His early years were spent at Alltshellach, the family's home in the Inverness-shire district of Nether Lochaber, where his grandfather had been Bishop of Argyll and the Isles.
Attracted to the stage, he became an extra at Elstree Studios and featured in such early films as Murder in Monte Carlo, starring Errol Flynn, and Two Hearts in Waltz Time.
When he was rushed to hospital for an appendix operation shortly before the Second World War, one of those who came to visit him was Rose Kennedy, mother of the future American president.
After peace was declared in 1945, he recognised immediately that the glittering social world of between the wars would never be the same again, then a chance encounter with Michael Powell, the film director, led him to two years' work at Pinewood Studios.
In addition, Charles Chaplin was in tax exile in nearby Vevey, and Noël Coward had bought a villa at Les Avants, where Marlene Dietrich was a regular visitor.
On his drawing room walls he displayed some of the more memorable portraits of the rich and famous, and at the time of his death in 1996 was planning a retrospective exhibition of his life's work.