Alec Guinness

Sir
Alec Guinness
CH CBE

Sir Alec Guinness in 1973 by Allan Warren
Born Alec Guinness de Cuffe
(1914-04-02)2 April 1914
Paddington, London, England
Died 5 August 2000(2000-08-05) (aged 86)
Midhurst, West Sussex, England
Cause of death Liver cancer
Resting place Petersfield Cemetery
Occupation Actor
Years active 1934–1996
Spouse(s) Merula Salaman
(m. 1938–2000), his death
Children Matthew Guinness

Sir Alec Guinness CH CBE (2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, he was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including The Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He is also known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), General Yevgraf Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984). He is also known for his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy, receiving a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Guinness was one of three major British actors, along with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, who successfully made the transition from Shakespearean theatre in their home country to Hollywood blockbusters immediately after the Second World War. He also won a BAFTA Award, Golden Globe, and a Tony Award, as well as an Academy Award. In 1959, he was knighted by Elizabeth II for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement in 1980, and the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award in 1989.

Early life

Guinness was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale, 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 Benfield. On Guinness's birth certificate, the space for the mother's name shows Agnes de Cuffe. The space for the infant's name (where first names only are given) says Alec Guinness. The column for name and surname of father is blank.[2]

The identity of Guinness's father has never been officially confirmed[3] although it has been speculated that he may have been a member of the Anglo-Irish Guinness family. From 1875, under English law, when the birth of an illegitimate child was registered, the father's name could be entered on the certificate only if he were present and gave his consent. Guinness himself believed that his father was a Scottish banker, Andrew Geddes (1861-1928), who paid for Guinness's public school education at Fettes College. Geddes occasionally visited Guinness and his mother, posing as an uncle.[4][5] Guinness's mother later had a short marriage to a British soldier who had survived the Anglo-Irish War, but suffered from shell-shock, or what today would likely be known as PTSD. His behaviour was often erratic or even violent.[6]

Early career

Alec Guinness – 1938

Guinness first worked writing advertising copy. His first job in the theatre was on his 20th birthday, while he was still a drama student, in the play Libel, which opened at the old King's Theatre, Hammersmith, and then transferred to the Playhouse, where his status was raised from a walk-on to understudying two lines, and his salary increased to £1 a week.[7] He appeared at the Albery Theatre in 1936 at the age of 22, playing the role of Osric in John Gielgud's successful production of Hamlet. Also in 1936, Guinness signed on with the Old Vic, where he was cast in a series of classic roles.[8] In 1939, he took over for Michael Redgrave as Charleston in a road-show production of Robert Ardrey's Thunder Rock.[9]

During his time at the Old Vic, he worked with many actors and actresses who would become his friends and frequent co-stars in the future, including Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft, Anthony Quayle, and Jack Hawkins. An early influence from afar was Stan Laurel, whom Guinness admired.[10]

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.[8] 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 Great Expectations for the stage, playing 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.

Second World War

Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in the Second World War, initially as a seaman in 1941, receiving a commission as an officer in 1942.[11] He commanded a landing craft at the Allied invasion of Sicily, and later ferried supplies and agents to the Yugoslav partisans in the eastern Mediterranean theatre.

During the war, he was granted leave to appear in the Broadway production of Terence Rattigan's play, Flare Path, about the RAF Bomber Command.[12]

Postwar 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). He played Hamlet under his own direction at the New Theatre (1951).[13]

Invited by his friend Tyrone Guthrie to join the premiere season of the Stratford Festival of Canada, Guinness lived for a brief time in Stratford, Ontario. On 13 July 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.[14]

Guinness made his final stage performance at the Comedy Theatre on 30 May 1989, in the play A Walk in the Woods. In all, between 2 April 1934 and 30 May 1989, he played 77 parts in the theatre.[15]

Film career

Drawing by Nicholas Volpe after Guinness won an Oscar in 1957

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. In 1951, exhibitors voted him the most popular British star.[16]

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 writing the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award; the lead in Carol Reed's Our Man in Havana (1959); Marcus Aurelius in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964); The Quiller Memorandum (1966); Marley's Ghost in Scrooge (1970); Charles I in Cromwell (1970); Pope Innocent III in Franco Zeffirelli's Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972); and the title role in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), which he considered his best film performance, though critics disagreed.[17] Another role which is sometimes referred to as one which he considered his best, and is so considered by many critics, is that of Colonel Jock Sinclair in Tunes of Glory (1960). Guinness also played the role of Jamessir Bensonmum, the blind butler, in the 1976 Neil Simon film Murder by Death.

David Lean

Guinness with Rita Tushingham in Doctor Zhivago

Guinness won particular acclaim for his work with director David Lean, which today is his best-known and most critically acclaimed work. 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 commanding officer, 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 Professor Godbole in A Passage to India. He was also offered a role in Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970), but declined. At that time, Guinness had "mistrusted" Lean and considered the earlier close relationship as strained; although at his funeral, he recalled that the famed director had been "charming and affable".[18]

Star Wars

Guinness's role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, beginning in 1977, brought him worldwide recognition by a new generation, as well as Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. In letters to his friends, Guinness described the film as "fairy tale rubbish", but the film's sense of moral good – and the studio's doubling of his initial salary offer – appealed to him, and he agreed to take the part of Kenobi on the condition that he would not have to do any publicity to promote the film.[19] He negotiated a deal for 2.25% of the gross royalties paid to the director, George Lucas, who received one-fifth of the box office takings. This made him very wealthy in his later life. Upon his first viewing of the film, Guinness wrote in his diary, "It's a pretty staggering film as spectacle and technically brilliant. Exciting, very noisy and warm-hearted. The battle scenes at the end go on for five minutes too long, I feel, and some of the dialogue is excruciating and much of it is lost in noise, but it remains a vivid experience."[20]

Guinness soon became unhappy with being identified with the part, and expressed dismay at the fan following that the Star Wars trilogy attracted. In the DVD commentary of the original Star Wars, Lucas says that Guinness was not happy with the script rewrite in which Obi-Wan is killed. 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 "shrivelled up" every time Star Wars was mentioned to him.[21]

Although Guinness disliked the fame that followed work he did not hold in high esteem,[20] Lucas and fellow cast members Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, and Carrie Fisher have spoken highly of his courtesy and professionalism, both on and off the set. 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", regarding the income it provided.[22]

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). Guinness is quoted as saying: "'Well,' I said, 'do you think you could promise never to see Star Wars again?' He burst into tears. His mother drew herself up to an immense height. 'What a dreadful thing to say to a child!' she barked, and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities."[23] 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.[24]

Television appearances

From the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances in Britain, including the part of George Smiley in the serialisations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People. He twice won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for the roles, and Le Carré was so impressed by Guinness's performance as Smiley that he based his characterisation of Smiley in subsequent novels on Guinness. One of Guinness's last appearances was in the BBC drama Eskimo Day (1996).

Awards and honours

Guinness won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1957 for his role in The Bridge on the River Kwai after having been unsuccessfully nominated in 1952 for his performance in The Lavender Hill Mob. 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. He received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award for lifetime achievement in 1989.

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.[25] Guinness received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1559 Vine Street on 8 February 1960.[2]

Guinness was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1955, and was knighted in 1959.[8] In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University.[26] Three years later, at age 80, he was appointed a Companion of Honour.[27]

Personal life

Guinness married the artist, playwright, and actress Merula Sylvia Salaman (1914–2000) in 1938;[28] in 1940, they had a son, Matthew Guinness, who later became an actor. The family lived at Steep Marsh in Hampshire.[28]

In his biography, Alec Guinness: The Unknown, Garry O'Connor reports that Guinness was arrested and fined 10 guineas (£10.50) for a homosexual act in a public lavatory in Liverpool in 1946. Guinness is said to have avoided publicity by giving his name to police and court as "Herbert Pocket", the name of the character he played in Great Expectations. This suggestion was not made until April 2001, eight months after his death when a BBC News article claimed that Guinness was in fact bisexual, and that he had successfully kept his sexuality private from the public eye; only his closest friends and family members knew he had sexual relationships with men.[29] Piers Paul Read, Guinness's official biographer, doubts that this incident actually occurred. He believes that Guinness was confused with John Gielgud, who was notoriously arrested for such an act in 1953.

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 was far from fluent in French, and the child apparently did not notice that Guinness did not understand him, but took his hand and chattered while the two strolled; the child then waved and trotted off.[30] The confidence and affection the clerical attire appeared to inspire in the boy left a deep impression on the actor.[31] When their son was ill with polio at the age of 11, Guinness began visiting a church to pray.[32] A few years later in 1956, Guinness converted to the Roman Catholic Church. His wife, who was of paternal Sephardi Jewish descent,[33] followed suit in 1957 while he was in Sri Lanka filming The Bridge on the River Kwai, and she informed him only after the event.[34] Every morning, Guinness recited a verse from Psalm 143, "Cause me to hear your loving kindness in the morning".[35]

Death

The graves of Alec and Merula in Petersfield

Guinness died on 5 August 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex.[36] He had been receiving hospital treatment for glaucoma, and had recently also been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was interred at Petersfield, Hampshire. His widow, Lady Guinness, died of cancer at Petersfield, two months after her husband, also aged 86.[37]

Autobiographies and biography

Guinness wrote three volumes of a best-selling 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 Guinness asked the couple's close friend and fellow Catholic, novelist Piers Paul Read, to write Guinness's official biography. It was published in 2002.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1934 Evensong Extra (First World War soldier in audience) Uncredited
1946 Great Expectations Herbert Pocket
1948 Oliver Twist Fagin
1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets
  • Duke, TheThe Duke, The Banker, The Parson, The General, The Admiral, Young D'Ascoyne, Young Henry, Lady Agatha
1949 Run for Your Money, AA Run for Your Money Whimple
1950 Last Holiday George Bird
1950 Mudlark, TheThe Mudlark Benjamin Disraeli
1951 Lavender Hill Mob, TheThe Lavender Hill Mob Henry Holland
1951 Man in the White Suit, TheThe Man in the White Suit Sidney Stratton
1952 The Card Edward Henry 'Denry' Machin released in the United States as The Promoter
1953 Square Mile, TheThe Square Mile narrator short subject
1953 Captain's Paradise, TheThe Captain's Paradise Capt. Henry St. James
1953 Malta Story Flight Lieutenant Peter Ross RAF
1954 Father Brown Father Brown
1954 Stratford Adventure, TheThe Stratford Adventure Himself short subject
1955 Rowlandson's England narrator short subject
1955 To Paris with Love Col. Sir Edgar Fraser
1955 Prisoner, TheThe Prisoner Cardinal, TheThe Cardinal
1955 Ladykillers, TheThe Ladykillers Professor Marcus
1956 Swan, TheThe Swan Prince Albert
1957 Bridge on the River Kwai, TheThe Bridge on the River Kwai Col. Nicholson
1957 Barnacle Bill Captain William Horatio Ambrose released in the United States as All at Sea
1958 Horse's Mouth, TheThe Horse's Mouth Gulley Jimson
1959 Scapegoat, TheThe Scapegoat John Barratt/Jacques De Gue
1959 Our Man in Havana Jim Wormold
1960 Tunes of Glory Maj. Jock Sinclair, D.S.O., M.M. Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1961 A Majority of One Koichi Asano
1962 H.M.S. Defiant Captain Crawford
1962 Lawrence of Arabia Prince Faisal
1964 Fall of the Roman Empire, TheThe Fall of the Roman Empire Marcus Aurelius
1965 Pasternak Himself short subject
1965 Situation Hopeless... But Not Serious Wilhelm Frick
1965 Doctor Zhivago Lieutenant General Yevgraf Andreyevich Zhivago
1966 Hotel Paradiso Benedict Boniface
1966 Quiller Memorandum, TheThe Quiller Memorandum Pol
1967 Comedians in Africa, TheThe Comedians in Africa Himself uncredited, short subject
1967 Comedians, TheThe Comedians Major H.O. Jones Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor
1970 Cromwell King Charles I
1970 Scrooge Jacob Marley's ghost
1972 Brother Sun, Sister Moon Pope Innocent III
1973 Hitler: The Last Ten Days Adolf Hitler
1976 Murder by Death Jamesir Bensonmum
1977 Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi
1979 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy George Smiley
1980 The Empire Strikes Back Obi-Wan Kenobi
1980 Raise the Titanic John Bigalow
1980 Little Lord Fauntleroy Earl of Dorincourt
1982 Smiley's People George Smiley
1983 Lovesick Sigmund Freud
1983 Return of the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi
1984 Passage to India, AA Passage to India Professor Godbole
1985 Monsignor Quixote Monsignor Quixote Nominated—British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
1987 Little Dorrit William Dorrit
1988 Handful of Dust, AA Handful of Dust Mr. Todd
1991 Kafka chief clerk, TheThe chief clerk
1993 Foreign Field, AA Foreign Field Amos
1994 Mute Witness Reaper, TheThe Reaper
1996 Eskimo Day James
2015 Star Wars: The Force Awakens Obi-Wan Kenobi Archival audio[38]

Box office ranking in Britain

For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted Guinness among the most popular stars in Britain at the box office via an annual poll in the Motion Picture Herald.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ GRO Register of Births: June 1914 1a 39 Paddington – Alec Guinness De Cuffe, mmn = De Cuffe.
  2. 1 2 "Alec Guinness." Hollywood Walk of Fame (Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood, California), 2011. Retrieved: 22 June 2011.
  3. ↑ "Alec Guinness biography." MSN Movies. Retrieved: 29 July 2007.
  4. ↑ Read, Piers Paul. Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. ISBN 978-0-7432-4498-5.
  5. ↑ "Sir Alec Guinness". The Telegraph. UK. 8 August 2000. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  6. ↑ "Guinness: The black stuff", guardian.co; retrieved 8 April 2012.
  7. ↑ Extracts from Guinness's Journals, The Daily Telegraph, 20 March 1999.
  8. 1 2 3 'Guinness, Alec (1914-2000)', The Cambridge Guide to Theatre, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK; viewed 22 June 2011, from Credo reference (subscription required)
  9. ↑ Marshall, Herbert. “Obituary: Robert Ardrey (1907-1980).” ‘’Bulletin of the Center for Soviet & East European Studies’’ Spring 1980. pp. 4-6. Print
  10. ↑ On 3 June 1961, Guinness sent a letter to Stan Laurel, acknowledging that he must have unconsciously modeled his portrayal of Sir Andrew Aguecheek as he imagined Laurel might have done. Guinness was 23 at the time he was performing in Twelfth Night, so this would have been around 1937, by which time Laurel had become an international movie star.
  11. ↑ Houterman, J.N. "Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) Officers 1939–1945", Unithistories.com; retrieved 7 March 2010.
  12. ↑ "Theatre Obituaries: Sir Alec Guinness", Telegraph.co.uk, 8 August 2000; retrieved 22 February 2011.
  13. ↑ McCarten, John. "Eliot and Guinness." The New Yorker, Volume 25, Issue 50, 1950, pp. 25–26.
  14. ↑ Taylor 2000, pp. 133–134.
  15. ↑ Alec Guinness, Journals, November 1998.
  16. 1 2 "Vivien Leigh Actress of the Year." Townsville Daily Bulleti, via National Library of Australia, 29 December 1951, p. 1. Retrieved: 24 April 2012.
  17. ↑ Canby, Vincent. "Screen: 'Last Ten Days': Guinness Plays Hitler in Bunker Episode, The Cast." The New York Times, 10 May 1973.
  18. ↑ Guinness 1998, pp. 90–91.
  19. ↑ Selim, Jocelyn. "Alec Guinness: Reluctant Intergalactic Icon." Cancer Today magazine, Spring 2012.
  20. 1 2 Read 2005, p. 507.
  21. ↑ "Alec Guinness Blasts Jedi 'Mumbo Jumbo'." Space.com, 8 August 1999.
  22. ↑ Guinness 1986, p. 214.
  23. ↑ Guinness 2001, p. 11.
  24. ↑ "The shy introvert who shone on screen." The Guardian, 7 August 2000.
  25. ↑ Taylor 2000, p. 131.
  26. ↑ "Honorary Degrees conferred from 1977 till present." Cambridge University, 18 December 2008.
  27. ↑ Chambers 2002, p. 334.
  28. 1 2 "Obituary: Lady Guinness". Daily Telegraph.
  29. ↑ "Sir Alec Guinness was bisexual." BBC News (Showbiz), 16 April 2001. Retrieved: 24 August 2009.
  30. ↑ Pearce 2006, p. 301.
  31. ↑ "Sir Alec Guinness." Telegraph (Obituaries), 8 August 2000. Retrieved: 26 August 2009.
  32. ↑ Sutcliffe, Tom."Sir Alec Guinness (1914–2000)." The Guardian, 7 August 2000. Retrieved: 26 August 2009.
  33. ↑ Garry O'Connor (2002). Alec Guinness: A Life (illustrated ed.). Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. p. 89. ISBN 9781557835741.
  34. ↑ Pearce 2006, p. 311.
  35. ↑ The invisible man, by Hugh Davies, originally published in the Telegraph and reprinted in The Sunday Age, 13 August 2000.
  36. ↑ GRO Register of Deaths: AUG 2000 1DD 21 Chicester– Alec Guinness, DoB = 2 April 1914, aged 86.
  37. ↑ GRO Register of Deaths: OCT 2000 38C 104 Petersfield – Merula Sylvia (Lady) Guinness, DoB = 16 October 1914, aged 86.
  38. ↑ Breznican, Anthony (December 20, 2015). "Obi-Wan and Yoda are secretly in Star Wars: The Force Awakens". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved April 15, 2016.
  39. ↑ "Comedian tops film poll." The Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW: 1949–1953), via National Library of Australia, 28 December 1952, p. 4. Retrieved: 27 April 2012.
  40. ↑ "'The Dam Busters'." Times [London, England], 29 December 1955, p. 12 via The Times Digital Archive. Retrieved: 11 July 2012.
  41. ↑ "The Most Popular Film Star In Britain." Times [London, England] 7 December 1956, p. 3 via The Times Digital Archive.. Retrieved: 11 July 2012.
  42. ↑ "Mr. Guinness Heads Film Poll." Times [London, England], 2 January 1959, p. 4 via The Times Digital Archive. Retrieved: 11 July 2012.
  43. ↑ "Year Of Profitable British Films." Times [London, England] 1 January 1960, p. 13 via The Times Digital Archive. Retrieved: 11 July 2012.

Bibliography

  • Chambers, Colin. Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2002. ISBN 0-8264-4959-X.
  • Guinness, Alec. A Positively Final Appearance: A Journal, 1996-1998. London: Penguin Books, 2001. ISBN 978-0-14-029964-9.
  • Guinness, Alec. Blessings in Disguise. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0394552377.
  • Guinness, Alec. My Name Escapes Me. London: Penguin Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-14-027745-6.
  • Pearce, Joseph. Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief. London: Ignatius Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1-58617-159-9.
  • Read, Piers Paul. Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. ISBN 978-0-7432-4498-5.
  • Taylor, John Russell. Alec Guinness: A Celebration. London: Pavilion, 2000. ISBN 1-86205-501-7.

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