Jack Bentley

John Alexander Bentley (29 April 1913 – 22 April 1994) was an English trombonist, journalist, and scriptwriter. He played trombone as part of the brass section of Jack Hylton's Orchestra and Ted Heath's big band from 1937 until the mid-1950s before becoming the show business editor of the Sunday Mirror newspaper. He was married to actress Wendy Craig from 1955 until his death.

Biography Bentley was born in Manchester in 1913 to John and Flora Bentley. He was baptised at Stowell Memorial Church in Salford on 8 June 1913.

Bentley's father had taught him to play cello but, when he joined the Army as a musician at the age of fourteen and studied at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, Twickenham he specialised on trombone. They were joined by Coleman Hawkins in 1939. With the declaration of World War II, he rejoined the Army in autumn 1939 becoming a member of the Band of the Irish Guards. and then for Jack Payne and Jack Jackson successively in 1941. Although he left the band in 1950 to compose and write scripts,

On 27 March 1959, he appeared in an episode of the TV talent show Find the singer and he also played himself in the film Just for Fun (1963).

He became show-business editor of the Sunday Mirror writing theatre reviews running from Hamlet to Oh! Calcutta!, reviewed films, and reported on the music business. His show business column broke high-profile stories such as Jane Asher's 1965 confirmation of rumours that she was going to marry Paul McCartney, Sean Connery's announcement that he was quitting James Bond, and a revealing interview with Mick Jagger on 17 September 1967. He was described as the newspaper's film critic in 1967 His columns, which appeared as 'The Jack Bentley Page' and reported as far away as Australia. He retired in 1978 at the age of 65.

He died of prostate cancer

Bentley married actress Wendy Craig in Chelsea, London in 1955. She was more than twenty years his junior. They had two sons, Alaster (later principal oboist for the Birmingham Royal Ballet Sinfonia) Craig ended the affair when her husband learned of it, and Penelope Mortimer used aspects of the story in her 1962 novel The Pumpkin Eater. Bentley agreed to bring up the boy as his own and Ross was told the identity of his biological father when he was old enough to understand. In the film adaptation of The Pumpkin Eater (1964), the character based on Bentley (John Conway) was played by James Mason.