- Born
- Died
- Birth nameAlec Guinness de Cuffe
- Height5′ 9¼″ (1.76 m)
- Alec Guinness was an English actor. He is 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).
Guinness is really most remembered for his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy for which he receive a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1959, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. In the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances in Britain, including the role of George Smiley in the serialisations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982). In 1980 he received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement.
Guinness was also one of three British actors, along with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, who made the transition from Shakespearean theatre in England to Hollywood blockbusters immediately after the Second World War.
Guinness died on 5 August 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Pedro Borges
- SpouseMerula Salaman(June 20, 1938 - August 5, 2000) (his death, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsAndrew GeddesAgnes Cuff
- RelativesSally Guinness(Grandchild)Mary Ann Benfield(Grandparent)Edward Cuff(Grandparent)Natasha Guinness-Taylor(Great Grandchild)Otis Guinness-Walker(Great Grandchild)Chloe Salaman(Niece or Nephew)Toby Salaman(Niece or Nephew)Joseph Blatchley(Niece or Nephew)
- Known for playing multiple complex characters and changing his appearance to suit.
- Often played noble and fiercely proud leaders and authority figures
- Often worked with David Lean and Ronald Neame
- Deep smooth voice
- The book "Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography" (2003) reprints several letters that Guinness wrote to his longtime friend and correspondent Anne Kaufman Schneider in which he expressed his displeasure with and dubiousness about the quality of Star Wars (1977) as it was in production. Before filming started, he wrote: "I have been offered a movie (20th Century Fox) which I may accept, if they come up with proper money. London and North Africa, starting in mid-March. Science fiction--which gives me pause--but is to be directed by Paul [sic] Lucas who did American Graffiti, which makes me feel I should. Big part. Fairy-tale rubbish but could be interesting perhaps." Then after filming started, he wrote to Kaufman again to complain about the dialogue and describe his co-stars: "new rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper--and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable. I just think, thankfully, of the lovely bread, which will help me keep going until next April. I must off to studio and work with a dwarf (very sweet--and he has to wash in a bidet) and your fellow countrymen Mark Hamill and Tennyson (that can't be right) Ford. Ellison (?--No!)--well, a rangy, languid young man who is probably intelligent and amusing. But oh God, God, they make me feel ninety--and treat me as if I was 106. Oh, [the actor's name is] Harrison Ford--ever heard of him?".
- George Lucas said Guinness was very patient and helpful to him during the filming of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), even to the point of getting the other actors to work more seriously.
- He was the only person to receive a best acting nomination in any of the Star Wars movies.
- In his last book of memoirs, "A Positively Final Appearance", he expressed a devotion to the television series The Simpsons (1989).
- In his autobiographical volumes, Guinness wrote about an incident at the Old Vic when, in the company of National Theater (which originally played at the Old Vic) artistic director Laurence Olivier in the basement of the theater, he asked where a certain tunnel went. Olivier did not really know but confidently decided to take the tunnel as it must come out somewhere nearby, it being part of the Old Vic. In reality, the tunnel went under the Thames, and they were rescued after several hours of fruitless navigation of the dark, damp corridor. Guinness remarked that Olivier's willingness to plunge into the dark and unknown was characteristic of the type of person (and actor) he was. As for himself as an actor, Guinness lamented at times that he did not take enough chances.
- [on how much he disliked working on Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and his attempts to encourage George Lucas to kill off Obi-Wan Kenobi] And he agreed with me. What I didn't tell him was that I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo.
- I shrivel up every time someone mentions Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) to me.
- Failure has a thousand explanations. Success doesn't need one.
- We live in an age of apologies. Apologies, false or true, are expected from the descendants of empire builders, slave owners, persecutors of heretics and from men who, in our eyes, just got it all wrong. So with the age of 85 coming up shortly, I want to make an apology. It appears I must apologize for being male, white and European.
- [in 1985 to The Guardian newspaper, on what he intends to do by the end of his life] A kind of little bow, tied on life. And I can see myself drifting off into eternity, or nothing, or whatever it may be, with all sorts of bits of loose string hanging out of my pocket. Why didn't I say this or do that, or why didn't I reconcile myself with someone? Or make sure that someone whom I like was all right in every way, either financially or, I don't know...
- Little Dorrit (1988) - £180,000
- Raise the Titanic (1980) - £45,000
- Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) - $7,000,000
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - $150,000
- The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) - £6,000
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