56 Facts About Miles Mander

From a privileged upper middle-class background, as a young man Mander engaged in motor sports, aviation and ballooning.

From 1920 to 1936 Miles Mander was involved in the British film industry in various capacities.

Miles Mander acted in both silent and sound films and was involved with several film production companies.

Miles Mander began writing screenplays and directing in the mid-1920s, working on early sound films.

Lionel Henry Mander was born on 14 May 1888 at Wolverhampton in Staffordshire, the second son of S Theodore Mander and Flora.

Miles Mander's father died in September 1900, when Lionel was aged twelve, and his mother died in April 1905.

From 1901 to early 1903 Miles Mander was educated at Harrow School in Greater London, where he resided at The Grove boarding house.

Miles Mander attended the Loretto School and McGill University in Montreal.

Miles Mander had early acting experience in musical comedy, including tours in Canada and the United States.

Miles Mander showed an early interest in driving automobiles at speed and was a competitor in the first race meeting at the motor racing circuit at Brooklands, near Weybridge in Surrey, the first purpose-built 'banked' racing track which opened in June 1907.

Miles Mander drove a 60 horse-power Mercedes on the Brooklands racing circuit.

In 1908 Miles Mander visited his uncle Martin Miles Mander in New Zealand and for a short period took up sheep farming on his uncle's station.

Martin Miles Mander had emigrated to New Zealand in 1890 and established the 'Horoeka-Waimata' sheep station in the Waimata Valley, near Gisborne on the north-east coast of New Zealand's North Island.

Miles Mander attended Louis Bleriot's pilot training school at Pau in southern France and purchased a Bleriot XI monoplane.

In early 1910 Miles Mander took flying lessons with Claude Grahame-White at the Brooklands aerodrome.

Miles Mander's aircraft crashed at Brooklands requiring a new wing to be fitted.

In May 1910 a man named Alfred Hooper was riding his bicycle to work when a car driven by Miles Mander "ran into him and knocked him down".

Miles Mander was an entrant in the first all-British aviation meeting at Dunstall Park in Wolverhampton, held from 27 June to 2 July 1910.

Miles Mander was one of four novice pilots yet to receive their aviator's certificate from the Royal Aero Club, necessary for participation in the events.

Miles Mander invested in Grahame-White's company that developed the Hendon Aerodrome in London.

Miles Mander later claimed that the marriage was "unhappy owing to his wife's violent temper".

Miles Mander received his aeronaut's certificate from the Royal Aero Club in June 1913.

In late September 1914 Lionel Henry Miles Mander was declared to be bankrupt.

Miles Mander was described as a financier of Trafalgar House in Regent Street, London.

Miles Mander enlisted in the British armed forces on 20 September 1914.

Miles Mander was promoted to sub-lieutenant in February 1915 in the Royal Naval Division, made up of volunteers and reservists not needed for service at sea.

In 1915 Miles Mander was transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps.

Miles Mander later claimed that the reason they lived apart was that "he had heard a report about her conduct while she was in India".

In March 1920 Miles Mander participated in the Kop Hill Trial, organised by the Essex Motor Club, driving a Mathis automobile.

Miles Mander made his credited film acting debut in a small role in Testimony, a drama released in September 1920 by George Clark Productions.

Miles Mander played the role of 'Lieutenant Devereaux' in The Place of Honour and as 'Godfrey Norton' in A Scandal in Bohemia, the seventh in a series of films based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Holmes' stories.

In June 1921 Miles Mander petitioned for the dissolution of his marriage to Prativa "on the ground of her adultery with Mr Reginald de Beer".

Miles Mander gave evidence in the divorce court of having observed, in August 1920, Prativa and De Beer in bed together through the window of Prativa's flat in Wellington Court, Knightsbridge.

Miles Mander was the general manager of Solar Films Ltd, a company with directors that included Adrian Brunel.

Miles Mander planned to present the films accompanied by a lecture delivered by a traveller associated with the actual expedition.

In 1922 Miles Mander played roles in two films directed by Sinclair Hill, Half a Truth released in June 1922 and Open Country released in December 1922.

In 1924 Miles Mander played a lead role in Lovers in Araby, an Atlas Biocraft film directed by Adrian Brunel.

In 1925 Miles Mander was cast in The Prude's Fall, directed by Graham Cutts, with Alfred Hitchcock as scenario writer, art director and assistant director.

Miles Mander was then cast as one of the male leads in The Pleasure Garden, Hitchcock's first feature film as director.

In late 1926 Miles Mander joined the staff of De Forest Phonofilms, initially operating from a small studio in Clapham, and managed by the West End showman Vivian Van Damm.

Miles Mander was employed to write and direct a series of short 'talkie' films at the Wembley studios, being paid ten pounds for a screenplay and twenty pounds for directing.

Miles Mander directed and acted in the first London performances of his own plays, Those Common People in 1927 and It's a Pity About Humanity in 1930.

Miles Mander established a reputation as a film actor "by his studies of dissipated characters, such as drunkards or dope-addicts" in such films as The Fake and The Physician.

In 1928 Miles Mander collaborated with Alma Reville, Hitchcock's wife, on the script of The First Born, the scenario of which was based on Miles Mander's stage play Those Common People and his novel Oasis.

In late 1930 and 1931 Miles Mander directed two films for British International Pictures, both of them sound films made at the company's Elstree Studios near London.

The Woman Between, adapted from a play by Miles Mander Malleson, was released in January 1931.

In late 1934 Miles Mander directed Youthful Folly for Sound City Films.

In 1935 Miles Mander travelled to the United States and lived in Hollywood for nine months, during which he acted in Here's to Romance for the Fox Film Corporation and The Three Musketeers for RKO Radio Pictures.

Miles Mander was convicted of the charges on 31 March 1936 and fines were imposed.

In 1936 Miles Mander left Britain to live in America, relocating to Hollywood.

Miles Mander was cast in more than 60 feature films after he went to live in Hollywood in 1936.

The film featured Madeleine Carroll in the female lead, an actress Miles Mander had earlier directed in The First Born and Fascination.

Miles Mander was given opportunities to act in British roles in American films such as playing Benjamin Disraeli in Suez and King Henry VI in Tower of London.

Miles Mander acted alongside Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier in the Samuel Goldwyn Productions film Wuthering Heights.

In 1939 Miles Mander played pivotal dual roles in Daredevils of the Red Circle, a twelve-chapter movie serial made by Republic Pictures.

Miles Mander died on 8 February 1946 at his home at 7231 Pacific View Drive in Hollywood, aged 57.