Tom Sutcliffe Obituary T he best-known and loved English actor of the 20th century, Sir Alec Guinness, who has died aged 86, was an unostentatious and reserved man. He undertook a great variety of roles, all informed with the wisdom of the sad clown. His spiritual severity and stillness made him an icon after his 1977 performance as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. More than any other English star of his generation, he was equally at home on stage, in film and on television – where he had an Indian summer as spymaster George Smiley. He was a master of disguise, as he demonstrated in the movie Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).
An illegitimate child, Guinness had an impecunious childhood, debuting as an actor at 20, and spending his career until World War IIat the Old Vic. He had reluctance to put himself in the spotlight. Critic Kenneth Tynan wrote of him: “Were he to commit a murder, I have no doubt the number of false arrests following the circulation of his description would break all records.” He always denied having any technique as an actor. But when he played the Fool to Laurence Olivier’s King Lear in 1947, Guinness received the lion’s share of the praise. He explained: “Every time Larry came on stage, the lights went up in his vicinity. All I had to do was just stay very close to him.” Guinness couldn’t fail to be noticed because he was doing so little so well. Tynan said: “He does everything by stealth … his face, except when, temporarily, make- up transfigures it, is a signless zero.” In fact, Guinness was an actor for a new theatrical style, subtle and undecorated. He had a slightly grand shyness off-stage. He did not balk at playing the transvestite criminal in Wise Child (1967), and brought out the hidden interior aspects of the Unidentified Guest in TS Eliot’s The Cocktail Party in 1968 and 1969. He was also a very able author. Apart from his beautifully written memoirs and journals, he adapted The Brothers Karamazov and Great Expectations for the stage, and wrote the screenplay for The Horse’s Mouth. His greatest film role was probably Colonel Nicholson in David Lean’s Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), where his quintessentially English stiff upper lip won him an Oscar. He was knighted in 1959.