This Is Your Life: Ronald Shiner

Ronald SHINER (1903-1966)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Ronald Shiner, comedian and actor, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in the audience at the BBC Television Theatre, having been led to believe the subject was to be his friend, the London Evening News theatre critic Bill Boorne.

Ronald, who was born in London, spent two years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in his late teens before returning to the UK and enlisting with the Royal Corps of Signals, where he developed a taste for performing while taking part in army concerts. He made his stage debut in 1928, worked steadily in various West End theatre productions, and later appeared in several bit parts in numerous films.

He had considerable success in the West End plays Worm's Eye View in the late 1940s and Seagulls Over Sorrento in the early 1950s, while at the same time became a familiar face in post-war British films, playing cockney characters in such films as Reluctant Heroes, Aunt Clara and Innocents in Paris. In 1954 he became the landlord of a public house in Blackboys, Sussex.

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