Born in East Sheen, Surrey, and educated at Willington Preparatory and Westminster School, Esmond Knight entered the theatrical world in the 1920s, gaining notice as Rosencrantz in John Gielgud’s 1930 Hamlet and later leading as Johann Strauss in Alfred Hitchcock’s Waltzes from Vienna (1934). He appeared in early sound pictures such as Romany Love (1931) and The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933),…
