Sir Alec Guinness Trivia Quiz

Answer: Marylebone

Guinness was born on 2nd April 1914 at Marylebone, London.

Answer: He was illegitimate and scarcely knew his father.

His mother was Miss Agnes Cuffe, and his father was a (possibly married) bank manager. He was registered at birth as "Alec Guinness de Cuffe"; no father's name was registered. In his memoir "Blessings in Disguise", Guinness describes his father as "A handsome old man, white-haired.

A Scotsman. I saw him only four or five times. I was taught to call him uncle, but I suppose I always knew he was my real father." In 1919 his mother married a Scottish army captain named David Stiven; Alec was registered at school as "Alec Stiven".

He liked the name, but did not get on with his stepfather. Neither, apparently, did his mother; the marriage, which he described as "violently unhappy" (Stiven, apparently, was unable to leave the army behind him in his domestic life) ended after three years.

Answer: Sir John Gielgud

Unusually for one so shy and unsure of himself, Guinness impulsively approached the already famous and celebrated Gielgud for advice. Gielgud referred him to the great actress Martita Hunt (who would later costar with Guinness as Miss Havisham in "Great Expectations"). Hunt tried to discourage him from an acting career, but he eventually won her over.

Answer: Sir Laurence Olivier

Olivier's performance was not well received and he was annoyed that Guinness had received the lion's share of attention (and praise) from the critics. Guinness' explanation was quite simple: whenever Olivier entered, the lights came up on him; all Guinness had to do was stay very close to Olivier.

Answer: Fagin in "Oliver Twist" and Herbert Pocket in "Great Expectations"

In addition to these, Guinness played William Dorrit in the 1987 film version of "Little Dorrit" and the ghost of Jacob Marley in the 1970 film "Scrooge", a musical version of "A Christmas Carol" starring Albert Finney.

Answer: He portrays eight different characters, including a woman.

This extraordinary black comedy concerns one Mazzini (Dennis Price), the son of an aristocratic mother whose family, the D'Ascoynes, reject her when she marries an Italian opera singer. When the D'Ascoyne's refuse even to permit her burial in the family plot, Mazzini vows revenge.

He schemes to eliminate them all and succeed to the dukedom. All eight of the D'Ascoynes, including a woman (Lady Agatha; a suffragette) are played brilliantly by Guinness (at one point he plays his own father). If you see only one Guinness film in your life, this should be the one.

Answer: They nearly fell off the Eiffel tower.

In his 1996 memoir "My Name Escapes Me", Guinness states that "Ealing studios never succeeded in killing me in spite of some quite good tries." At one point, he and Holloway were at the top of the Eiffel Tower and were supposed to run from the police down a spiral staircase. Part of the way down, Guinness realized to his horror that the staircase ended abruptly three feet ahead of him and immediately sat down (it was apparently still under construction; there was a sign on the trap door leading to the staircase reading "Workmen Only").

When the directors yelled at him to run further down, he called up "Further down is eternity!" He adds, with understandable bitterness "No one had checked up on the staircase and no one apologized; that wasn't Ealing policy."

Answer: Catholicism

In 1954 Guinness played the title role in the film "Father Brown", based on Gilbert K. Chesterton's books about a fictional detective-priest. After filming one day he was headed toward a bar, still in costume, when a small boy grabbed his hand and began chattering away in French. Guinness let the child lead him to his home, where they bid each other "Bon jour" before the boy disappeared into the house. Guinness was moved and impressed by the innate trust that the clerical garb had inspired in the child.

At about this time, his own 11 year-old son Matthew became paralyzed from the waist down. Guinness found himself wandering into the local church and praying, which eventually led to his taking instruction in the Catholic faith, to which he converted in 1955.

Answer: James Dean

Dean had just purchased the 1955 silver Porsche which would prove to be his death car when he encountered Guinness, Grace Kelly, and Louis Jourdan. When Dean bragged that the car could do 150 mph, Guinness told him that it looked very dangerous and that he should never set foot in the car; if he did, Guinness warned, he would be dead within a week. Dean laughed off the warning; six days later (Sept. 30) he had his fatal accident. (Ironically, Grace Kelly would also die in an auto accident 26 years later.). Guinness was also once the dinner guest of Princess Diana at a social function; sadly, he had no premonition of her tragic accident.

Answer: Dylan Thomas

The 1964 play "Dylan" dealt with the final months of the alcoholic poet's life. His performance won him the Antoinette Perry award that year.

Answer: Merula

Guinness was married to playwright and artist Merula Salaman for 62 years until his death in August 2000. They met when Guinness was appearing in a production of Gielgud's "Noah" and married in 1938.

Answer: She would place a small vase of flowers on his desk.

Merula would do this each week. In his 1996 memoir, Guinness writes "I rarely see her do this; her loving gestures are nearly always a surprise."

Answer: True

Though their personal relationship had been far from idyllic, Guinness spoke with great eloquence of Olivier's formidable achievements.

Answer: May the Force be With You

Guinness' first memoir was "Blessings in Disguise". His second, chronicling the years 1996-1997 was titled "My Name Escapes Me", subtitled "Memoirs of a Retiring Actor". All of these point to Guinness' essentially self-effacing, chameleon-like character.

He also published a 1998 memoir "A Positively Final Appearance". He was rather disdainful of the whole "Star Wars" phenomenon; once he was introduced to a young boy who boasted that he had seen the "Star Wars" film 100 times. Guinness was horrified and tried (unsuccessfully) to extract a promise from the boy that he would never see the film again.

A posthumous biography of Guinness, by author Gerry O'Connor was entitled "The Force Within".

Answer: 1959

Guinness was knighted in 1959 by Queen Elizabeth II; this was one year after his Oscar win for "Bridge on the River Kwai".

Answer: Adolf Hitler

Guinness portrayed Hitler in "Hitler; the Last Ten Days", detailing the German dictator's final days in the bunker. Other (less notorious) historical personages Guinness has portrayed are Prince Faisal (in "Lawrence of Arabia"), Marcus Aurelius (in "The Fall of the Roman Empire"), King Charles I (in "Cromwell"), and Benjamin Disraeli (in "The Mudlark")

Answer: A U.S. President

Guinness played Pope Innocent III in the 1973 Franco Zeffirelli film "Brother Sun, Sister Moon"; a film about the life of Francis of Assisi. He played Japanese businessman Koichi Asano, who has an unlikely romance with a widowed Jewish woman (Rosalind Russell) in the 1961 film "A Majority of One" (Guinness describes himself as having played this role "with ravioli stuck to my eyelids").

In the 1976 Neil Simon comedy "Murder by Death", Guinness plays a blind butler in a mysterious mansion where a murder is to take place in the presence of the world's greatest detectives- played by Peter Sellars, David Niven, Maggie Smith, James Coco, Peter Falk, and Elsa Lanchester.

This film also stars Nancy Walker as the deaf-mute cook who, additionally, cannot read or speak English (she and Guinness have a couple of hilarious scenes together).

He never played an American president that I know of, though I'm sure he would have made the definitive Woodrow Wilson (among others).

Answer: Yes

He won an Academy Award for his role as an obsessed colonel in David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai" in 1957. He was previously nominated as Best Actor in 1951 for his role in "The Lavender Hill Mob". He had also received Best Supporting Actor nominations for his roles in "Star Wars" (1978) and "Little Dorrit" (1989), as well as an Oscar for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium for the 1958 film "The Horse's Mouth".

Answer: 3

Although his character Obi Wan Kenobi died in the first "Star Wars" installment, he reappears as a spiritual presence in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Return of the Jedi".

Answer: A letter

A man of somewhat mercurial temperament in his private life, Guinness frequently agonised over his occasional bouts of bad temper. He had left Merula a letter to be read after his death emphasizing his deep love and affection and expressing regret for any pain he had caused her.