Give a Hand for the Wonderful Sir Alec Guinness! Quiz

Prior to this, he worked for an advertising firm as a copywriter. He was able to become a student at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art, however, and this got him his first stage role. Although it is a common mistake that his first stage role was in Sir John Gielgud's 1936 production of "Hamlet", playing the role of Osric, he actually had a much less auspicious beginning.

His first role came in 1934, when he played a walk-on character in the play "Libel" at the old King's Theater, Hammersmith. Interestingly, the first night that he played was actually on his 20th birthday, April 2nd. Later, the play transferred to the West End, where he was given a promotion of sorts by understudying to a role, and was given a pay raise to a weekly salary of £1. This was to be the beginning of one of the greatest acting careers of all time.

Sir Alec's first film role was perhaps even less promising than his first stage role. For his first time on screen, he played an uncredited World War I soldier extra in the 1934 film "Evensong".

By the time he had his second film role, it was 8 years later, and he was revising a role that he had played on stage to much acclaim, the character of Herbert Pocket in the 1946 version of "Great Expectations", opposite Sir John Mills. Sir Alec had written a stage version of "Great Expectations" in 1939 which had impressed David Lean, who later co-wrote the film's screenplay and invited Sir Alec to revise his role. By this time, Sir Alec was already a star performer.

Sir Alec Guinness had a marriage that was uncommon in Hollywood; it lasted. He married Merula Salaman, an actress herself, in 1938. The couple had a son together in 1940, Matthew Guinness, who also became an actor.

Sir Alec and Merula were deeply attached, and when he died on August 5th, 2000, he left behind a letter for her, expressing his love. She died less than 3 months later, on October 18, 2000. They had been married 62 years.

The Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve was Sir Alec's service during the war, where he started out as a Seaman in 1941. He had reached the rank of Temporary Lieutenant by 1943, and at the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, he was in command of a landing craft. He finished out the war by sending supplies to Yugoslav partisans.

It was while Sir Alec was in the Navy that he considered becoming an Anglican priest. Although he had already had a successful stage career, playing such roles as Hamlet (1938) and Romeo (1939), he was very close to leaving it all for a career with the church. Although he decided against it, faith still remained an important part of his life.

Sir Alec's first Academy Award nomination was for Best Actor in the 1951 film "The Lavender Hill Mob", opposite Stanley Holloway. One of many films that Sir Alec made with Ealing Studios, "The Lavender Hill Mob" told the story of a middle-aged bank clerk named Henry "Dutch" Holland who spent years in charge of regular gold bullion deliveries. Upon meeting his new fellow lodger who works in a figurine-making shop, the two hatched a plan to steal the bullion and melt it down into harmless figurines shaped like the Eiffel Tower.

Despite some minor setbacks, things turned out generally as planned: the robbery was made, and Holland was made to appear the victim of a robbery rather than its main instigator. The gold was melted and the figurines made their way to Paris--only to be accidentally sold to some English tourists! Things can only get worse as the members of the "mob" attempted to track down the gold.

The film has been ranked the 17th greatest British film of all time by the British Film Institute, and was a great hit in 1951. That same year, Sir Alec was voted Britain's top box office attraction, and the 5th greatest box office attraction internationally.

Sir Alec starred in the very first production put on by the Stratford Festival, Shakespeare's "Richard III". He had been invited to participate in the festival by fellow actor Tyrone Guthrie, who was one of the first actors recruited to star in the new festival. Sir Alec lived in Ontario, Canada, for a while while the play was being rehearsed and performed.

As the star of the show, Sir Alec thus became the person to speak the very first lines at a Stratford Festival, when "Richard III" premiered on July 13 1953:
"Now is the winter of our discontent/
Made glorious summer by this son of York."
The festival was officially launched.

Although Sir Alec had been confirmed in the Anglican church as a teenager, he considered himself an atheist for the majority of his young life. At some points, he considered religion merely "so much rubbish, a wicked scheme of the establishment to keep the working man in his place." He investigated Communism, Buddhism, and even used a set of Tarot Cards for a time, until he threw them in the fire, seeing them as insulting to Christ.

It was only during World War II that his Anglican faith returned, and when portraying Father Brown, the crime-solving cleric in the 1954 film of the same name, he was approached by a boy who saw him in his priest's costume and mistook him for a priest, showing complete trust in Sir Alec. Noting that the Catholic church could not be so bad if a boy was so trusting of it, Sir Alec slowly began changing his opinions of the church.

When Sir Alec's son Matthew developed polio at the age of 11, Sir Alec found himself in a church and prayed; his son eventually recovered from the disease. When his son said he wished to convert to Roman Catholicism at the age of 15, Sir Alec did not stand in his way. Sir Alec himself followed suit in 1956, and his wife, who had been Jewish, did so as well in 1957, while he was away filming for "The Bridge on the River Kwai". A very devout man after this, Sir Alec recited from Psalm 143 every morning.

Sir Alec received many honors from Queen Elizabeth II during his lifetime. The first to come was when the 1955 Birthday Honors appointed him as a CBE, or Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Next to come was his knighthood, which made him Sir Alec Guinness, in the 1959 New Year's Honors.

Finally, he was made a Companion of Honor, or CH, in the 1994 Birthday Honors. All of these honors were given in recognition of his services to drama.

Sir Alec played the title role in "Dylan", a 1964 play by Sidney Michaels. The play was based upon the last years of poet Dylan Thomas' life. The 18th Tony Awards, which took place on May 24 1964, honored Sir Alec by awarding him with a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, beating out three other celebrated actors; Richard Burton, Albert Finney, and Jason Robards, Jr.

Sir Alec also received a Delia Austrian Medal for his role, a medal presented each year by the Drama League for the most outstanding theater performance.

And no, it wasn't in "Star Wars"! Although archival audio of Sir Alec was used in the 2015 and 2019 "Star Wars" films, "The Force Awakens" and "The Rise of Skywalker" respectively, these were not the actual last roles for Sir Alec. Sir Alec Guinness' last role was playing James in the 1996 BBC TV movie, "Eskimo Day".

In February 2000, Sir Alec was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Just two days before his death, he was also diagnosed with liver cancer. He ultimately died of liver cancer on August 5, 2000. One of the greatest and most versatile actors of both stage and screen was gone.