Robert Dorning(1913-1989)

He said, that the reason he became an actor was that he was hopeless in school and only did well in the school productions of Gilbert and Sullivan light operas. His parents would have preferred him to have become a painter and decorator or a bank clerk, anything solid, but not an actor. He had always enjoyed music at school and when he was at drama school he became a violinist and saxophone player with many dance bands in his home town of Liverpool. He said, that he became a ballet dancer due to wanting to see what an audition was like and wound up getting a job dancing with the Anton Dolin/ Alicia Markova company for three years, during which he became a principle dancer.