Esmond Knight

Active the London theatrical circles from 1925, British actor Esmond Knight first set foot on a movie sound stage with 1931's The Ringer. His career momentum was almost permanently interrupted in 1941, when, while serving with the Royal Navy, he was temporarily blinded in battle. He regained enough of his sight to resume his filmmaking activities in 1943, appearing in such productions as Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale (1944), Black Narcissus (1946) and The Red Shoes (1947), Olivier's Henry V (1945) and Richard III (1955), and Jean Renoir's The River (1951). In 1960, Knight co-starred in Sink the Bismarck (1960), a reenactment of the naval battle in which he'd been blinded 19 years earlier. Long married to actress Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight died in Egypt while filming The Balkan Trilogy. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide