William Inglis Lindon Travers[1]MBE (3 January 1922 – 29 March 1994) was a British actor, screenwriter, director and animal rights activist. Before his show business career, he served in the British Army with Gurkha and special forces units.
Early life
Travers was born in the suburb of Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham, England,[2] the son of Florence (née Wheatley) and William Halton Lindon-Travers,[1] a theatre manager.[2] His sister Linden (1913–2001) and her daughter Susan became actresses.
Military service
Major Bill Travers MBE
Travers enlisted as a private in the British Army at the age of 18, a few months after the outbreak of the Second World War, and was sent to India then under British Raj rule. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the British Indian Army on 9 July 1942.[3] He was promoted war-substantive lieutenant on 7 January 1943 and to acting major on 20 September 1944.[3]
He served in the Long Range Penetration Brigade 4th Battalion 9th Gorkha Rifles in Burma, attached to Orde Wingate's staff, during which he came to know John Masters, his brigade major. (Travers later acted in the film Bhowani Junction, written by Masters.) While deep behind enemy lines, he contracted malaria and volunteered to be left behind in a native Burmese village. To avoid capture, he disguised himself as a Chinese national and walked hundreds of miles through jungle territory until he reached an Allied position. He later joined Force 136Special Operations Executive and was parachuted into Malaya. He was responsible for training and tactical decisions with the main resistance movement, the communist-led Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). On 20 December 1944, he was promoted war-substantive captain and temporary major.[3]
Travers was one of the first allied operatives to enter the Japanese city of Hiroshima after the dropping of the atomic bomb. He wrote about his experience in his diary, registering profound horror at the destruction and loss of life. On 7 November 1946, Travers was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) "in recognition of gallant and distinguished service whilst engaged in Special Operations in South East Asia".[4] He left the armed forces in 1947.[2]
Travers's breakthrough came when he was cast in the title role of Geordie (1955),[2] directed by Frank Launder. This was popular in Britain and the US and saw him contracted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which thought he was going to be a big star and brought him to Hollywood.[11]
Back in Hollywood, he was Eleanor Parker's character's love interest in The Seventh Sin (1957), a remake of a Greta Garbo film.[11] MGM tested him for the lead in Ben-Hur (1959)[15] and he wrote a swashbuckler to star himself, The Falcon.[16] However his MGM films all performed disappointingly at the box office – Barretts and Seventh Sign were notable flops – and enthusiasm for Travers in Hollywood cooled.[11]
Travers returned to the UK in March 1957 to attend to divorce proceedings and marry Virginia McKenna after which he went back to America in October, for "A Cook for Mr. General" for Kraft Theatre (1958) on TV.
Return to Britain
Travers and McKenna starred in a melodrama for the Rank Organisation, Passionate Summer (1958).[17] He tried to get up a war film set in Greenland, The Sledge Patrol, but it does not appear to have been made.[18] He and Launder tried to repeat the success of Geordie with The Bridal Path (1960), but the film was not a success.[19]
He was in a Broadway production of A Cook for Mr General (1961).[21][22] Travers starred in a TV adaptation of Lorna Doone (1963).[23][24] He returned to Hollywood to do some episodes of The Everglades, Rawhide ("Incident at Two Graves") and Espionage ("A Camel to Ride"). Back on Broadway he played the title role in Abraham Cochrane which had a short run.[25]
Born Free
His most famous film role was that of game warden George Adamson in the highly successful 1966 film Born Free, about which experience the two co-wrote the book On Playing with Lions. He co-starred with McKenna and the experience made him and his wife conscious of the many abuses of wild animals in captivity that had been taken from Africa and other natural environments around the world.[2]
Travers received an offer to play a support role in Duel at Diablo (1967); during filming he broke a leg and dislocated a shoulder.[26] He played the title role in a British TV version of The Admirable Crichton (1968), alongside his wife, and had a small part in Peter Hall's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968).[6]
Documentaries
Travers teamed up with James Hill, the director of Born Free, to make the documentary, The Lions Are Free (1969), which both men directed.[27][28]
Travers and McKenna made another "animal movie", Ring of Bright Water (1969) for which he also wrote the script.[29] They followed this with An Elephant Called Slowly (1970), which Travers helped write and produce with James Hill, who directed. In 1969, he played Captain Hook on a stage production of Peter Pan.[30]
He was reunited with James Hill on The Belstone Fox (1973) and co-wrote a documentary, "The Wild Dogs of Africa", for The World About Us (1973).[33][34] He later produced "The Baboons of Gombe" (1975) for the same show.[6]
He and Hill wrote and produced The Queen's Garden (1977) together, and Travers helped produce Bloody Ivory (1980).[35][36]
One of his last credits was "Highland Fling" on Lovejoy (1992).[39]
Animal rights campaigner
The importance of animal rights led to Travers and his wife becoming involved in the "Zoo Check Campaign" in 1984 that evolved to their establishing the Born Free Foundation in 1991.[40]
Travers spent his last three years travelling around Europe's slum zoos and a TV documentary that he made exposed the appalling suffering of thousands of animals.
^"Bill travers weds actress". The New York Times. 20 September 1957. ProQuest114348031. Library login required
^Louella Parsons (1 November 1955). "Jeff Chandler? He's The Busiest, Now". The Washington Post and Times-Herald.
^E. Schallert (31 January 1957). "Travers scripts own starring film; 'million dollar answer' slated". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest167022075. Library login required
