Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness (1914), British stage and screen actor. Having first appeared on stage in 1934, Guinness gained recognition for distinguished performances in Shakespearean roles, especially for his modern-dress Hamlet (1938). Among later stage successes were -his portrayal of T. E. Lawrence in Rattigan’s Ross (1960). Guinness is also known as a highly versatile screen co-median, as in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), in which he played eight members of a family, and The Ladykillers (1955). Other films include Bridge on the Khwae Yai River (1957), for which he won an Oscar, and A Passage to India (1984). His best remembered television role was as the spymaster Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and Smiley’s People (1981-82). He was knighted in 1959.
“The outstanding poet of anonymity. Sir Peter Ustinov on Sir Alec Guinness”
