1. Esmond Knight had a successful stage and film career before World War II.
16 Facts About Esmond Knight
1. 2.
Esmond Knight had been badly wounded in 1941 while on active service on board HMS Prince of Wales when she fought the Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Strait, and remained totally blind for two years, though he later regained some sight in his right eye.
3.
Esmond Knight's father was involved in the family cigar import business.
4.
Esmond Knight was educated at Willington Preparatory School in Putney and then Westminster School.
5.
Esmond Knight was an accomplished actor with a career spanning over half a century.
6.
Esmond Knight travelled to Germany to star in Black Roses, a film about a Finnish anti-communist.
7.
Thereafter Esmond Knight appeared in various film and theatre productions in Britain.
8.
Esmond Knight sought a naval commission, but after the evacuation of Dunkirk he became involved in training Local Defence Volunteers.
9.
In 1941, Esmond Knight was asked to play the lead role of fanatical Nazi Lieutenant Hirth in another Powell and Pressburger propaganda film 49th Parallel, but Eric Portman took the role as Esmond Knight was required for military training.
10.
Esmond Knight did appear in This England, another propaganda film.
11.
Esmond Knight appeared briefly in another Powell and Pressburger film, playing the roles of the village idiot and the "Seven Sisters Soldier" in A Canterbury Tale, adding the voice-over reading of Chaucer.
12.
Esmond Knight continued to work with Olivier and with Powell and Pressburger, appearing in the former's Shakespearean films Hamlet and Richard III.
13.
Esmond Knight was the subject of a This Is Your Life episode in 1957 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the King's Theatre in Hammersmith, London.
14.
Esmond Knight starred as Professor Ernest Reinhart in the British science fiction television series A for Andromeda, alongside Patricia Kneale and Peter Halliday.
15.
Esmond Knight was an actress who appeared with him in several stage plays.
16.
Esmond Knight died of a heart attack in London on 23 February 1987.