[1] His father, a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, was shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans during the First World War.
His mother, Nancy Hambley Hughes, was a musical theatre singer with the D'Oyly Carte Company.
[2] In June 1939, he married Maureen O'Hara, who had been under an exclusive contract for a year with Mayflower Pictures and had co-starred in Jamaica Inn; the wedding took place only fifteen hours before she left for Hollywood to film The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
During World War II, he worked in the RAF Film Unit in the North African desert.
[1] His breakthrough film as producer was Hotel Sahara (1951) based on his own story for which he raised finance.