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De Marney, Derrick (1906-1978)
 

Actor, Producer, Director

Main image of De Marney, Derrick (1906-1978)

Handsome, vigorous leading man of Irish and French ancestry, on the London stage from 1926 and in films from 1928 (The Valley of Ghosts, Two Little Drummer Boys, both d. G.B.Samuelson). With brother Terence De Marney, he formed Concanen Productions (named for their mother) and produced wartime shorts, such as Diary of a Polish Airman (d. Eugeniusz Cekalski, 1942), and several features, including Leslie Howard's The Gentle Sex (1943) and She Shall Have Murder (d. Daniel Birt, 1950).

As actor, his best-known roles include Hitchcock's man-on-the-run in Young and Innocent (1937), the sculptor hero in the long-unseen grand Guignol, Latin Quarter (d. Vernon Sewell, 1946), the dangerous Uncle Silas (d. Charles Frank, 1947) and Peter Cheyney's detective in Meet Mr Callaghan (d. Charles Saunders, 1954), a role he had created on stage (1952).

Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film

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FILM & TV CREDITS

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Selected credits

Thumbnail image of First of the Few, The (1942)First of the Few, The (1942)

Moving wartime biopic of R.J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire

Thumbnail image of Gentle Sex, The (1943)Gentle Sex, The (1943)

WWII drama about seven women in the Auxiliary Territorial Service

Thumbnail image of Lion Has Wings, The (1939)Lion Has Wings, The (1939)

Patriotic drama made as propaganda for British air forces

Thumbnail image of Scarlet Pimpernel, The (1935)Scarlet Pimpernel, The (1935)

Most successful version of the French revolutionary romance

Thumbnail image of Sixty Glorious Years (1938)Sixty Glorious Years (1938)

Colourful historical pageant of Queen Victoria's 60-year reign

Thumbnail image of Things to Come (1936)Things to Come (1936)

Britain's biggest sci-fi film of the 1930s, adapted from H.G.Wells

Thumbnail image of Young and Innocent (1937)Young and Innocent (1937)

Hitchcock thriller about an innocent man suspected of murder

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