Dinah Sheridan

Trained at Italia Conti School, Dinah Sheridan was 12 when she received her first paying theatrical job as understudy for the juvenile lead in Where the Rainbow Ends. In 1936, 15-year-old Dinah was cast as the ingenue in the breezy film programmer Irish and Proud of It. Except for the two years spent in repertory in the early 1940s, she remained essentially a movie actress for the next three decades. Most fans regard Dinah's portrayal of Wendy McKim in the whimsical 1953 hit Genevieve as her best film work; it was also her last starring role for many years. Temporarily retiring from the screen in 1967 to concentrate on her family and to revitalize her stage career, Sheridan returned before the cameras in character parts in the early 1970s. In later years, she starred on the British TV series All Night Long and Don't Wait Up. Her husbands included J. Arthur Rank chairman Sir John Davis and actor Jimmy Hanley; the marriage to Hanley produced a daughter, actress Jenny Hanley, and a production company, Sheridan-Hanley Entertainment Ltd. Dinah Sheridan died at age 92 in late 2012.