George Devine

George Alexander Cassady Devine CBE was an English theatrical manager, director, teacher and actor based in London from the early 1930s until his death. He also worked in TV and film.

Devine was born in Hendon, London. His father, Georgios Devine, a clerk in Martins Bank, was the son of an Irish father and a Greek mother, and his mother, Ruth Eleanor Cassady, came from Vancouver, Canada. His mother became mentally unstable after Devines birth, and his parents marriage, deeply unhappy throughout his early childhood, had broken down by the time he was in his early teens. At this time he was sent to Clayesmore School, an independent boys boarding school founded by his uncle Alexander Devine, known as Lex, who took his nephew under his wing and hoped that he would take over the running of the school. In 1929 Devine went up to Oxford University to read for a degree in history at Wadham College. It was at Oxford that his interest in theatre, which had begun at school, came to fruition, and in 1931 he became the President of the prestigious Oxford University Dramatic Society, or OUDS. In early 1932, he invited the young actor John Gielgud to direct a production of Romeo an

Source: Wikipedia