Dinah Sheridan was considered the quintessential English rose. With an alertness, elegance and quiet beauty second to none, she won the hearts of war-torn England during WWII. Born Dinah Nadyejda Mec in Hampstead in 1920, her Russian father and German mother were photographers to the Royal Family, by appointment to both the Queen and Queen Mother. ...
Sheridan's original surname has been cited as both Mec and Ginsburg. Her father was born James Mec in 1893, but following the death of his father c 1915, James took the name of Ginsburg from his uncle Moshe Ginsburg. When Dinah was born in 1920 she was registered with that name. So either surname is relevant in Sheridan's origins.
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After spending many years in California, Dinah moved back to England after her husband, Aubrey Ison, passed away in 2007. [August 2007]
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She moved from London to the USA and lives now with her husband in San Bernadino, California. [August 2006]
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When she started acting, she decided that her surname Mec, pronounced "Mess", would give theatre reviewers too much ammunition, so she chose the stage name Sheridan by looking through the telephone directory.
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Dinah Sheridan (by then Mrs Dinah Davis) and her husband, Managing Director of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, Mr John Davis attended the opening on 28 November 1955 of the new Cecil Theatre (a.k.a. Cecil Cinema) in Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom. The original cinema, sited across the road from the new one, having been destroyed during World War II. During the opening ceremony Dinah Sheridan gave the cinema's Managing Director Mr Brinley Evans a black kitten for luck. Newsreel footage of the opening ceremony is now on the Internet (search for "Opening of the Cecil Theatre").
Sir John Davis, Managing Director of the Rank Organisation, proposed to Dinah on the condition that she give up acting. She accepted and retired just as stardom hit with the film Genevieve (1953). The strain of her lost career put too much of a strain on their marriage and they divorced 11 years later.
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She and actor Jimmy Hanley had three children, one died at birth.
$18 Million
