More than 50 years after the death of one Britain’s most treasured big screen stars, his autobiography is being reissued.
Jack Hawkins shot to international fame in the post-war years for his roles in blockbusters such as The Cruel Sea, The Bridge over the River Kwai, and Lawrence of Arabia.
His remarkable story, Anything for a Quiet Life, became an instant best-seller on its release in the months following his death in 1973.
Jack’s son Andrew – himself a successful actor and writer – has now re-released the autobiography with fresh photographs and a new foreword.
Andrew said: “Though very popular on both sides of the Atlantic when it was first published in 1973, Anything for a Quiet Life has been out of print for 40 years.
“It continues to be a favoured read and changes hands on the internet as a second-hand book, where it gets multiple five-star reviews.
“Although it’s more than 50 years since my father died, there are no signs that his popularity is fading – there is a new generation who are discovering his films and want to know more about him.
“I feel my father’s story should be available, not only at an affordable price, but also as an e-book for a modern audience.”
Anything for a Quiet Life charts the early years of Jack Hawkins from his West End stage debut at the age of 13, first Broadway appearance at 18, and through his national service in India during World War II, before he became one of the most recognisable faces – and voices – of worldwide cinema in the 1950s.
While Anything for a Quiet Life reads like a who’s who of the silver screen, it is also a fascinating insight into the working life of what today would be described as an A-list celebrity.
From the late 1940s to the end of the 60s, Jack Hawkins appeared in some of the greatest films from the Golden Age of Cinema including Ben-Hur, Zulu, The Seekers, and The League of Gentlemen.
The deeply personal biography was written on and off in the years after Jack was diagnosed with throat cancer and had his entire larynx removed at the age of 55.
And it reveals his fears at losing his distinctive voice and place as one of the industry’s most in-demand actors.
Anything for a Quiet Life also features a deeply moving afterword by his widow – and Andrew’s mother – Doreen Hawkins, who describes Jack’s final weeks of treatment in New York and eventual death after returning to London.
Andrew continued: “Anything for a Quiet Life is my father’s work and clearly told in his own characteristic voice.
“The reprinting of it has enabled me to write a foreword, which I wanted to do to relate his career and life story to a contemporary context, taking some account of what has happened over the last 50 years.
“The book, as in the original, contains an afterword, written by my mother Doreen shortly after my father’s death, and this completes the book.
“Her moving and harrowing account of his rapid decline and death, following ill-advised surgery carried out in a New York hospital, ends the book that my father never had the opportune entirely to complete.”
Following this summer’s re-release of Anything for a Quiet Life, Andrew will embark on the reissue of his mother’s autobiography, Drury Lane to Dimapur.
Doreen’s fascinating story follows her own rise from amateur theatre to becoming a leading light on the stages across India and Burma to entertain the troops, where she was to meet her future husband, Jack Hawkins.
Andrew added: “My mother may not have been the household name that my father was, but her own story is a remarkable one.
“As with Anything for a Quiet Life, I am going to bring out my mother’s excellent memoir Drury Lane to Dimapur as an e-book, which is a kind of companion piece.”
Andrew has been working with PublishNation over the past few months on reissuing Anything for a Quiet Life to make his father’s autobiography available as both a paperback and e-book.
For more information, visit Amazon and search for Andrew Hawkins where the paperback and Kindle versions of Anything for a Quiet Life are available.