Reginald Denny (actor)

Born as Reginald Leigh Dugmore on 20 November 1891 in Richmond, Surrey, England, he came from a theatrical family; his father was actor and opera singer W.H. Denny. In 1899, Master Reginald Denny began his stage career in A Royal Family and starred in several London productions from age seven to twelve. At sixteen, he ran away from a boarding school and trained as a pugilist with Sir Harry Preston at the National Sporting Club; he also appeared in several British stage productions touring the music halls of England of The Merry Widow. In 1911, he went to the United States to appear in Henry B. Harris's stage production of The Quaker Girl, then joined the Bandmann Opera Company as a baritone touring India and the Far East India where he performed for Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV.

Although he worked in "flickers" during 1911 and 1912, Reginald officially began his film career in 1915 with the World Film Company and made films both in the United States and Britain until the 1960s. Among the numerous stage productions in which he starred, Reginald appeared in John Barrymore's 1920 Broadway production of Richard III; the two actors became friends and starred in several films together including Sherlock Holmes (1922), Hamlet (1933), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Paramount's Bulldog Drummond series (1937-1938).

Denny and his daughter in 1922

Denny was a well-known actor in silent films, and with the advent of talkies he became a character actor. He played the lead role in a number of his earlier films, generally as a comedic Englishman in such works as Private Lives (1931) and later had reasonably steady work as a supporting actor in dozens of films, including The Little Minister (1934) with Katharine Hepburn, Anna Karenina (1935) with Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) and the Frank Sinatra crime caper film Assault on a Queen (1966). He made frequent appearances in television during the 1950s and 1960s. His last role was in Batman (1966) as Commodore Schmidlapp. In 2020, Kino Lorber released 4K restorations on DVD and Blu-ray of three of Denny's silent comedies: The Reckless Age, Skinner’s Dress Suit, and What Happened to Jones? in The Reginald Denny Collection. [1]

Denny, 1918

Denny served as an observer/gunner in the First World War in the new wartime Royal Air Force.[2]

In the 1920s he performed as a stunt pilot with the 13 Black Cats and loaned his WWI Sopwith Snipe biplane to Howard Hughes for use in Hell's Angels (1927). In the early 1930s, Denny became interested in free-flight model airplanes. In 1934, he and oil tycoon Max Whittier's son, Paul Whittier, formed Reginald Denny Industries and opened a model plane shop, which became a chain known as the Reginald Denny Hobby Shop, now California Hobby Distributors.

He designed his "Dennyplane" with its signature model engine "Dennymite," developed by engineer Walter Righter, in addition to the "Denny Jr." which child actors would enter in model plane competitions at Mines Field, later known as Los Angeles International Airport. In 1935, Denny began developing his remote controlled "radioplane" for military use. In 1939, he and his partners won the first military US Army contract for their radio-controlled target drone, the OQ-2 Radioplane. In July 1940, they formed the Radioplane Company and manufactured nearly fifteen thousand drones for the US Army during the Second World War. The company was purchased by Northrop in 1952.[3][4]

Marilyn Monroe was discovered working as an assembler at Radioplane. A photographer assigned by Denny's friend, Army publicist (and future US President) Captain Ronald Reagan, took several shots and persuaded her to work as a model, which was the beginning of her career.[5][6]

Denny had a great deal in common with Robert Loraine, an older actor / Airman. They had been in a West End production together in 1902 in London and were both still flying and making films in Hollywood in the 1930s. It is possible that Denny's interest in radio controlled aircraft was influenced by his old RFC colleagues and the British unmanned aircraft developments.

Denny married actress Irene Hilda Haismann on 28 January 1913 in Calcutta, both were with the Bandmann Opera Company. They had one daughter but were divorced in 1928. Denny married actress Isabelle "Betsy Lee" Stiefel in 1928 and they had three children.

Denny died on 16 June 1967 at the age of 75, after suffering a stroke whilst visiting his sister in his home town of Richmond in England. His body was buried at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.[7][8] His wife Isabelle survived him until 1996, living to age 89.

• Prince of Drones: The Reginald Denny Story by Kimberly Pucci (Bearmanor Media, 2019)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Reginald Denny (actor).

• Reginald Denny at IMDb
• Reginald Denny at the Internet Broadway Database
• Photographs and literature
• Reginald Denny at Find a Grave
• Archive.org cache of UAV history site showing the Radioplane