Leslie Halliwell - The Rex Cinema, Cambridge

The Rex Cinema, Cambridge

After graduating with a 2:1 honours degree, Halliwell worked briefly for Picturegoer magazine in London before returning to Cambridge to manage the Rex Cinema from 1952 to 1956. Under his management the place became extremely popular with the Cambridge undergraduate community, showing classic and vintage films such as The Blue Angel, Citizen Kane and Destry Rides Again. The Cambridge Evening News reported, 'students felt their periods at Cambridge were incomplete without the weekly visit to the Rex.'

In 1955, after the British Censor had banned the Marlon Brando film The Wild One, Halliwell arranged for Cambridge magistrates to assess the picture. They subsequently granted him a special licence and the Rex became the only cinema in England to show the film.