 He was grandson of Richard Bentley Greene and a descendant of four generations of actors.It has been stated elsewhere that he was the grandson of the inventor William Friese-Greene, who is credited by some as the inventor of cinematography, but this was found to be false, as a result of two parallel lines of genealogical research, conducted by the British Film Institute and Paul Pert respectively, the latter being subsequently published in 2009.Greene was educated at the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Kensington, London, and left at age 18.