The Oldie, November, 2024

By Nathan Morley

In late1959, Jack Hawkins was a worried man.

Britain’s most famous stiff‐upper‐lip hero – and star of The Cruel Sea, Bridge on the River Kwai and Ben-Hur – was suffering from a persistent, vicious cough.

Across three decades, he’d appeared in nearly 50 films and countless stage shows — yet never clocked a single day sick.

However, as his cough worsened filming The League of Gentlemen in the spring of 1959, the cast witnessed some heart-wrenching moments as Jack grappled with his loss of voice.

Worse still, as John Woodvine revealed, Jack’s plans of making a much-vaunted return to the West End were hastily cancelled.

“It was to be Jack’s big return to the stage,” Woodvine told me in an interview for my new book, Jack Hawkins: A Biography.

“I was excited. It was also a great chance for me”. But, he said, he was unaware of the severity of the actor’s condition.

“The upshot was Hawkins never actually appeared. And of course, that was it.’’

Under a veil of silence—so as not to alarm potential employers—Hawkins then underwent cobalt treatment.

His voice was restored, but in a noticeably huskier monotone.

Should the cancer return, doctors warned, the removal of his vocal cords was the only option.

For a while, at least, everything seemed to be improving.

Jack’s family life continued happily. He returned to work and even resumed smoking.

Several well-received performances followed, including a superb portrayal General Edmund Allenby in Lawrence of Arabia, a film which saw him strike up a long-term friendship with Peter O’Toole.

Just three years after the cobalt treatment, Jack was in South Africa shooting Zulu. ‘Filming was tough,’ continuity assistant Muirne Mathieson, told me.

Muirne, the daughter of the famed musical director Muir Mathieson, remembers clearly how events played out.

“Jack had a problem with his throat which couldn’t have made his life easy”— it was not so much a problem as a preview of disasters to come.

In fact, his distress saw him consult a faith healer – a straw to clutch at – but even prayer couldn’t stop his voice finally fading ‘like a radio with a draining battery’ whilst filming a scene of the medical soap, Dr. Kildare.

Ironically, whilst giving a portrayal of a sick man, Jack uttered a mouthful of dialogue, then could muster little more than a croak.

He was devastated.

Prophetically—his last lines in Hollywood using his own voice were delivered on the set of Kildare.

In a tear-filled close-up, he said: ‘It was God’s will … never doubt that. Remember me as I am at this moment … please. Never have I felt so whole or so happy’.

Events in Tinseltown were a confirmation of something Jack instinctively knew —the cancer had returned. “We both knew the ultimate was facing us and that unless some miracle occurred, he would have to have his larynx removed,” his late wife Dee later recalled.

There was no miracle.

When it was all over, the surgery left a hole the size of a 50p coin in his throat and cut off communication between his throat and lungs. “I breathe through the hole in my throat,” Jack explained. “It is entirely different, and the sounds are different from normal talking.”

Remarkably, he was able to take small roles in a flock of forgettable offerings, including The Adventures of Gerard. The film’s star, Peter McEnery, was left agog when Hawkins turned up with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“I watched him smoking. He couldn’t draw on the cigarette because he was breathing through the hole in his throat and yet he still smoked,” McEnery told me. “It was about the whole motion of putting the cigarette to his lips.”

Though burpy-gulps were sufficient for delivering brief lines, Jack mimed longer parts. That was the case when he landed a role in Nicholas and Alexandra. Michael Jayston, playing Nicholas, remembered Jack struggling, trying to get out words.

“It was so moving; it was one of those few occasions that I got quite emotional about it,” Jayson told me last year. “I didn’t say anything afterwards. He had to do it about four or five times. It was just the effort that it took him … remarkable.”

Derren Nesbitt recalled some actors were uneasy watching Jack’s plight. During the shoot of Monte Carlo or Bust in the spring of 1968, Nesbitt – portraying his villainous sidekick – retained no one would sit with Jack at lunch. “That is, except me,” he revealed.

“I think the others were just uncomfortable. He was basically on his own with his ever-present cigarette in his own unassuming way … but I sat with him.”

The mechanics of sharing scenes were also a struggle. “You know, you speak but Jack doesn’t,” Nesbitt explained. “So, you don’t know what level to get to.”

To help, Jack developed a system. Sometimes he’d scratch his nose or brush a fly from his face. When the signal came, the other actor would start his lines.

For all that, though, Jack despised his lack of inflection and having to swallow air – or gulp – which ruined his timing.

Unsurprisingly, when he heard about a new artificial voice-box being developed in the United States, he wasted no time in finding out more.

The little instrument, weighing just 3 ounces, was invented by Dr. Stanley Taub and promised the immediate restoration of ‘effortless speech’ for a person whose larynx, or voice box, had been removed in surgery.

On impulse, Jack flew to New York to meet Taub.

“It was all very sudden,” Taub told me in a recent interview. “I had dinner with Jack as soon as he arrived. He was very excited.”

To install the instrument – known as a VoiceBak – Taub would cut a second opening through the side of Jack’s neck into the esophagus, leading to the stomach.

The instrument would then be fitted and removed before sleeping. But with just ten operations having been conducted, it was still considered an experimental procedure.

“Despite any fears, Jack was admitted to the hospital and proceeded to get prepared for surgical procedure,” Taub continued.

However, things did not go smoothly.

“He got an infection in the flap that was put into the neck area. And he had a carotid leak because the vessels were near the area where we were operating on, they are next to the esophagus,” Taub said.

Remarkably, despite abandoning the procedure, Taub fixed the device on Jack during the healing phase.

“I hooked him up to the VoiceBak and he spoke! My God, it was so clear but a little on the gruff side. And he heard himself talk—he was saying something from Shakespeare—it was really quite thrilling to hear him talk. Here was Jack Hawkins … talking! It was emotional for all of us.”

Soon after, Jack returned to England, dreams of regaining his voice shattered.

The neck wound never healed. Not long after, he was rushed to St Stephens after blood began spurting from his throat. The ‘long tale of horror’, as his wife Doreen described it, ended on 18 July 1973.

He was sixty-two years old. “There is nothing worse than losing a patient,” Taub said. By this point, he was holidaying on a Greek island when he heard the news. Distraught, he borrowed a blade and a hammer and chiseling his Jack’s name on a rock.

“It was like a war experience for me. I had post traumatic syndrome—it bothered me for many years afterwards what happened to Jack. I think about that, and I get instantly depressed.”

Back in London, Peter O’Toole was also inconsolable, saying Jack had been warned how dangerous the operation was.

“He put everything on one throw and lost. But the compromise he’d had to live with for the last decade of his life was simply not enough for him. He wanted a full life again for himself and for his family. That was enough for him to take the ultimate gamble.”