Patric Knowles

Fourteen-year-old Reginald Lawrence Knowles was being readied to take his place with other relatives in the family bookbinding business (in Leeds) when he ran off to become an actor. He was inevitably brought back home, but he made good his second escape a few years later - his willful Knowles Yorkshire origin would not be denied. What stage experience he had amounted to a few seasons in regional theater, but he started in British sound films early (1932), calling himself Patric Knowles. He was the proverbial tall, dark and handsome type and headed for romantic lead roles. He rose slowly rose up the ranks of featured players in an array of 14 British films that included one of director Michael Powell's early successes, The Girl in the Crowd (1935). The last of his British efforts was Crown v. Stevens (1936) which, being a British Warner Bros. production, was scouted for the studio's Hollywood home base. This and a few previous films that year were lead vehicles for Knowles, and for this last he was recommended for a Hollywood contract. His first American effort was the big-screen soap opera Sweet Aloes (1936) with notable Warner players, in which he played a noble cad. His chance for a more romantic introduction came later in the year with The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), where he joined an already popular new Angle face, Errol Flynn. Knowles played his younger brother in this well received bit of revisionist historical drama.