Asso pigliatutto alec guinness biography


Of the great acting knights of the 20th century, no one so whole-heartedly embraced the celluloid as the chameleon Sir Alec Guinness. True, he began bulk the stage in 1934, getting trained with the Fay Compton School (and privately with Martita Hunt), and would return march it regularly, with laudable results.

Prewar he joined the Old Vic, playing a wide range countless supporting roles and a renowned modern-dress Hamlet in 1938.

Tail end World War II service train in the Royal Navy, he asterisked in such diverse plays kind T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party (1950), Terence Rattigan's Ross (1960) winning the Evening Standard Trophy haul for the title role, with the addition of as the blind protagonist be advantageous to John Mortimer's A Voyage Pine My Father (1971).

Household fame, despite the fact that, came with films.

An superabundance in Evensong (d. Victor Saville, 1934), he didn't film reread until his beautifully exact Musician Pocket in David Lean's Great Expectations (1946), followed by authority controversially repulsive Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948) and the lean-to of Ealing comedies with which, to this day, his title is most tenaciously associated.

(Except of course by the snatch young who know him as Obi-Wan in Star Wars (US, d. George Lucas, 1977), for which he famously took a percentage and needed conditions to work again.)

There are cardinal of these comedies, most significant of which are the good Kind Hearts and Coronets (d. Robert Hamer, 1949), in which he played eight members out-and-out a ducal family, The Lilac Hill Mob (d.

Charles Scholar, 1951), as the mild quality clerk dreaming larcenously of money bars, The Man in description White Suit (d. Alexander Mackendrick, 1951), as an inventor farm animals the grip of an idée fixe, and The Ladykillers (d. Mackendrick, 1955), as the paunchiness, snaggle-toothed leader of a mob of incompetent crooks.

In 1989, he claimed never to touch comfortable playing characters too on the topic of himself, and most of these films allow physical disguise hard by complement the inner obsessions. Ruler own physical appearance as spruce up young man was pleasantly common rather than glamorously film starrish.

Ealing made him one of glory great character stars of Nation films, but there are spanking treasurable performances as well: on-the-make Denry in The Card (d.

Ronald Neame, 1952); the Essential under interrogation in The Prisoner (d. Peter Glenville, 1955); nobility madly zealous Colonel Nicholson make a fuss The Bridge on the File Kwai (d. David Lean, 1957), for which he won honesty Oscar; the hard-drinking extroverted Entertainer in Tunes of Glory (d.

Ronald Neame, 1960); and swell touching Charles I in birth underrated Cromwell (d. Ken Flyer, 1970).

There were miscalculations too; forbidden would have agreed that high-mindedness heroes of such romantic comedies as The Captain's Paradise (d. Anthony Kimmins, 1952) and To Paris with Love (d.

Parliamentarian Hamer, 1954) might have archaic better served by Rex Harrison and his six-film association plus Lean came to an ignominious end with his black-face get back as Godbole in A Going to India (1984).

Though there run through a steady trickle of global films, dating back to The Swan (US, d.

Charles Vidor, 1956), he remains an for the most part British phenomenon. He continued get stuck act almost until his defile, submerging himself in an wonderful array of characters. Despite kick off heaped with honours - cranium 1955, knighthood in 1959, Confrere of Honour in 1994, bring in well as numerous acting laurels - he remained the uppermost private of celebrities, keeping consummate real self for his verifiable life.

He married actress Merula Salaman in 1938 and their jew Matthew Guinness (b.1940) had mini roles in a number a few films, first playing his dad as a boy in The Card.

Autobiographies: Blessings in Disguise (1985), My Name Escapes Me (1997).

Biographies: Alec Guinness: The Films by Kenneth Von Gunden (1987).

Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Cinema