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Donald Sinden

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Actor

The Resume

    (October 9, 1923-September 11, 2014)
    Born in Plymouth, Devon, England, United Kingdom
    Stage credits include ‘George and Margaret (1942),’ ‘There’s a Girl in My Soup (1966),’ ‘Not Now Darling (1967),’ ‘Habeas Corpus (1976, Tony award nominee),’ and ‘The Heiress’
    Film credits include ‘The Cruel Sea (1953),’ ‘Doctor in the House (1954),’ ‘The Black Tent (1956),’ ‘Your Money or Your Wife (1960),’ ‘The Day of the Jackal (1973),’ ‘The Island at the Top of the World (Disney, 1974),’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland (voice, 1999)’
    Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company (1967)
    Portrayed Robert the manservant on ‘Two’s Company’ (1975–79, opposite Elaine Stritch) and Simon Peel on ‘Never the Twain’ (1981–91)
    Publications include ‘A Touch of Memoirs’ and ‘Laughter in the Second Act’
    Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1979; knighthood in 1997)

Why he might be annoying:

    His early speech patterns were so high pitched he underwent voice coaching… which caused his pitch to go to the other extreme!
    ‘I remember once saying, in a television interview, that the only things I hadn’t been in were the opera and the ballet. Two days later, I got a call from Lord Harewood, of the English National Opera, saying, ‘Would you like to be in ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ (Strauss)?’
    During WWII, he planned to go into naval service… until he was hit with asthma.
    While filming an evacuation scene in ‘The Cruel Sea,’ he suffered a bout of negative buoyancy (inability to swim or float) at the studio’s open air water tank.
    During his time at Pinewood Studios, he received two notable audience-based awards: ‘the actor who made most progress during 1954’ and, among female Britons, ‘the face we’d most like to see across our breakfast table.’
    His ‘An Evening with…’ promotional poster is an overstated caricature (think the Bugs Bunny short with one-shot character Giovanni Jones).

Why he might not be annoying:

    As the son of a chemist, he originally planned to become an architect.
    He made his first stage appearance at the very theater of which he would later become president — when his cousin was conscripted.
    Unable to go into naval service proper, he wound up entertaining the troops.
    About those audience-based awards? He was viewed as neither temperamental nor colorful, and definitely not boisterous.
    He was the only actor in ‘The Heiress’ – at Theatre Royal, Haymarket – common to every performance over a 19-month period (which earned him an engraved silver ashtray).
    After more than 55 years of marriage, his wife died in 2004.
    His surviving son Marc (Jeremy, the other, died in 1996) produced the ‘An Evening with…’ theater series, in which dear old dad would appear in 2007.
    His career began in World War II and spanned eight different decades.
    He estimated that, over a period of 66 straight years, he had only been unemployed for five weeks.

Credit: Cool It All Right?


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying