Reginald Lawrence Knowles

 Reginald Lawrence Knowles (November 11, 1911 – December 23, 1995)

Born in Horsforth, West Riding of Yorkshire, he made his film debut in 1933, and played either first or second film leads throughout his career. He appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1970s. In his first American film, Give Me Your Heart (1936), released in Great Britain as Sweet Aloes, Knowles was cast as a titled Englishman of means. While making The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) at Lone Pine, California, he befriended Errol Flynn, whose acquaintance he had made in England when both were under contract to Warner Bros. at Teddington Studios. Since that film, in which Knowles played the part of Capt. Perry Vickers, the brother of Flynn's Maj. Geoffrey Vickers, he was cast more frequently as straitlaced characters alongside Flynn's flamboyant ones, notably as Will Scarlet in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). He was a freelance film actor from 1939 until his last film appearance in 1973. In the 1940s, he was known for playing protagonists in a number of horror films, including The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943). He was also cast as comic foils in a number of comedies such as Abbott and Costello's Who Done It? (1942) and Hit the Ice (1943), and as the leading man in romantic comedies like Lady in a Jam (1942), in which he co-starred with Irene Dunne.

His voice also appears uncredited in the Three Stooges film Punch Drunks (1934), as an announcer heard on a radio. He also appeared opposite Jack Kelly in a 1957 episode of the television series Maverick called "The Wrecker". Arguably one of his best film roles was also one of his last: his genial portrayal of the rancher John Tunstall in the John Wayne Western Chisum (1970). Knowles died at West Hills Hospital in West Hills, California on December 23, 1995, age 84.