Michael Wilding

An epileptic seizure triggered Wilding’s fall down a long flight of stairs in 1979. The head injuries received in that fall proved fatal.

With five failed marriages between them, Wilding and Margaret Leighton allegedly had a difficult time finding someone to marry them in 1964. They were denied not only by their church, but by many justices of the peace in the Los Angeles area. Wilding finally convinced a local judge by bribing him with a hundred-dollar bill.

His best friend was the British actor Stewart Granger. The Wildings (Elizabeth Taylor) and the Grangers (Jean Simmons) were often seen on the town together in the 1950s.

Wilding moved to Hollywood and was featured in two of Alfred Hitchcock’s lesser efforts, Under Capricorn (1949) and Stage Fright (1950).

Separated from first wife Kay Young in December 1945, but the two did not divorce for another six years.

Though never a star of the first rank, he had leading roles in numerous films, including a part in the classic In Which We Serve (1942). Wilding often co-starred with Anna Neagle.

He gained employment in the art department of a film studio in London in 1933, and he was soon approached by producers to become a movie star-in-training due to his dashing good looks.

After debuting at age 21 in Bitter Sweet (1933), Wilding worked steadily in British pictures for nearly three decades.

Allegedly had a homosexual affair with playwright Noël Coward in the mid-1930s. In 1964, Wilding filed a $3 million libel suit against gossip columnist Hedda Hopper for implying that he was gay in her book, “The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth.” The suit was settled for $100,000.

Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England on July 23, 1912, Wilding became a commercial artist after leaving school.