Sir Alec Guinness

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Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE (2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai. His most prominent role in his later career was as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.

Early yearsGuinness was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale, London as Alec Guinness De Cuffe.^[1] His mother's maiden name was Agnes Cuff. She was born 8 December 1890 to Edward Cuff and Mary Ann Cuff Benfield. On Guinness's birth certificate, the field for mother's name displays Agnes de Cuffe. In the field for the infant's name (where first names only are usually given), it says Alec Guinness. There is nothing written in the column for name and surname of father. On this basis it has been frequently speculated that the actor's father was a member of the Irish Guinness family. However, it was a Scottish banker named Andrew Geddes who paid for Guinness' private school education. From 1875, English law required both the presence and consent of the father when the birth of an illegitimate child was registered in order for his name to be put on the certificate. Guinness and Geddes never met, and the identity of Guinness's father has never been confirmed.^[2] Guinness hated his mother, who later had a short marriage to a violent^[3] shell shocked veteran of the Anglo-Irish War.

Early career and war service

Guinness first worked writing advertising copy. He made his debut at the Albery Theatre in 1936 at the age of 22, playing the role of Osric in John Gielgud's successful production of Hamlet. During this time he worked with many actors and actresses who would become his friends and frequent co-stars in the future, including John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Anthony Quayle, and Jack Hawkins. An early influence from afar was Stan Laurel, whom Guinness admired.^[4]

Guinness continued playing Shakespearean roles throughout his career. In 1937 he played Aumerle in Richard II and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice under the direction of John Gielgud. He starred in a 1938 production of Hamlet which won him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. He also appeared as Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet (1939), Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night and as Exeter in Henry V in 1937, both opposite Laurence Olivier, and Ferdinand in The Tempest, opposite Gielgud as Prospero.

In 1939, he adapted Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations for the stage, playing the part of Herbert Pocket. The play was a success. One of its viewers was a young British film editor, David Lean, who would later have Guinness reprise his role in Lean's 1946 film adaptation of the play.

Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II, serving first as a seaman in 1941 and being commissioned the following year.^[5] He commanded a landing craft taking part in the invasion of Sicily and Elba and later ferried supplies to the Yugoslav partisans.

During the war, he appeared in Terence Rattigan's West End play for RAF Bomber Command, Flare Path.

Post-war stage career

Guinness returned to the Old Vic in 1946 and stayed until 1948, playing Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, the Fool in King Lear opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role, DeGuiche in Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Ralph Richardson in the title role, and finally starring in an Old Vic production as Shakespeare's Richard II. After leaving the Old Vic, he played Eric Birling in J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls at the New Theatre in October 1946. He played the Uninvited Guest in the Broadway production of T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party (1950, revived at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968). His third attempt at the title role of Hamlet, this time under his own direction at the New Theatre (1951), proved a major theatrical disaster.

Invited by his friend Tyrone Guthrie to join the premier season of the Stratford Festival of Canada, Guinness lived for a brief time in Stratford, Ontario. On July 13, 1953, Guinness spoke the first lines of the first play produced by the festival, Shakespeare's Richard III: "Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this sun of York."

Guinness won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance as poet Dylan Thomas in Dylan. He next played the title role in Macbeth opposite Simone Signoret at the Royal Court Theatre in 1966, a conspicuous failure.^[6]

Film career

In films, Guinness was initially associated mainly with the Ealing comedies, and particularly for playing eight different characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets. Other films from this period included The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, and The Man in the White Suit. In 1952, director Ronald Neame cast Guinness in his first romantic lead role, opposite Petula Clark in The Card.

He won particular acclaim for his work with director David Lean. After appearing in Lean's Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, he was given a starring role opposite William Holden in The Bridge on the River Kwai. For his performance as Colonel Nicholson, the unyielding British POW leader, Guinness won an Academy Award. Despite a difficult and often hostile relationship, Lean, referring to Guinness as "my good luck charm", continued to cast Guinness in character roles in his later films: Arab leader Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia; the title character's half-brother, Bolshevik leader Yevgraf, in Doctor Zhivago; and Indian mystic Godbole in A Passage to India. He was also offered a role in Lean's adaptation of Ryan's Daughter (1970), but declined.

Other notable film roles of this period included The Swan (1956) with Grace Kelly in her second to last film role, The Horse's Mouth (1958) in which Guinness played the part of drunken painter Gulley Jimson as well as contributing the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), Marley's Ghost in Scrooge (1970), Charles I of England in Cromwell (1970), and the title role in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), which he considered his best film performance, though critics disagreed.^[7]

Star Wars

Guinness' role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, beginning in 1977, brought him worldwide recognition by a new generation. Guinness agreed to take the part on the condition that he would not have to do publicity to promote the film. He was also one of the few cast members who believed that the film would be a box office hit; he negotiated a deal for two percent of the gross, which made him very wealthy in his later life. His role would also result in Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.

Despite these rewards, Guinness was never happy being identified with the part, and expressed dismay at the fan-following that the Star Wars trilogy attracted. In the DVD commentary of Star Wars: A New Hope, director George Lucas says that Guinness was not happy with the script re-write in which Obi-Wan is killed. However, Guinness said in a 1999 interview that it was actually his idea to kill off Obi Wan, persuading Lucas that it would make him a stronger character, and that Lucas agreed to the idea. Guinness stated in the interview, "What I didn't tell Lucas was that I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo." He went on to say that he "shriveled up" every time Star Wars was mentioned to him.^[8]

Despite Guinness' dislike of the films, Lucas and fellow cast members Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Anthony Daniels, and Carrie Fisher have spoken highly of his courtesy and professionalism, both on and off the set, in not displaying his distaste for the material to his co-stars. Lucas credited him with inspiring cast and crew to work harder, saying that Guinness contributed significantly to achieving completion of the filming. Guinness was quoted as saying that the royalties he obtained from working on the films gave him "no complaints; let me leave it by saying I can live for the rest of my life in the reasonably modest way I am now used to, that I have no debts and I can afford to refuse work that doesn't appeal to me." In his autobiography, Blessings In Disguise, Guinness tells an imaginary interviewer "Blessed be Star Wars!".

In the final volume of the book A Positively Final Appearance (1997), Guinness recounts grudgingly giving an autograph to a young fan who claimed to have watched Star Wars over 100 times, on the condition that the boy promise to stop watching the film, because, as Guinness told him, "this is going to be an ill effect on your life." The fan was stunned at first, but later thanked him (though some sources say it went differently).^[9] Guinness grew so tired of modern audiences apparently knowing him only for his role of Obi-Wan Kenobi that he would throw away the mail he received from Star Wars fans without reading it.^[10]

Television appearances

From the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances, including the part of George Smiley in the serializations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. Le Carré was so impressed by Guinness's performance as Smiley that he based his characterization of Smiley in subsequent novels on Guinness.

One of Guinness' last appearances was in the BBC drama Eskimo Day.

Awards and honours

Guinness won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1957 for his role in The Bridge on the River Kwai. He was nominated in 1958 for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, for his screenplay adapted from Joyce Cary's novel The Horse's Mouth. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars in 1977. He received an Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement in 1980. In 1988, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Little Dorrit.

For his theatre work, he received an Evening Standard Award for his performance as T.E. Lawrence in Ross and a Tony Award for his Broadway turn as Dylan Thomas in Dylan.

Guinness was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1955, and was knighted in 1959. In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University.^[11] Three years later, at age 80, he was given the title of Companion of Honour.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1559 Vine Street.

Personal life

Guinness married the artist, playwright, and actress Merula Sylvia Salaman (16 October 1914 – 18 October 2000) in 1938; in 1940, they had a son, Matthew Guinness, who later became an actor. Salaman had been raised in the Jewish faith.

In his biography, Alec Guinness: The Unknown, Garry O'Connor says that Guinness was arrested and fined 10 guineas for a homosexual act in a public lavatory in Liverpool in 1946. Guinness avoided publicity by giving his name to police and court as "Herbert Pocket", the name of the character he played in Great Expectations. The incident did not become public knowledge until April 2001, eight months after his death.^[12] Piers Paul Read, Guinness' official biographer, doubts that this incident actually occurred. He believes that Guinness was confused with John Gielgud, who was infamously arrested for such an act at the same period. Read does, however, acknowledge Guinness' bisexuality.^{[13][clarification needed][page needed]}

Religious conversion

While serving in the Royal Navy, Guinness had planned to become an Anglican priest. However, in 1954, while he was filming Father Brown in Burgundy, Guinness, who was in costume as a Catholic priest, was mistaken for a real priest by a local child. Guinness did not speak French, and the child apparently did not notice that Guinness did not understand him, but took his hand and chattered while the two strolled then waved and trotted off. The confidence and affection the clerical attire appeared to inspire in the boy left a deep impression on the actor.^[14] Alec and Merula Guinness were formally received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1956.^[14] They would remain devout and regular church-goers for the remainder of their lives. Their son Matthew had converted to Catholicism some time earlier.^[15][16] Every morning, Guinness recited a verse from Psalm 143, "Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning".^[17]

Alec Guinness consulted Tarot cards for a time, but came to the conclusion that the symbols of the cards mocked Christianity and burned the cards.^[18]

Death

Guinness died on 5 August 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex.^[19] He had been receiving hospital treatment for glaucoma, and had recently also been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was interred in Petersfield, Hampshire, England. His widow, Lady Merula Guinness, died of cancer in Petersfield, two months after her husband, also aged 86,^[20] and was interred alongside her husband of 62 years.

Encounter with James Dean

On 23 September 1955, Guinness was at the Villa Capri restaurant in San Diego, and found no table available. The actor James Dean, then filming Giant, invited Guinness to sit at his table. During lunch, Dean entertained Guinness with tales of Lee Strasberg and boasted about his new car, a Porsche 550 Spyder.^{[citation needed]} Upon leaving the restaurant, Dean insisted on showing the gift-wrapped car to Guinness, who, many years later, said that he had had a premonition that Dean would die behind its wheel within the next week. Dean was killed in the car exactly one week later, after being hit almost head-on by another vehicle.^[21][22][23]

Autobiographies and biography

Guinness wrote three volumes of a bestselling autobiography, beginning with Blessings in Disguise in 1985, followed by My Name Escapes Me in 1996, and A Positively Final Appearance in 1999. He recorded each of them as an audiobook. Shortly after his death, Lady Merula Guinness asked the couple's close friend and fellow Catholic, novelist Piers Paul Read, to write Guinness's official biography. It was published in 2003.

YearFilmRoleNotes1934EvensongExtra (WWI soldier in audience)uncredited1946Great ExpectationsHerbert Pocket1948Oliver TwistFagin1949Kind Hearts and CoronetsThe Duke, The Banker, The Parson, The General, The Admiral, Young Ascoyne, Young Henry, Lady AgathaA Run for Your MoneyWhimple1950Last HolidayGeorge BirdThe MudlarkBenjamin Disraeli1951The Lavender Hill MobHenry HollandNominated — Academy Award for Best ActorThe Man in the White SuitSidney Stratton1952The CardEdward Henry ‘Denry’ Machinreleased in the US as The Promoter1953The Square Milenarratorshort subjectMalta StoryFlight Lt. Peter RossThe Captain's ParadiseCapt. Henry St. James1954Father BrownFather BrownThe Stratford AdventureHimselfshort subject1955Rowlandson's Englandnarratorshort subjectTo Paris with LoveCol. Sir Edgar FraserThe PrisonerThe CardinalNominated - BAFTA Award for Best British ActorThe LadykillersProfessor Marcus1956The SwanPrince Albert1957The Bridge on the River KwaiCol. NicholsonAcademy Award for Best Actor

BAFTA Award for Best British Actor

Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture DramaBarnacle BillCaptain William Horatio Ambrosereleased in the US as All at Sea1958The Horse's MouthGulley Jimsonalso writer

Nominated — Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)1959Our Man in HavanaJim WormoldThe ScapegoatJohn Barratt/Jacques De Gue1960Tunes of GloryMaj. Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M.Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best British Actor1962A Majority of OneKoichi AsanoHMS DefiantCaptain CrawfordLawrence of ArabiaPrince Faisal1964The Fall of the Roman EmpireMarcus Aurelius1965PasternakHimselfshort subjectSituation Hopeless ... But Not SeriousWilhelm FrickDoctor ZhivagoGen. Yevgraf Zhivago1966Hotel ParadisoBenedict BonifaceThe Quiller MemorandumPol1967The Comedians in AfricaHimselfuncredited, short subjectThe ComediansMajor H.O. Jones1970CromwellKing Charles IScroogeJacob Marley’s ghost1972Brother Sun, Sister MoonPope Innocent III1973Hitler: The Last Ten DaysAdolf Hitler1976Murder by DeathJamesir Bensonmum1977Star Wars Episode IV: A New HopeObi-Wan "Ben" KenobiNominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor1979Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, SpyGeorge Smiley1980Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes BackObi-Wan "Ben" KenobiRaise the TitanicJohn BigalowLittle Lord FauntleroyEarl of Dorincourt1982Smiley's PeopleGeorge Smiley1983LovesickSigmund FreudStar Wars Episode VI: Return of the JediObi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi1984A Passage to IndiaProfessor Godbole1985Monsignor QuixoteMonsignor Quixote1988Little DorritWilliam DorritNominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting ActorA Handful of DustMr. Todd1991KafkaThe Chief Clerk1993A Foreign FieldAmos1994Mute WitnessThe Reaper1996Eskimo DayJames

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[66Lucy]

Thank you I love Alec (Y)

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