Remembering John Gielgud© Hunter Peters
Jun 2, 2000
There was Olivier, Guinness, Burton and there was Gielgud. They were, it is
generally agreed upon, the four greatest British actors of the 20th century, but
only one of them made as great a mark on television as he did on the stage or
movie screen and that was John Gielgud. Born in 1904 Gielgud began his acting
career on the stage at age 17, and was still actively performing at age 96 when
he recently passed away. Originally slated by his parents for a career in architecture,
the
young Gielgud managed to persuade them to let him attend RADA with the stipulation
that if he hadn't established himself as an actor by his 25th birthday he would
give up the footlights and return to architecture. Needless to say his 25th
birthday came and Gielgud had already solidified himself as one of Britain's finest
young stage actors.
It was on stage that Gielgud felt most at home and, of the quartet of
masterful performers, he was likely the finest actor among them. He also made
more than fifty films ranging from numerous stage adaptations such as Hamlet
and The Elephant Man to experimental films like Peter Greenaway's Prospero's
Books (where he showed uncommon valor in baring it all in the name of art)
to popular mysteries including Murder on the Orient Express and Murder
By Decree. Gielgud earned himself an unlikely Oscar for his, admittedly
marvelous, role as Dudley Moore's
gentleman's gentleman in the hit comedy Arthur. The Oscar, clearly given in the
spirit of a lifetime achievement award, would have been more deserved for his
grand turns on the small screen for Sir John (he was knighted in the 1950's) did
some of his finest work away from the stage, on television and not in the movies. In
his fifties, when many actors would have been looking forward, with
either dread or relief, to the dimming of their careers, Gielgud embraced
television. Where other actors felt "the box" beneath them Sir John embraced the
possibilities and opportunities presented by the still relatively young medium.
The more stage like atmosphere of telly production surely must have appealed to
him and he likely appreciated the shorter shooting schedules that would allow him more time
to attend to his true love, the stage.
Sir John Gielgud's television career began with a role in a 1959 production
of Terrance Rattigan's The Browning Version, directed by future Manchurian
Candidate helmer John Frankenheimer, and continued unabated through 1998's epic
mini-series Merlin. In between he appeared, not surprisingly, in numerous
productions of Shakespeare's plays and various adaptations of classic literature
including Romeo and Juliet (1967 and again in 1978), Alice in Wonderland (1967),
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