George Hume was general manager of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, now the Royal Shakespeare Company, for ten years. Brought in to be the director Anthony Quayle’s right-hand man, he presided over the great Shakespeare revival, in which, as well as Quayle himself, virtually all the biggest theatre names of the time took part: Richard Burton, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Peter Brook.

Born in 1914, Hume’s family split when his father abandoned them. His mother sent him to her brother’s family in Catford, South London, while she took work at the Gas Light & Coke Company and cared for his younger brother, Don. He moved back with his mother when he was 10 and became captain of New Park Road School in Brixton. But before he was 14 Hume had left for a job as an office boy.

His first theatre work was with the District Messenger & Ticket Company at the Carlton Cinema, Haymarket, London, and between then and the outbreak of war he worked at the box offices of many West End theatres.

Having joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve at 22, he was called up in 1938 and after war broke out, spent a short time in the Channel on a yacht belonging to Lord Iliffe (later a governor at the theatre at Stratford) before joining the destroyer HMS Whitley. Two weeks after he left the Whitley she went down near Dunkirk with huge losses.

He married Irene Weedon on Christmas Eve 1939, and they had two sons, Roger and Dudley. Commissioned in 1940, he became navigating officer for the 7th Minesweeping Flotilla, subsequently moving via the Admiralty into intelligence, where he was part of the team preparing the D-Day landings. King George VI visited his office deep in the Portsmouth cliffs, saying: “I’ve been told I mustn’t ask you any questions.”

Ten years later he met the King again. During a backstage visit to Anthony Quayle, dressed as Henry VIII, the King noticed Quayle wearing the Garter wrongly. Fixing it for him, he said: “This is something I do know about.”

After being demobilised in 1946 as a lieutenant-commander, Hume returned to the theatre, working for Sir Bronson Albery as box-office manager at the New Theatre (now the Albery) during a legendary Old Vic season with Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. In 1948 he was head-hunted by Quayle for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre.

Stratford, only a few years after the end of the war, was a different place: without tourists, new car parks and its proliferation of modern buildings, it was an idyll of rural peace — little more than a village, but with a theatre that had grasped the opportunities provided by the end of the war and risen to international fame. After the years of austerity, people were hungry for glamour, and the Shakespeare Memorial gave them this, bringing in the top actors of the day, and new directors such as Peter Brook, Michael Benthall and Tyrone Guthrie. The theatre put on successful international tours, breaking new ground as the first company into Berlin and Warsaw after the war, and travelling to Australia and New Zealand in the early Fifties.

After Stratford, Hume went to London, putting on productions including Strip the Willow, which launched Maggie Smith’s career. From there he became head of drama at Rediffusion Television, spending a lot of time in Wheelers Oyster Bar with the newsreader Reggie Bosanquet — but then changed tack, becoming press, publicity and entertainments officer for Brighton Council. Full of innovative ideas — donkey rides, paddle-steamers, a new festival — he met with resistance from entrenched bureaucracy, but the local press took his side, and the resulting furore made the headlines. After a widely reported resignation, he left for France, Spain and North Africa, driving 7,000 miles, and returning to start a new life in the antiques trade in Brighton, building a successful business with his partner and son.

In 1969 he married Jackie Gomme, whom he had first met at Stratford, and eight years later they moved with their daughter Victoria to Dorset, where he lived for 30 years, pursuing the antiques business with regular trips to France until the 1990s. A fit, active man, he was to be found lifting weights into his nineties.

He loved to make people laugh, and his unconventional élan and great charm made an undying impression on those who met him.

In 1996 he lost his eldest son, the actor Roger Hume, but is survived by his wife, son and daughter.

George Hume, theatre general manager, was born on June 23, 1914. He died on August 3, 2008, aged 94