[3] The son of a travelling scrap metal dealer, Watling trained at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts as a child; and made his stage debut in Where the Rainbow Ends at the Holborn Empire in 1936.

[4] He made his first film appearances (all uncredited) in Sixty Glorious Years, Housemaster (both 1938) and Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939).

[6] He starred as Flight Lieutenant Teddy Graham in the original 1942 production of Terence Rattigan's Flare Path.

We Dive at Dawn (1943), The Demi-Paradise (1943) opposite Laurence Olivier, The Way Ahead (1944) with David Niven, The Winslow Boy (1948), Meet Mr. Lucifer (1953) and in Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin (aka, Confidential Report, 1955).

Between 1964–69 he was Don Henderson, the troubled conscience to tough businessman John Wilder (Patrick Wymark) in The Plane Makers and its sequel The Power Game.