Sir Alec Guinness April 2, 1914-August 5, 2000
“Getting to the theatre on the early side, usually about seven o’clock, changing into a dressing-gown, applying make-up, having a chat for a few minutes with other actors and then, quite unconsciously, beginning to assume another personality which would stay with me (but mostly tucked inside) until curtain down, was all I required of life. I thought it bliss.”
On Tuesday August 8th we lost one of the last of the Old Guard for British film. And what’s a little bit sad is that he’s not remembered for the fact that he was an amazing actor, or that he starred in some of the classic Ealing Studio comedies, or even that he was in most of Sir David Lean’s films.
No, to my generation and many generations after mine, he will be remembered as Obi-Wan Kenobi, a role he never even wanted to play. A role that kept coming back to him long after he tried to kill it.
But lets go back a few years.
I don’t know very much about his life (even though I own his first autobiography, Blessings In Disguise–it’s on my list), so I won’t even try to go into that. All I do know is that he started out in advertising, studied acting at the Fay Compton Studio Of Dramatic Art and started on stage in 1934. From 1936 he played at the Old Vic and entered the Royal Navy in 1941.
His first film acting gig was in 1934 as an extra in a crowd scene in the film Evensong. Not a very auspicious beginning.
His second feature was a bit more demanding. He played Pip’s buddy Herbert Pocket in David Lean’s Great Expectations. Not bad for a virtual first timer on film. He, in fact, did an amazing job and started a long working relationship with Lean running until the director’s death in 1991. In fact, his next film was Lean’s second and last Dickens adaptation, Oliver Twist. In it Sir Alec played the quintessential version of the ruffian Fagin. (I actually haven’t seen this one, but I hear that he’s really the only Fagin you need to know. Even better than Ron Moody in the musical version.)
In 1949, Mr. Guinness began his long-running partnership with Ealing Studios with A Run For Your Money. But the next one would be the one that he is best remembered for. Kind Hearts And Coronets had him playing eight different members of the doomed d’Ascoyne family. One of the darkest and funniest of the old British comedies, this is the one to seek out. A bevy of great performances from the Guinnesses. The Guinness/Ealing duo put out a handful of other great movies like The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man In The White Suit and The Ladykillers (another great one also starring Peter Sellers who became kind of a disciple of Guinness).
After nearly ten years apart, Guinness teamed up with Lean again in 1957. This time he was able to get an Oscar out of it. The Bridge On The River Kwai cast Alec as the determined Col. Nicholson, as British commander in a Japanese work camp during WWII. He was dead set on completing the title bridge even if it meant helping the Japanese to win the war.
Next up (after playing seven characters in Barnacle Bill) was a Best Screenplay Oscar for The Horse’s Mouth in which he played Gulley Jimson, a man who is either a brilliant artist or a pain in everyone’s neck. Or maybe both.
In 1962 Guinness took his biggest leap as an actor. He played the Arab Prince Feisal in Lean’s best film (I think), Lawrence Of Arabia. His performance is so good that you almost forget that you’re actually watching a pasty English actor playing a swarthy Arab prince. He’s a character that you almost want to hate because he doesn’t always seem to have his people’s best interest at heart. But you just can’t hate him because, deep down, you know he’s doing all he knows how to do. And he’s just so damn charming.
Of course, after this came Lean’s Doctor Zhivago in 1965, The Comedians (with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) in 1967, Scrooge (a musical version of A Christmas Carol) and Cromwell (with Richard Harris) in 1970, Franco Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon in 1973 and the Neil Simon film Murder By Death (again with Sellers) in 1976.
Then came the role that he detested so much that he asked George Lucas to kill him off so that he wouldn’t have to do too much work on the film. He was embarrassed to be a part of Star Wars. If you ask me he should have been more embarrassed by 1980′s Raise The Titanic.
Guinness remained active until his retirement in 1996. He still had a couple of indelible roles left (although I’m sure all of them were) for British TV (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in 81′and Smiley’s People in ’82) and for David Lean’s final film (1984′s A Passage To India). And he even had some time to do some work for Steven Soderbergh in Kafka in ’91. His last film role, 1994′s Mute Witness, was actually filmed nine years earlier, so I’m not really sure if that counts. In 1996 he officially retired from film with Eskimo Day, a British telefilm about three sets of parents who have to let go of their children.
After his retirement Alec spent a lot of time with his wife (married since 1938), Merula Salaman. Their son, Matthew, is also an actor. He made his film debut alongside his father in The Card in 1952. Later he was in Ridley Scott’s The Duelists (1977), the telefilm S.O.S. Titanic (1979–like father, like son), the Sting vehicle The Bride (1985), Plenty (1985) and Lady Jane (1986).
Guinness also wrote diaries which he published in two volumes, My Name Escapes Me (1997) and A Positively Final Appearance (1999). Unfortunately, it was.
