Reginald Denny (actor)


Reginald Leigh Dugmore, better known as Reginald Denny, achieved success both as an English stage, film and television actor, and as an aviator and UAV pioneer. He was also once amateur boxing champion of Great Britain.

Acting career

Born as Reginald Leigh Dugmore on November 20, 1891 in Richmond, Surrey, England, he came from a theatrical family; his father was actor and opera singer W.H. Denny. In 1899, Master Reginald Denny began his stage career in A Royal Family and starred in several London productions from age seven to twelve. At sixteen, he ran away from a boarding school and trained as a pugilist with Sir Harry Preston at the National Sporting Club; he also appeared in several British stage productions touring the music halls of England The Merry Widow. In 1911, he went to the United States to appear in Henry B. Harris's stage production of The Quaker Girl, then joined the Bandmann Opera Company as a baritone touring India and the Far East India where he performed for Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV.
Although he worked in "flickers" during 1911 and 1912, Reginald officially began his film career in 1915 with the World Film Company and made films both in the United States and Britain until the 1960s. Among the numerous stage productions in which he starred, Reginald appeared in John Barrymore's 1920 Broadway production of Richard III; the two actors became friends and starred in several films together including Sherlock Holmes, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Paramount's Bulldog Drummond Series.
Denny was a well-known actor in silent films and with the advent of talkies, he became a character actor. He played the lead role in a number of his earlier films, generally as a comedic Englishman in such works as Private Lives and later had reasonably steady work as a supporting actor in dozens of films, including The Little Minister with Katharine Hepburn, Anna Karenina with Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca and the Frank Sinatra crime caper film Assault on a Queen. He made frequent appearances in television during the 1950s and 1960s. His last role was in Batman as Commodore Schmidlapp.

Aviation career

Denny served as an observer/gunner in the First World War in the new wartime Royal Air Force.
In the 1920s he performed as a stunt pilot with the 13 Black Cats and loaned his WWI Sopwith Snipe biplane to Howard Hughes for use in Hell's Angels. In the early 1930s, Denny became interested in radio controlled model aeroplanes. In 1934, he and oil tycoon Max Whittier's son, Paul Whittier, formed Reginald Denny Industries and opened a model plane shop, which became a chain known as the Reginald Denny Hobby Shop, now California Hobby Distributors.
He designed his "Dennyplane" with its signature model engine "Dennymite," developed by engineer Walter Righter, in addition to the "Denny Jr." which child actors would enter in model plane competitions at Mines Field, later known as Los Angeles International Airport. In 1935, Denny began developing his remote controlled "radioplane" for military use. In 1939, he and his partners won the first military US Army contract for their radio-controlled target drone, the OQ-2 Radioplane. In July 1940, they formed the Radioplane Company and manufactured nearly fifteen thousand drones for the US Army during the Second World War. The company was purchased by Northrop in 1952.
Marilyn Monroe was discovered working as an assembler at Radioplane. A photographer assigned by Denny's friend, Army publicist Captain Ronald Reagan, took several shots and persuaded her to work as a model, which was the beginning of her career.

Death

Denny died on 16 June 1967 at the age of 75, after suffering a stroke whilst visiting his home town of Richmond in England. His body was buried at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Pucci, Kimberly Prince of Drones: The Reginald Denny Story October 2019

Personal life

Denny married actress Irene Hilda Haismann on 28 Jan 1913 in Calcutta, both were with the Bandmann Opera Company. They had one daughter but were divorced in 1928.
Denny married actress Isabelle "Betsy Lee" Stiefel in 1928 and they had three children. Denny died on 16 June 1967 aged 75 while visiting his sister in Richmond. His wife Isabelle died in 1996 aged 89.

Partial filmography

Silent