Derek Bond

The actor was born in Glasgow on January 26, 1920, the son of a commercial traveler and a beautician. Educated at the Haberdashers' Askes School in Hampstead, he originally sought out a career as a reporter/journalist.

Began his acting career in the late 1930s and appeared in light comedies.

When that didn't pan out he turned to acting, training with the Finchley Amateur Dramatic Society and making his professional theatre debut with "As Husbands Go" in 1937. A member of the Colchester Repertory Company (where he met his first wife), he played a number of both comedic and dramatic roles until his burgeoning career was interrupted by WWII. Commissioned with the Grenadier Guards' 3rd Brigade, he was awarded the Military Cross after seeing action and suffering serious wounds in North Africa. Captured at one point, he served as a POW in Italy, where he produced and appeared in a number of army shows. Following the war he returned to his acting career and was picked up by Ealing Studios.

In 1938 Bond auditioned successfully for a one word part as a robot in what turned out to be the first televised science fiction program in history, the BBC production of Karel Capek's "R.U.R.''. The One word was "Yes".

Throughout the late 1940s the staid, classically good-looking actor played lead and second lead roles alongside a number of established or up-and-coming leading lovelies of the British cinema, including Jean Kent and Googie Withers in The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947), Jean Simmons in The Inheritance (1947), Phyllis Calvert in Broken Journey (1948), Ursula Jeans in The Weaker Sex (1948), Susan Shaw in Marry Me (1949) and Rona Anderson in Poet's Pub (1949).

Met first wife Ann Grace while both were performing with the Colchester Repertory Company. They married in 1942 and had one son. A young widow at the time of their marriage, she also had a son, Larry, from her earlier marriage.

Life certainly imitated art when he made his film debut as a British POW in the stirring war drama The Captive Heart (1946) starring Michael Redgrave, Redgrave's wife Rachel Kempson and a virtual "Who's Who" supporting cast of British names. The film was set in a German WWII POW camp. Stardom was officially clinched when Ealing entrusted Bond, in only his second film role, to play the Nickleby lead opposite the renowned Cedric Hardwicke as his cruel Uncle Ralph. Bond also had a choice role portraying the doomed South Pole explorer Capt.

Scottish-born Derek Bond was a leading man of post-war British films fondly remembered for his portrayal of the titular hero in Ealing Studios' The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947), an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel.

Oates in Scott of the Antarctic (1948) opposite John Mills.

Bond continued primarily in the "B" film ranks in the 1950s with a steady dose of light comedy (Tony Draws a Horse (1950), The Caretaker's Daughter (1952), Trouble in Store (1953)) and crime drama (The Quiet Woman (1951), The Hour of 13 (1952), Rogue's Yarn (1957), Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958)).

He wrote a stage play called "Akin to Death" (1954) and the television drama "Unscheduled Stop" in 1968.

He also was utilized on TV in the next decade as a co-presenter of Picture Parade (1956) for more than two years before joining "Tonight," an early-evening current-affairs program.

Among his other series work included episodes of William Tell (1958) and The Saint (1962) and a notable recurring role on Callan (1967) starring Edward Woodward. A bright presence on the West End light comedy stage, his theatre resume included "A Scent of Flowers" (with a budding Ian McKellen), "Your Obedient Servant", "The Secretary Bird", "Murder at the Vicarage", "No Sex Please, We're British" and "The Mousetrap". He also wrote a number of plays for both TV and radio.

Bond was elected president of the British Actors' Equity Association during the 1970s.

Bond was a conservative Equity council member and eventual president, where he came up against the extreme left-wing faction led by Vanessa Redgrave and Corin Redgrave for control. An opponent of apartheid, he nonetheless insisted on his right to go to South Africa to perform before segregated audiences. The dispute climaxed in April 1985 with his resignation.

An outspoken, conservative leader, he resigned in 1986 amid political controversy and pressure from left-wing opponents, which prompted his amusing memoir, "Steady Old Man! Don't You Know There's a War On?" in 1990.

A memoir published in 1990, Steady, Old Man! Don't You Know There's a War On? (ISBN 978-0850520460), tells the story of his war years (WWII) spent as a junior officer with the Third Battalion, Grenadier Guards. Wounded, awarded a Military Cross and ultimately captured in Florence as a result of inaccurate intelligence he wrote the book he said, "Because so many of his younger friends to whom the war is a matter of history, rather than a memory, kept asking him what it was like".