1. Harold Thomas Gregson, known professionally as John Gregson, was an English actor of stage, television and film, with 40 credited film roles.
27 Facts About John Gregson
1. 2.
John Gregson was best known for his crime drama and comedy roles.
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John Gregson was often cast as a police inspector or as a navy or army officer, or in comedy roles in British films.
4.
John Gregson left school at 16, working first for a telephone company, then for Liverpool Corporation, as the city council was then known, before the Second World War.
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When war broke out, John Gregson was called up and joined the Royal Navy as a sailor on minesweepers.
6.
John Gregson appeared alongside Alec Guinness in the play The Human Touch in the West End.
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John Gregson starred in Roger MacDougall's comedy Macadam and Eve and later enjoyed success in Hugh Hastings's play Seagulls Over Sorrento at the Apollo Theatre.
8.
John Gregson had a lead role in Angels One Five, a war film.
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John Gregson was promoted to leading man for The Brave Don't Cry, about a mining disaster.
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John Gregson had the second lead in Rank's Venetian Bird and supported in The Holly and the Ivy.
11.
John Gregson had a leading role in another Ealing comedy, The Titfield Thunderbolt.
12.
John Gregson became a star when cast in the comedy Genevieve, which starred Kenneth More, Dinah Sheridan and Kay Kendall.
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John Gregson was second-billed to Glynis Johns in a prison drama, The Weak and the Wicked, another hit, and played the lead in a light drama, Conflict of Wings.
14.
John Gregson was loaned to Adelphi Films for The Crowded Day.
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John Gregson followed this with To Dorothy a Son, a comedy co-starring Shelley Winters; and Three Cases of Murder, an omnibus film co-starring Orson Welles.
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John Gregson did a comedy with Diana Dors, Value for Money, and a drama Jacqueline.
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John Gregson followed it with True as a Turtle, a comedy; and Miracle in Soho, a drama.
18.
John Gregson supported in SOS Pacific and Hand in Hand, but was top-billed in Faces in the Dark and The Frightened City.
19.
John Gregson had a support role in The Treasure of Monte Cristo and was one of many names in The Longest Day.
20.
John Gregson was one of many leading men and women of the 1950s who struggled to maintain their status as leads beyond the early 1960s.
21.
From 1963 onwards, John Gregson never played another leading film role.
22.
John Gregson appeared in The Saint with Roger Moore and a popular comedy adventure series with Shirley MacLaine, Shirley's World.
23.
John Gregson took over from Kenneth More in long-running TV adverts for coffee on British television.
24.
John Gregson appeared in It's the Geography That Counts, the last play at the St James's Theatre before its closure and demolition in 1957.
25.
In January 1975, John Gregson died suddenly from a heart attack near Porlock Weir, Somerset, aged 55, whilst on holiday, walking on the path to St Beuno's Church, Culbone.
26.
John Gregson left a widow, Thea Gregory, and six children.
27.
John Gregson's body was interred at Sunbury Cemetery, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey near his family home at Creek House, Chertsey Road, Shepperton.