|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
Alec Guinness 1914-2000 Sunday, August 6, 2000 my friend sent me the following email: "Like you already didn't have this info. But just in case for your obituaries: 'LONDON, England (AP) - Actor Sir Alec Guinness, whose roles in a 66-year career ranged from Hamlet to Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars," has died, a hospital spokesman said Monday. He was 86. Guinness died late Saturday, the spokesman for the King Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst, southern England, said. The hospital did not report the cause of death. From post-war comedies through epics like "The Bridge on the River Kwai," and crowd-pleasers like "Star Wars," Guinness played a vast variety of characters with subtlety and intelligence.' Sad." My brother and I used to watch all the old Ealing comedies that Guinness made in England. The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, Father Brown, The Man in the White Suit, Kind Hearts and Coronets... I think AMC showed them all a lot, way back when. It was around that time that I saw Bridge on the River Kwai, for which Guinness won the Academy Award for Best Actor. I thought it was one of the greatest performances I'd ever seen. And early on I knew him from Star Wars and Murder By Death as well. So, before I was even in high school I knew well of Guinness' versatility. Guinness was a longtime Catholic, and was pretty sure of where he was going after this life. Just as I am sure of where he's going too (into the dirt). Unlike many octogenarian actors that I write about you all know who Alec Guinness is. He is Obi-Wan. He played old Ben Kenobi in George Lucas' Star Wars and forever solidified his celebrity. He had cameos in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and never stopped getting piles of fan mail for Obi-Wan. Reportedly, he hated working on Star Wars (1977) so much, that he claims that Obi-Wan's death was his idea as a means to limit his involvement in the film. Guinness also claims to throw away all Star Wars related fan mail without even opening it. 
Guinness was good pals with all those old men of England, Giulgud, Olivier, Richardson and even Graham Greene. Whenever I read a Greene novel, I can't help but picture Guinness as the protagonist. Guinness wrote three entertaining autobiographies/memoirs: Blessings in Disguise (1985), My Name Escapes Me: Diary of a Retiring Actor (1997) and A Positively Final Appearace (1999). Born April 2, 1914, Alec Guinness de Cuffe, April 2, 1914, London, England, UK, Guinness was an illegitimate child who did not know the name on his birth certificate was Guinness until he was 14. "I have to admit that my search for a father has been my constant speculation for 50 years," he said. The mysterious father, whose identity he never learned, provided money for private schools, but not university. Guinness had some of his first stage roles in Gielgud's plays. In one of them, Guinness met actress Merula Salaman, whom he married in 1938. They had a son Matthew and remained happily married, living in a country house in Petersfield, 50 miles southwest of London. Guinness was seldom recognized in public. In one of the stories he told about himself, Guinness checks his hat and coat at a restaurant and asks for a claim ticket. "It will not be necessary," the attendant smiles. Pleased at being recognized, Guinness later retrieves his garments, puts his hand in the coat pocket and finds a slip of paper on which is written, "Bald with glasses." Guinness converted to Roman Catholicism in 1956, but resisted attempts to paint him as a pious person. He was knighted, or "sirred", in 1959; and made a Companion of Honour in 1994. Films include: Kafka (1991), A Handful of Dust (1988), Little Dorrit (1988), Monsignor Quixote for TV (1985), A Passage to India (1984), Lovesick (1983), Return of the Jedi (1983), as George Smiley in Le Carre's "Smiley's People" (1982) and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (1980) for TV, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Star Wars (1977), Murder by Death (1976), Cromwell (1970), Scrooge (1970), The Comedians (1967), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Damn the Defiant! (1962), A Majority of One (1961), Tunes of Glory (1960), Our Man in Havana (1960), The Horse's Mouth (1958), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), The Swan (1956), The Ladykillers (1955), The Detective (1954), The Captain's Paradise (1953), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit, The (1951), Last Holiday (1950), The Mudlark (1950), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Oliver Twist (1948) and Great Expectations (1946) for David Lean and his first film, Evensong (1934). He also wrote the screenplay for The Horse's Mouth (1958). Academy Awards:
|
