- His World War II skills proved valuable when, many years later, he found two delinquents breaking into his car. When they saw him approach, they produced flick-knives and might have killed him, but he was able to disarm both of them and contrived to break all four of their wrists.
- During World War II he served in the British army and took part in the D-Day landings in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest.
- Was a British paratrooper and liaised with the French Resistance in World War II; being half-French, he did a lot of work behind enemy lines with the Resistance and claimed he had killed several men in hand-to-hand combat.
- Claimed to do theatre work for love, TV for fame and films for money.
- Although director William Dieterle gave him a major role in a big Hollywood film, "Salome", near the start of his movie career and then gave him the key role of Richard Wagner in his subsequent film "Magic Fire", Badel disliked him intensely and later told people the director had been an autocratic bully. He claimed that he had taken Dieterle aside one day on set and said to him that "I spent six years killing your fellow-countrymen" and that one more wouldn't weigh on his conscience.
- Father of Sarah Badel, with his wife, Yvonne. Both he and his wife were still in their teens when Sarah was born.
- Spent 6 years as a Commando,.
- In Arabesque, Alan Badel looks and sounds exactly like Peter Sellers when playing that character.
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