ريجينالد ديني (ممثل)

ريجينالد لي دوغمور (20 نوفمبر 1891 - 16 يونيو 1967)، المعروف مهنياً باسم ريجينالد ديني ، كان ممثلاً إنجليزياً وطياراً ورائداً في مجال الطائرات بدون طيار . 

ولد ريجينالد لي دوغمور في 20 نوفمبر 1891 في ريتشموند ، ساري ، إنجلترا (جزء من لندن الكبرى منذ عام 1965)، وكان ينتمي إلى عائلة مسرحية؛ وكان والده الممثل ومغني الأوبرا دبليو إتش ديني .

في عام ١٨٩٩، بدأ مسيرته المسرحية في مسرحية "عائلة ملكية" ، وشارك في العديد من العروض المسرحية في لندن من سن السابعة إلى الثانية عشرة. التحق بكلية سانت فرانسيس كزافييه في مايفيلد، ساسكس، والتي عُرفت لاحقًا باسم كلية مايفيلد ، لكنه في سن السادسة عشرة هرب من المدرسة ليتدرب على الملاكمة مع السير هاري بريستون في النادي الرياضي الوطني . كما شارك في العديد من العروض المسرحية البريطانية، حيث جاب قاعات الموسيقى في إنجلترا بمسرحية " الأرملة المرحة" .

في عام 1911، ذهب إلى الولايات المتحدة ليظهر في إنتاج هنري ب. هاريس المسرحي لمسرحية الفتاة الكويكرية ، ثم انضم إلى فرقة باندمان للأوبرا كمغني باريتون، وقام بجولة في الهند والشرق الأقصى الهندي حيث قدم عروضاً لكريشنا راجا واديار الرابع .

على الرغم من عمله في أفلام قصيرة خلال عامي 1911 و1912، بدأ ريجينالد مسيرته السينمائية رسميًا عام 1915 مع شركة وورلد فيلم ، وقدّم أفلامًا في كل من الولايات المتحدة وبريطانيا حتى ستينيات القرن العشرين. ومن بين العديد من الأعمال المسرحية التي قام ببطولتها، ظهر ريجينالد في إنتاج جون باريمور لمسرحية ريتشارد الثالث على مسارح برودواي عام 1920 ؛ وأصبح الممثلان صديقين، وشاركا في بطولة العديد من الأفلام معًا، بما في ذلك شرلوك هولمز (1922) ، وهاملت (1933)، وروميو وجولييت (1936) ، وسلسلة بولدوغ دروموند من إنتاج باراماونت (1937-1938).

Denny was a well-known actor in silent films, and with the advent of talkies he became a character actor. He played the lead role in a number of his earlier films, generally as a comedic Englishman in such works as Private Lives (1931) and later had reasonably steady work as a supporting actor in dozens of films, including The Little Minister (1934) with Katharine Hepburn, Anna Karenina (1935) with Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) and the Frank Sinatra crime caper film Assault on a Queen (1966). He made frequent appearances in television during the 1950s and 1960s. His last role was in Batman (1966) as Commodore Schmidlapp. In 2020, Kino Lorber released 4K restorations on DVD and Blu-ray of three of Denny's silent comedies: The Reckless Age, Skinner's Dress Suit, and What Happened to Jones? in The Reginald Denny Collection.^[1]

Denny served as an observer/gunner during the First World War in the new wartime Royal Air Force.^[2]

In the 1920s he performed as a stunt pilot with the 13 Black Cats aerial stunt team and loaned his World War I Sopwith Snipe biplane to Howard Hughes for use in Hell's Angels (1927). In the early 1930s, Denny became interested in free-flight model airplanes. In 1934, he and oil tycoon Max Whittier's son, Paul Whittier, formed Reginald Denny Industries and opened a model plane shop, which became a chain known as the Reginald Denny Hobby Shop, now California Hobby Distributors.

He designed his "Dennyplane" with its signature model engine "Dennymite" developed by engineer Walter Righter, in addition to the "Denny Jr." which child actors would enter in model plane competitions at Mines Field, which later became Los Angeles International Airport.

Denny had a great deal in common with Robert Loraine, an older actor/airman. They had been in a West End production together in 1902 in London,^[3] they were both veterans of the RFC (and its successor, the Royal Air Force) and were both flying and making films in Hollywood in the 1930s. Each of them visited their close relatives in the same area of London. At Loraine's wedding in 1921, his best man was an Air-Commodore who had been in charge of the RFC radio control weapons and developed the first powered drone aircraft. Denny became interested in radio controlled aircraft and started the first US military drone work at the start of WWII.

In 1935, Denny began developing his remote controlled "radioplane" for military use. In 1939, he and his partners won the first military United States Army Air Corps contract for their radio-controlled target drone, the Radioplane OQ-2. In July 1940, they formed the Radioplane Company and manufactured nearly fifteen thousand drones for the U.S. Army during the Second World War. It was here that he employed a teenage girl by the name of Norma Jeane Mortensen (later known as Marilyn Monroe) who is recorded as having said it was "the hardest work I ever had to do".^[4] The company was purchased by Northrop in 1952.^[5][6]

Reginald Denny's Hobby Shop, began selling his models, in 1935, on Hollywood Boulevard.^[7]

Denny married actress Irene Hilda Haismann on 28 January 1913 in Calcutta; both were with the Bandmann Opera Company. They had one daughter but were divorced in 1928. Denny married actress Isabelle "Bubbles" Stiefel in 1928 and they had two children.^[8][9]

Denny died on 16 June 1967, aged 75, after suffering a stroke whilst visiting his sister in his home town of Richmond, England. He was interred at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.^[10][11] His three children and wife Isabelle (died 1996, aged 89) survived him.^[9][12]

• أمير الطائرات بدون طيار: قصة ريجينالد ديني بقلم كيمبرلي بوتشي (دار بيرمانور ميديا، 2019)
• ريجينالد ديني على موقع IMDb
• ريجينالد ديني في قاعدة بيانات برودواي على الإنترنت
• الصور الفوتوغرافية والمطبوعات
• ريجينالد ديني في موقع Find a Grave
• أرشيف موقع Archive.org يحتوي على نسخة مخزنة من موقع تاريخ الطائرات بدون طيار، يعرض طائرة الراديو