[2] He played trombone as part of the brass section of Jack Hylton's Orchestra and Ted Heath's big band from 1937 until the mid-1950s before becoming the show business editor of the Sunday Mirror newspaper.
[5] Bentley's father had taught him to play cello but, when he joined the Army as a musician at the age of fourteen and studied at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, Twickenham he specialised on trombone.
He worked with fellow Irish Guards bandsman Raymond Doughty's Band at Cricklewood Palais, London at the end of 1939 and joined the Queen's Theatre Orchestra in early 1940.
[9] Although he left the band in 1950 to compose and write scripts,[4] he continued to work freelance for Heath and his last recording was the 89th Palladium Sunday concert on 12 April 1953.
[15] His show business column broke high-profile stories such as Jane Asher's 1965 confirmation of rumours that she was going to marry Paul McCartney,[16] Sean Connery's announcement that he was quitting James Bond,[17][18] and a revealing interview with Mick Jagger on 17 September 1967.
[4] In the 1980s he co-wrote with his son Ross Bentley the BBC comedy series Laura and Disorder which also starred his wife.
[25] Craig ended the affair when her husband learned of it, and Penelope Mortimer used aspects of the story in her 1962 novel The Pumpkin Eater.
[2] In the film adaptation of The Pumpkin Eater (1964), the character based on Bentley (John Conway) was played by James Mason.