Sir Basil Hardington Bartlett, 2nd Baronet (15 September 1905 – 2 January 1985) was an actor, screenwriter and writer, and in the 1950s the head of the BBC's script department.
Life
In 1921, at the age of 16, he succeeded as the second Bartlett baronet of Hardington Mandeville, upon inheriting the title from his grandfather, the building contractor Sir Herbert Bartlett, as his father had died the previous year.
Educated at Repton School in Derbyshire, he went up to Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University, graduating as Bachelor of Arts (proceeding MA).
Starting out as a stage actor in the 1930s, Bartlett was commissioned in the British Army at the outbreak of World War II, and served as a captain during the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940: mentioned in despatches, he was wounded during the retreat. He published My First War: An Army Officer's Journal for May 1940, Through Belgium to Dunkirk. During his convalescence he worked as screenwriter of the war films The Next of Kin (1942) (which he later also turned into a novel), Secret Mission (1942) and They Met in the Dark (1943). Seconded to the Intelligence Corps, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in charge of the kinematographic group of 21st Army Group.
