Anthony Steel

In the late 1940s and early 1950s he was, along with Dirk Bogarde, the Rank Organisation's (and the UK's) highest paid actor.

Known primarily in Britain for his many "matinée idol" roles during the 1950s, Anthony Steel is perhaps best remembered in Hollywood and elsewhere as the erstwhile husband of Anita Ekberg. His career never really took off in Hollywood; at one point during his marriage to Ms. Ekberg, he was referred to as Mr. Ekberg - a slight that reflected his success (or lack of it) in movies following the eventual breakup of the marriage. Steel was born in London and was the son of an Indian army officer. He was educated at Cambridge and served in the army for England during World War II.

While filming Ivory Hunter (1951), Steel crashed into a tree & damaged his knee. It later needed surgery.

He reputedly was the biological father of two children, a son in 1952 and a daughter in 1954, both born to women he did not marry and raised by their respective mothers.

It wasn't until after the war that he pursued acting, starring in such adventure-charged films as Malta Story (1953) for the J. Arthur Rank studio.

West of Zanzibar (1954) gave him the hit song Jambo. In 1954, British cinemagoers rated Steel and Jack Hawkins as their favourite actors.

His career was at its pinnacle and he was lauded as one of Britain's biggest movie stars when he married Ekberg in 1956 and set out with her to break into Hollywood pictures.

By the early 1960s, the war films that had made him famous had gone out of fashion and his career went into decline. He continued acting on TV and stage until 1989, after which he withdrew from public life. He lived in near-poverty in a council flat in Middlesex until 1997, when his agent, David Daly, tracked him down and had him admitted to Denville Hall, the actors' home in west London, where he spent the last few years of his life.