John Edward Hawkins, CBE (14 September 1910 – 18 July 1973) was an English actor who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s.

Hawkins was born at 45 Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, in Middlesex (now London Borough of Haringey), the son of a builder.

[3] By the age of ten Hawkins had joined the local operatic society,[3] and made his stage debut in Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan.

[3] His parents enrolled him in the Italia Conti Academy,[3] and whilst he was studying there he made his London stage debut, when aged thirteen, playing the Elf King in Where the Rainbow Ends at the Holborn Empire on Boxing Day, December 1923,[3] a production that also included the young Noël Coward.

[8] His performances included Port Said by Emlyn Williams (1931), Below the Surface by HL Stoker and LS Hunt (1932), Red Triangle by Val Gielgud (1932), Service by CI Anthony, for director Basil Dean (1933), One of Us by Frank Howard, As You Like It by William Shakespeare (1933) and Iron Flowers by Cecil Lewis (1933, with Jessica Tandy his wife).

He started appearing in films, including Birds of Prey (1930),[9] The Lodger (1932),[9] (starring Ivor Novello), The Good Companions (1933),[9] The Lost Chord (1933),[9] I Lived with You (1933),[9] The Jewel (1933),[9] A Shot in the Dark (1933),[9] and Autumn Crocus (1934).

[9] Stage roles included While Parents Sleep (1932) by Anthony Kimmins, Iron Mistress (1934) by Arthur Macrae; then an open air Shakespeare festival – As You Like It (1934) (with Anna Neagle), Twelfth Night (1934), Comedy of Errors (1934).

[9] Theatre appearances included A Winter's Tale (1937), Autumn by Margaret Kennedy and Gregory Ratoff (1937, with Flora Robson for Basil Dean), The King's Breakfast by Rita Welman and Maurice Marks (1937–38), No More Music by Rosamund Lehman (1938), Can We Tell?

by Robert Gore Brown (1938), Traitors Gate by Norma Stuart (1938) and Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith (1938–39).

Having attended an Officer Cadet Training Unit, he was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers, British Army, as a second lieutenant on 8 March 1941.

[14] The association began badly when Hawkins was cast in Korda's notorious flop Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948),[9] as Lord George Murray.

He appeared in The Small Back Room (1949),[9] for Powell and Pressburger; he starred as the villain alongside Douglas Fairbanks Jr in the Sidney Gilliat directed State Secret (1950).

[9] He was recruited by 20th Century Fox to support Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, by playing the Prince of Wales in the expensive epic The Black Rose (1950).

[14] Hawkins became a star with the release of three successful films in which he played stern but sympathetic authority figures: Angels One Five (1951),[15] as an RAF officer during the war; The Planter's Wife (1952),[15] as a rubber planter combating communists in the Malayan Emergency (with Claudette Colbert); and Mandy (1952),[15] the headmaster of a school for the deaf.

[16] Hawkins starred in The Cruel Sea (1953),[15] playing a driven naval officer in World War II.

"[14] The Cruel Sea was the most successful film of the year and saw Hawkins voted the most popular star in Britain regardless of nationality.

[17] According to his Guardian obituary, he "exemplified for many cinemagoers the stiff upper lip tradition prevalent in post-war British films.

"[22] He turned down the role of Colonel Carne in The Glorious Gloucesters for Warwick Films and Captain Cook for a project for the Rank organisation;[5] "I'm tired of playing decent fellows", he said in a 1954 interview, "with stiff upper lip and even stiffer morals.

[17][24] Hawkins's career received a major boost when supporting William Holden and Alec Guinness, in the highly acclaimed The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

[15] He had a good role as a double agent in a war film, The Two-Headed Spy (1958) then was given another third lead in a Hollywood blockbuster Ben-Hur (1959), playing the Roman admiral who befriends Charlton Heston.

[15] He appeared in a heist film considered quite ground-breaking at the time for its references to sex, and popular at the British box office, also providing Hawkins with his final lead role in The League of Gentlemen (1960).

[26] A three-packet-a-day chain smoker, Hawkins began experiencing voice problems in the late 1950s; unbeknownst to the public, he had undergone cobalt treatment in 1959 for what was then described as a secondary condition of the larynx, but which was probably cancer.

[15] and appeared with Shirley MacLaine and Laurence Harvey in Two Loves (1961),[15] and supported Rosalind Russell in Five Finger Exercise (1962).

In March of that year he appeared at a royal screening of Born Free attended by the Queen and received a standing ovation.

He started haemorrhaging and was admitted to St Stephen's Hospital, Fulham Road, London, in June, forcing him to drop out of The Tamarind Seed (1974), in which Hawkins was to have played a Russian general.

[41] During the 1950s, British exhibitors consistently voted Hawkins one of the most popular local stars in the country in the annual poll conducted by the Motion Picture Herald: