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Sir Alec Guinness
The passing of Sir Alec Guinness may for many signal the true ending of the twentieth century; he was the last 'great' of the British theatre, along with Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson.
His career spanned 66 years and encompassed roles as diverse as Shakespeare and Star Wars. Guinness was able to immerse himself in a character so effortlessly that the critic J G Trewin once remarked that 'he had a players countenance, designed for whatever turned up'.
Born illegitimately on 2 April 1914 in Marylebone, London Alec Guinness never knew the identity of his real father and admitted that 'the source of his identity has been my constant speculation for 50 years'. Nevertheless his mysterious father provided for his schooling and on leaving education Guinness joined Arks Publicity, Advertising Agents as a copywriter.
He used most of his salary to buy theatre tickets and no doubt inspired by what he saw, paid for a course of acting lessons at the Fay Compton School of Acting. At the end of term he was judged the winning pupil by John Gielgud.
Gielgud encouraged his budding theatrical career and cast him as Orsic in his 1934 production of Hamlet. A role Guinness reprised in Olivier's 1937 production, as well as understudying Olivier.
The War interrupted his career and he joined the Royal Navy as a rating in 1941. At the end of the fighting he rejoined the Old Vic and played Menenius in a 1948 production of Corialanus at the New Theatre.
However it was in the emerging film industry where he found popular acclaim; in the
classic black comedy from the Ealing Studios, Kind Hearts and Coronets
Further successes with Ealing followed; The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Lavender Hill Mob
His prior association with David Lean (as Herbert Pockett in Great Expectations-
Three years later he played the diametrically opposed, hard drinking Scottish Lt-
Other films followed -
In 1977 now Sir Alec Guinness ( he was knighted in 1959) he was brought to the attention
of a new and younger audience with the release of Star Wars in which he played Luke
Skywalker's mentor Obi-
In what was intended to be a follow up to El Cid he appeared in The Fall of the Roman Empire on which Christopher Plummer remarked: 'the amazing thing was the way in which he could take that appalling dialogue and make it sound acceptable'.
Although he was better known for his film work he also did a little television, scoring a huge success as George Smiley in Le Carre's 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' (1979) and 'Smiley's People' (1981); ably confusing most viewers as to identity of the real double spy and winning two BAFTA awards in the process.
He was still performing on stage; as T E Lawrence in 'Ross', as the blind lawyer
in John Mortimer's 'Voyage Round My Father' (1977) and as Reilly in T S Eliot's 'Cocktail
Party' -
In 1994 he was made a Companion of Honour crowning a career in which he had received awards from his fellow professionals, peers, critics and industry fellows.
The same year he published a diary of a year called 'My Name Escapes Me' in which
he states that at 82 he was past his sell-
Although he converted to catholicism in 1956 he resisted attempts to describe him as 'pious'. He once said that an actor was ' a kind of priest'. Whilst filming 'Father Brown' in France a small boy came up and held his hand, assuming from his dress that he was indeed a priest and someone to be trusted, so adept was the characterisation.
He rarely played the lead or the all conquering hero, content with creating memorable
characters as a master of his craft -
© John Barber -
More entertainers
The Old Bedford Music Hall + George Robey + Round the Horne + Flanders & Swann + Sir Alec Guinness + Leslie Welch + Joseph Pujol
