The dashingly handsome Anthony Steel was the go-to hunk of choice in the 1950s, frequently voted one of the most popular British stars from 1952 to 1956.

Steel worked his way up in film, with uncredited appearances and small roles in the late 1940s and early 50s, including “Saraband for Dead Lovers” with Joan Greenwood, his first film, “Once Upon a Dream” with Googie Withers, “Don’t Ever Leave Me” with Barbara Murray, “Helter Skelter” with Mervyn Johns & Terry-Thomas, “The Blue Lamp” with Jack Warner & Dirk Bogarde, “The Mudlark” with Alec Guinness, “Laughter in Paradise” with Alastair Sim, Hugh Griffith, Joyce Grenfell, John Laurie, & Audrey Hepburn, “Another Man’s Poison” with Bette Davis, “Albert R.N.”, “The Planter’s Wife” with Jack Hawkins, and “Emergency Call” with Earl Cameron & Sid James.

By 1951, Steel headlined as the leading man in films “Where No Vultures Fly” (released as “Ivory Hunter” in the U.S.) with Dinah Sheridan & Meredith Edwards, “Something Money Can’t Buy”, “West of Zanzibar”, “Passage Home” with Diane Cilento, Gordon Jackson, & Patrick McGoohan, “Storm Over the Nile” with Laurence Harvey, Ian Carmichael, & Mary Ure, “Checkpoint” with Stanley Baker, “A Question of Adultery” with Donald Houston, “The Switch” with Zena Marshall, & appeared in the ensemble war film “The Sea Shall Not Have Them” with Michael Redgrave, Dirk Bogarde, Joan Sims, & Eddie Byrne.

One of his most memorable films is “Out of the Clouds” (with Eunice Gayson, Katie Johnson & James Robertson Justice), the charming story filmed on location at “London Airport”, now Heathrow. Opening at the Leicester Square Theatre on the 10th of Feb 1955, it’s wonderful to see the golden age of the jet set and Mid-century travel.

From 1956 to 1959, Steel was married to the iconic actress Anita Ekberg, known by many for the fountain scene in the Federico Fellini film “La Dolce Vita”.

As leading men roles in British cinema waned, Steel turned to German and Italian films including “La Fate” (known as “Sex Quartet” in the UK) with Monica Vitti, Claudia Cardinale, & Capucine, “Massacre in Rome” with Richard Burton, and 1977’s “Twilight of Love”, the final film in which Steel received top billing.