Frederick Curzon-Howe (a son of the 3rd Earl Howe) and his wife, the actress Ellis Jeffreys.

Curzon trained for the Navy at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, on the Isle of Wight, and first saw action in the First World War.

He retired from the Navy as a lieutenant commander, then served as a King's Messenger before turning to the West End stage in 1930.

[5][6] He appeared in several films directed by Alfred Hitchcock before he moved to the United States and Hollywood, most notably Young and Innocent, where he played a musician and murderer who was caught by his nervous eye-twitch, in a famous long crane shot devised by Hitchcock.

[7] A brief interruption came to Curzon's acting career in 1939 when, after playing a minor role in Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn, he again enlisted in the Navy during World War II.