 One of the most influential and unpopular figures in the British film industry, who rescued the Rank Organisation from financial chaos in the late '40s but, in doing so, led such film-makers as David Lean to look elsewhere. Born in London in 1906 and educated at the City of London School and a member of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries, he was secretary to several companies before joining Odeon Theatres in 1938 as accountant and later as managing director. He met J.Arthur Rank in 1938 and retained a lifelong admiration for him, becoming managing director of the Rank companies, which embraced production, distribution and exhibition, in the late '40s. He was largely responsible for moving Rank's production activities wholly to Pinewood, and for the collapse of Independent Producers, the creative umbrella Rank had erected over some major talents in the '40s. He appointed the American Earl St John as Executive Producer at Pinewood and some would argue created an ensuing homogenisation of the product. Davis was the director of numerous companies associated with Rank, but always disclaimed - disingenuously perhaps - any wish to interfere in the creative aspects of film-making. He famously advocated clean 'family films' without, apparently, noticing in the '50s that television, which he disdained, was catering for this market. He was married to and divorced from actress Dinah Sheridan. Bibliography
Geoffrey MacNab, J. Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry, 1993
Charles Drazin, The Finest Years: British Cinema of the 1940s, 1998. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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FILM & TV CREDITS
