DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JNRDouglas Fairbanks Jr , who died on May 7 2000, was a debonair actor who became a real-life war hero as well as a cinema heart-throb.Mr Fairbanks inherited one of the most famous names in film history, married Joan Crawford when he was a teenager, had affairs with Marlene Dietrich and Gertrude Lawrence, appeared in 80 films, was decorated for his war service, and was a successful businessman too.His father, Douglas Fairbanks, was one of the most colourful of the cinema pioneers and the family became the nearest Hollywood had to royalty.And Mr Fairbanks mixed with real royalty, entertaining the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh at dinner. He was also friend of Lord Mountbatten, under whom he served in the Second World War.Douglas Elton Fairbanks was born on 9 December, 1909 in New York, son of the silent screen actor Douglas Fairbanks and his wife Anna Beth Sully, of Rhode Island.A young Mr Fairbainks was one of the few boys to attend the Hollywood School for Girls. He then attended Bovee School, Pasadena Polytechnic, Harvard Military Academy and the Collegiate Military School in New York.Despite his military education, he intended to be an artist, studying in London and Paris — and definitely not an actor.However, he accepted in 1923 when Paramount offered him a part in a film called Stephen Steps Out. Three years later, he irked his father when he sported a moustache in Stella Dallas. Doug Sr said: “Remember I’m still in pictures. Don’t make Junior look too old.”In 1929 a young Mr Fairbanks married one of the most glamorous stars of the era, Joan Crawford, and his career took off big time. The next year the he starred in Dawn Patrol and then in Little Caesar, with Edward G Robinson.His greatest role came in 1937 as the despicable Rupert of Hentzau opposite Ronald Colman in The Prisoner of Zenda. He was auditioned for Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939), but the role went to Sir Laurence Olivier.During the Second World War, Mr Fairbanks rose to lieutenant-commander in the US Navy and took part in a number of combined Anglo-American operations, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by the British government. Serving under Earl Mountbatten of Burma, he became the first American officer to command a British flotilla of raiding craft during a commando operation.In 1949 he was awarded an honorary knighthood for helping to foster “Anglo-American amity”.Mr Fairbanks retired from the cinema in 1950s to pursue business interests including hotels, mining and property development. About that time he moved to London with his second wife Mary Lee Hartford (his marriage to Crawford ended in 1933).However, television was a draw and after Mr Fairbanks moved London took good advantage of the medium with the series Douglas Fairbanks Presents, which ran five years from 1953. He also made a number of television films but was becoming more famous for his image as an ersatz English gentleman.In old age Mr Fairbanks published two of memoirs, The Salad Days and A Hell of a War but remained modest about his successes. “My own greatest virtue is that I never deceived myself,” he said in his eighties. “I became more reclusive than most people in the business because I was able to recognise the frills and furbelows for what they were.”His second wife, by whom he had three daughters, died in 1988 and he married Vera Shelton in 1991.
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