Editing Nigel Hawthorne (section)

==Early life==
Hawthorne was born on 5 April 1929 in [[Coventry]], [[Warwickshire]] (now [[West Midlands (county)|West Midlands]]), the second of four children of Agnes Rosemary (née Rice) and Charles Barnard Hawthorne, a physician.<ref>[http://www.filmreference.com/film/47/Nigel-Hawthorne.html "Nigel Hawthorne Biography],  FilmReference.com. Retrieved 18 August 2009.</ref>

When Hawthorne was 3 years old, the family moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where his father had bought a practice. Initially they lived in [[Gardens, Cape Town|Gardens]] and then moved to a newly built house near [[Camps Bay]].<ref name=riley>Kathleen Riley (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=ucs-FWpTjp8C ''Nigel Hawthorne on Stage''], University of Hertfordshire Press, Hatfield; {{ISBN|978-1-90280-629-7}}</ref>

He attended [[St. George's Grammar School (Cape Town)|St George's Grammar School]], [[Cape Town]], and, although the family was not Catholic, at a now-defunct [[List of Christian Brothers schools|Christian Brothers College]],<ref name="TCM">[http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?spid=83138&apid=0 Biography for Nigel Hawthorne]{{dead link|date=April 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, TCM.com. Retrieved 18 August 2009.</ref> where he played in the rugby team.<ref name="green">Michael Green (2004) ''Around and About: Memoires of a South African Newspaperman'', David Philip Publishers, Cape Town; {{ISBN|0-86486-660-7}}</ref> He described his time at the latter as not being a particularly happy experience.<ref name="riley" />

He enrolled at the [[University of Cape Town]], where he met and sometimes acted in plays with [[Theo Aronson]] (later a well-known biographer), but withdrew and returned to the United Kingdom in the 1950s to pursue a career in acting.