Michael Denison

One of the finest exponents of the art of light comedy acting, Michael Denison enjoyed a highly successful career both on stage and screen. He and his wife, actress Dulcie Gray, appeared in over 100 West End shows and their marriage, which lasted nearly sixty years, was regarded as one of the happiest in British show business. Denison was born in Doncaster, the son of a paint manufacturer, and was brought up by aunt and her husband. He was educated at Harrow and Magdalen College, where he read modern languages. He trained for the stage at Webber Douglas School in London where he met and married Dulcie Gray in 1939. During World War Two, he served in the Royal Intelligence Corps and, by the time he had returned to the theatre, his wife was already a major film star in Britain. She secured him a role in the 1947 film My Brother Jonathan (1948). The following year, they appeared together in The Glass Mountain (1949), which became an international hit. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the couple were rarely off the West End stage where they attracted a loyal following. Denison appeared solo with great success in the TV series Boyd Q.C. (1956) (1956-63). He appeared on Broadway in Oscar Wilde's, "An Ideal Husband", and, shortly before he died, he and his wife appeared in a two-hander production "Curtain Up" in a London fringe theatre. Denison published two volumes of memoirs, "Overture and Beginners" (1973) and "Double Act" (1985). He also contributed many entries to the Dictionary of National Biography. He and Dulcie Gray were appointed CBE in 1983.