Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
When Richard Todd played the part of Major John Howard in the 1962 epic
The Longest Day, he was reliving his own wartime experiences as one of the first British officers to parachute into Normandy on D-Day to capture Pegasus Bridge. Todd was a member of the British 6th Airborne Division, serving with the Parachute Regiment until 1946. He was not the only well-known British actor to have fought in the war and whose wartime experiences are detailed in the highly entertaining
From the Battlefield to the Big Screen.
Among the many familiar figures of TV and cinema who fought for their country are Sir Dirk Bogarde, who arrived at a secret location in Normandy just after D-Day to carry out vital aerial photographic interpretation exercises with the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Audie Murphy, who lied about his age to enlist after the attack on Pearl Harbor and went on to become America's most decorated soldier of the war. Talfryn Thomas, who played Private Cheeseman in Dads' Army, was a rear gunner in Lancasters and took part in many bombing raids over Germany, being the sole survivor when his aircraft crashed.
We have all admired the stars for the pleasure they have brought to our lives, but the true stories of these people we know so well are far more evocative than any part they played on the silver screen.
Synopsis
Look closely behind the lives of the stars who appeared in a host of legendary war films and discover how memories of their real-life experiences in the armed forces were haunted with heartbreak and yet filled with extraordinary heroism. Just what did America's most decorated soldier Audie Murphy go through in battle which led him to star as himself in the classic war film, To Hell and Back?
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Murphy joined the US Army aged just 17. He went on to fight at Anzio, the Colmar Pocket, and Nuremberg. And for single-handedly holding off an enemy attack he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. But Murphy's military and celebrity stardom did little to extinguish the pain of his private battle to fit in to a new post-war world he perceived as disappointing, shallow and unfulfilling. Tormented by PTSD Murphy was a man unable to escape from his past. Only the great director and decorated wartime documentary maker John Huston gained Murphy's true respect.
When war broke out on 3 September 1939, a number of British stars, including Laurence Olivier, his future wife Vivien Leigh, and David Niven, were in the United States under contract to the Hollywood Studios. Keen not to 'shirk their duties at home', and against advice from the British Consul, they made their way back to Blighty.
Olivier joined the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm as a pilot. Then with Churchill's approval he directed and starred in powerful propaganda films, including Shakespeare's Henry V. In 1943 the beautiful Vivien Leigh ruined her health by enduring the brutalities of the North African climate to entertain the troops in the desert. Meantime, Dirk Bogarde was a British Army intelligence officer seconded to the pioneering RAF Medmenham where he studied aerial photographs and pinpointed enemy targets for Bomber Command. As Lieutenant van den Bogaerde he was posted to France just after D-Day. He went on to star in many leading war films such as Appointment in London (1953) and King and Country (1964). Years later in 1991 Sir Dirk Bogarde was interviewed by the author of this book. He had witnessed the horrors of Belsen in April 1945 and said it changed his attitude to life forever.
In this book, the author honors the real-life stories of some big screen idols who showed true grit behind the glamor.