Donald Sinden
English actor (1923–2014)
Sir Donald Alfred Sinden (9 October 1923 – 12 September 2014) was an English actor.
Sinden featured in the film Mogambo (1953), and achieved early fame as a Rank Organisation film star in the 1950s in films including The Cruel Sea (1953), Doctor in the House (1954), Simba (1955), Eyewitness (1956) and Doctor at Large (1957).
He became highly regarded as an award-winning Shakespearean and West End theatre actor and television sitcom star, winning the 1977 Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for King Lear, and starring in the sitcoms Two's Company (1975–79) and Never the Twain (1981–91).
Early life
Sinden was born in St Budeaux, Plymouth, Devon on 9 October 1923, the middle child of chemist Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes (née Fuller). His elder sister Joy became an English teacher at Claverham Community College in Battle, East Sussex, and younger brother Leon (1927–2015) became an actor. They grew up in Ditchling, East Sussex, where their home 'The Limes' doubled as the local chemist's shop. After attending a number of private schools, Donald was sent to Hassocks Primary, and thence to Burgess Hill Secondary School after failing his 11-plus qualifying test.
Career
Sinden made his first stage appearance at the amateur Brighton Little Theatre (of which he later became president) in 1941, stepping into a part in place of his cousin Frank, who had been called up to war and so was unable to appear. Offered a professional acting part by the Brighton impresario Charles F. Smith, he made his first professional appearance in January 1942, playing Dudley in a production of George and Margaret for the Mobile Entertainments Southern Area company (known as MESA) and in other modern comedies, playing to the armed forces all along the South Coast of England during the Second World War and later trained as an actor for two terms at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.
Rejected for World War II naval service because of asthma, Sinden joined a theatrical company that entertained soldiers, sailors and airmen during the war.
“Donald Sinden” enters the record as english actor (1923–2014). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Donald, Sinden and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q432316. VIAF identifies the subject as 6287505. The Library of Congress control number is n82142110. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1923, 2014, 1953 and 1954.
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This entry incorporates text from “Donald Sinden” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.