10 More War Movie Actors Who Were Actually There
9. Basil Rathbone - The Dawn Patrol (1938)
Basil Rathbone is the definitive Hollywood swordsman, cementing himself into film folklore with his performance as Guy of Gisbourne in the Errol Flynn-led Adventures of Robin Hood. Rathbone would further flex his fencing techniques in films such as The Mark of Zorro as well as the perenially under-appreciated comedy masterpiece, The Court Jester, in which he starred opposite Danny Kaye. Rathbone's skill with a sword was more than just simple Hollywood theatrics, however - he had been a champion fencer during his service in the British Army, which occurred during the devasting First World War.
Rathbone's wartime exploits are typical of the harrowing conditions present on the battlefields of France during WWI, with the actor's brother, John, having been killed in 1918. Rathbone himself saw fierce combat with the Liverpool Scottish regiment from 1917 onward, having enlisted the previous year. His wartime experiences, like many soldiers of the war, have been preserved thanks to his own personal correspondence (and are well worth reading in full). The actor discusses life in the trenches candidly, recounting the squalid conditions present as well as the warmth and appreciation for his comrades in arms and his family. Later letters are more anguished, with Rathbone reeling over the death of his brother:
"I have been seething. I was so certain it would be me first of either of us. I’m even sure it was supposed to be me and he somehow contrived in his wretched Johnny-fashion to get in my way just as he always would when he was small. I want to tell him to mind his place. I think of his ridiculous belief that everything would always be well, his ever-hopeful smile, and I want to cuff him for a little fool. He had no business to let it happen and it maddens me that I shall never be able to tell him so, or change it or bring him back. I can’t think of him without being consumed with anger at him for being dead and beyond anything I can do to him."
Following John's death, Rathbone began volunteering for more dangerous patrols, conducting reconnaissance in camouflage during the day rather than at night time - which was not standard procedure, and ended up earning him a Military Cross. He would come to describe his years in France as a "long, terrible dream... there was no past or future."
After the armistice of 1918, Rathbone's career as an actor began to take off, starring first on the stage before making the move to Hollywood, where he successfully also navigated the transition from silent films to the talkie era. Of these films, he starred in only one set during WWI, a 1938 remake of Howard Hawks' The Dawn Patrol directed by Edmund Goulding, which focused on Royal Flying Corps pilots who fought over the battlefields of France.