearance was in the rather underrated movie Ghost Story in 1981.
Like his father, Douglas died of a heart attack aged 90 (although his father was only 56 when he died) and he was interred in the same tomb as his father at The Hollywood Forever Cemetery in LA.
To me Douglas Fairbanks Jr was one of the last of the generation of the golden Hollywood film stars although in my view, he never really made the top niche. Why that was is open to question, perhaps he was just too handsome or perhaps he was born just out of era. All I know was that after purchasing the framed photograph and autograph, is that the item now hangs above my desk where from time to time I write articles and the like and this helps me to take a little time away from the merry go round of life.
I am not promising that if you visit either the Antique Market or the Arcade that you will find anything connected to Douglas. But if you look hard enough you will find items connected with the Golden Age of Hollywood.
