Alec Guinness Books

As previously said, this is a very well and beautifully writen errr... memoir. The cover tells you the whole story of what to expect inside. At first glance Alec dancing appears as a comical figure almost, but as you look closer you can see he is in some sort of agony. And as the book moves on, it is hard for him to not show his melancholy.
Despite being a bit of a emotional downer, this is still a very worthwhile read for any of his fans.

The journal of an extraordinary gentleman, one of the greatest actors ever to grace stage or screen. His reflections on his career are moving and perceptive, totally lacking in self-aggrandisement. His thoughts on the whole "Star Wars" phenomenon are particularly witty but smack of the desperation of being hounded by that film's fans. It's tragic that this great man may only be remembered by modern generations for his appearance in that opus instead of for his work in the Ealing comedies, "The Bridge on the River Kwai", his lengthy stage career and his magnificent turn on TV as George Smiley.

Alec Guinness is undeniably one of the most gifted actors of our times, and now, with his offering of "A Positively Final Appearance," we get to know something of the man behind the mask. This journal, kept between the summer of `96, and 1998, is chock full of insightful musings, reminiscences and anecdotes that are a delight. He shares his love of the theater, discussing many of the plays he attended during this period, and gives comments on recent movies, as well. An avid reader, he talks enthusiastically of favorite authors and books; his love of literature is unmistakable. The stage is his first love, however, and he speaks fondly, and frankly, of many of the plays he's done, and of his experiences with many of the actors and directors with whom he has had the privilege of working. He invites you into his private life, discussing the love of his life, Merula, and discoursing on their life at home, as well as their many travels. You learn what the greatest regret of his life is, who some of the people are he admires most, and a few of whom he could do without. He explains his negative attitude toward the "Star Wars" phenomenon, and addresses many of the events, large and small, that have in some way affected his life, and helped mold his perspectives. His concern over world events and the human condition is poignantly evident. Guinness writes so fluently, you can almost hear that distinct, familiar voice; you seem to be listening, rather than reading. There is a dignity and charm to his words that reveal, to some degree, the man behind them. That he values his privacy is apparent, and it becomes very clear that he is not the most accessible person, yet without any rancor; he holds his fans in high esteem, but there is a sincere humility to the man, who simply doesn't feel worthy of all the fuss. In a world seemingly rife with crass sensationalism and indifference, "A Positively Final Appearance" is like a tonic to the soul; it is so refreshing to discover that somewhere elegance and refinement still exist. My positively, final word on this book is that it is a joy, and should not be missed.

I picked up this book because I like Alec Guinness' work in "Lawrence of Arabia" and his other David Lean films (not because of "Star Wars" which I can take or leave). To be honest, I was worried it might be kind of boring.

Well, it was not boring -- it was delightful. The man was full of many profound observations about life that he communicated by writing about everyday things such as the birds in his yard or the weather. His vivid memories of his stage career and the people he knew were vastly entertaining. I was surprised to find him to be a humble, not-too-well-off everyday kind of man, not some fabulously rich egomaniac as I had supposed him to be.

Even though I could not be more different from him politically, I still enjoyed reading his views on politics. It was like talking to a dapper, well-bred older gentleman you bumped into on the street. His writing was assertive, yet polite and genteel.

If you miss reading this book, you've missed a simple pleasure that will make you smile. It's worth buying!

The late Sir Alec Guinness was a lovely writer, and with this, his final memoir, he improved vastly over his previous gift to us, MY NAME ESCAPES ME. Whereas the latter was strictly a selection from his diary, with this Guinness moves beautifully from journalistic descriptions of day-to-day events (from eye surgery to walks with his wife, Merula, to the indignities of moving slowly in an ever fast-paced and impolite world) and wry reflections on current events to anecdotes spanning his entire career in theatre and film. Each chapter is arranged by a theme, mostly seasonal, but they meander charmingly.

Those interested in his encounter with the church and his beginnings as an artist should find his autobiography, BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE. Those who might want reflections on STAR WARS will be disappointed. When one gentleman asked Guinness for an autograph from Ben Kenobi immediately after mass, Guinness admonished him, "Not in front of the parishioners!" and disappeared as nimbly as a young Jedi.

As a fan of Alec Guinness, it gave me additional insight to this great actor's life. It made me want to learn more and more about him, read books on him and see his movies again A great actor.

Sir Alec writes beautifully and simply about the his life through the lives that affected him. Funny, honest, and thought provoking. He's not at all the stereotypical stuffy Englishman, but a regular person with a huge amount of talent and alot of great stories to tell. This book should be back in print!

BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE stands out in my reading as one of the most enjoyable autobiographies I've ever encountered. Unlike so many actors, Alec Guinness is a truly modest man, and his wry humor and ability to laugh at himself are extraordinarily refreshing. Guinness is worth reading even if you've never seen one of his movies or plays or television appearances. It is a damn shame that this fine book is apparently out of print.

Published to celebrate Sir Alec Guinness's 75th birthday, this well produced book features a brief text history of his acting career and numerous photos of him on stage and in film. A must have large size hardbound collectible for any serious fan.

Alec Guiness, Cyril Cusack, and Jill Bennet perform in this unabridged version of King Lear. Interpreted in traditional Shakespearean style, the sound effects are effectively done to augment the performances.

This paperback is a handy edition of Shakespeare's great play, useful for students on all levels. The critical essays in the back are helpful, though one or two more recent ones could have been included.

It is not easy to understand the old style Eglish to non-native foreigner like me. But I read it cover to cover.

I bought this edition as a teaching supplement, not realizing that it is the folio version of the play. The words "quarto" and "folio" refer to the size of the pages in the two editions. Many secondary schools and universities use the quarto edition and a lot is left out of the folio--this version cuts out three hundred lines and adds one hundred new ones. The effect is that it alters the way the characters are shown. If you are reading the play with a class and they have a quarto version, while you are using your trusty teacher's Cambridge, chances are there will be a lot of blank expressions and confusion on their faces. The lines they see will not jibe with yours. The extra articles and class activities are great though--just make sure that if you use the Cambridge, you have your students buy only folio editions.

I have my degree in English... I like reading and teaching with this version as "help" not as a substitution. It gives a clearer understanding to Shakespeare for people who have difficulty with it.

Although this edition is not quite as exhaustive as the Arden Shakespeare paperbacks, it does have good commentary and even includes a fair bit of criticism. It's not expensive and the print is clear and readable, not small or cramped like some Shakespeare editions. The comments, which largely explain difficult words in the text, are printed on the same page as the text, which is helpful. I use a copy of this for studying Shakespeare - at such a good prize, you don't feel bad for scribbling notes in the margins.

Where BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE and A POSITIVELY FINAL APPEARANCE are more organized as memoirs, this is simply a sequence of diary entries prepared for publication. They show a great actor, the dean of Ealing comedies and (to his chagrin) the great Jedi Master, admiring the twilight in his retirement. This is a gentlemanly, sensitive, yet vibrantly witty writer who once described heaven as sitting with one or two friends, sharing a drink and savoring the silence. There are no peekaboo stories about celebrities or iconoclastic commentaries on the state of the world; just an appreciation for an interesting life well-lived, deliciously and intimately inscribed for us in these daily entries.

For a more organized and literary memoir, the two titles mentioned above come highly recommended.

In this, the first of his two volumes (so far, I hope) based on his journal, the great actor Sir Alec Guinness makes writing and reading seem as effortless as his acting. His graceful, lucid prose is remarkable, as are his observations and ruminations on his life, on the craft of acting (he never lets one forget that acting is a craft with exacting standards of professionalism), on his reading, on his religious life, on the world around him, and on his family and friends. He is one of the sharpest yet kindest observers of the human comedy, and reading him is not only an unalloyed pleasure but nourishing to the mind and the heart. Readers of this book should scour used-bookstores for BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE and should also hunt down his new book A POSITIVELY FINAL APPEARANCE.

sir alec must have been a kind and gentle man. i found in this book that he was charming and witty and deliberately effacing. it takes us on a journey to his many memories of movies,tv,politics, and a great cast of characters that he's met over the years. it's a quiet and calm book. a very relaxing and entertaining read. and what a since of humor!

I haven't hear the audio version of Sir Alec's diary: don't need to since I can hear his voice in my head as I read. Gracious to a fault about his fellow actors, prickly about fans who invade his privacy (whether spying him at a museum or appearing in the back garden), exasperated at the Star Wars fame, he is a truly eccentric Englishman and proud of it. I love it when he admits he probably went on and on while telling a story; a common fault of the loquacious and the aging. Pokes fun at himself and endears himself all the more. Delightful.

"My Name Escapes Me" is a book of actor Sir Alec Guinness' personal diary entries from January 1995 to June 1996, which he wrote with publication in mind. I have to give Sir Alec credit: His diary is not as tedious as most people's would be. His writing has a nice pace, and the book is mercifully short. But there simply isn't anything interesting about it. Sir Alec was 82 years old and retired when he wrote this diary. He spent most of his time relaxing at his country home. If he were working, he might have had more interesting anecdotes to relate or perhaps some insight into the process of putting on a play or making a movie to share. But it takes a more talented writer to make something interesting out of the mundane. Sir Alec mentions music that he likes, plays that he sees, books that he reads, art in various forms, but he never expounds on these subjects, so we don't learn anything about the subjects or about him. He doesn't seem to be an opinionated person. Opinions, however trying, might make for better reading. All in all, "My Name Escapes Me" gives the impression of a man of moderate writing talent and moderate intelligence. It's really too bad that no publisher asked Alec Guinness to write a diary for publication earlier in his life. His style is both literate and easy-going. If it had been applied to the life of a working actor, an insightful and highly readable book might have resulted. But as it is, I think only obsessively curious fans of Alec Guinness will find anything of interest in "My Name Escapes Me".

Alec Guinness's career spanned generations. Great-grandparents might recall his days on the British stage. Grandparents may have seen such classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. Younger cinemaphiles still picture him as Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars.

Like most actors, Guinness had more than his share of success with a few clinkers thrown in. Piers Paul Read reveals the enormity of his life's work, along with a massive account of Sir Alec's personal side, in ALEC GUINNESS: The Authorised Biography.

Read, author of more than a dozen books, has done a huge amount of research, culling letters and journals from Guinness and his extended Guinness family, as well as a large circle of friends and acquaintances, to produce an intimate portrait of one of the greatest actors --- along with fellow Englishmen Olivier and Gielgud --- of stage, screen and television.

Guinness came from humble roots. His mother was an alcoholic who never married his father and became an embarrassment to the celebrity as he grew older. It was a stigma that no doubt weighed heavily on him as a young man and beyond, and formed his persona. He was at the same time generous and tight with his money, easily offended but quick to make friends. These paradoxes form the main theme for ALEC GUINNESS.

He found a soul mate in his wife, Merula, to whom he would be married for more than forty years, but once their son, Matthew, was born, their conjugal relationship was non-existent. Nevertheless, she was the perfect partner, casting a blind eye to his moodiness and confusing behavior, especially when it came to Guinness's "infatuations" with pretty young men.

Read is very careful in his phraseology, employing language such as "While there is no evidence whatsoever of a sexual relationship between Alex and this, or indeed, any other man..." and "The exact nature of Alec's sexuality, however, is not at all clear." Such refusal on the part of the author to take a stand can be infuriating, since so much of this psycho-biography is devoted to Guinness's "leanings."

Perhaps as a method to fight his demons, the actor sought refuge in religion, converting to Catholicism and putting great stock in his friendships with priests and nuns. A significant portion of the book flips back and forth between the sacred and the profane, so to speak, with Read reporting dozens of instances of behavior that can only be viewed as questionable, despite the fact that Guinness does not seem to have ever acted on his confusing urges. "It would seem...that Alec felt disordered passions could be controlled, if not cured, by prayer, repentance and the Grace of God. Yet he was never able to detach himself altogether from his homosexual alter-ego."

As can be expected from books of this type, the author covers the major accomplishments in his subject's life, for which movie fans can be grateful. The details can get a bit much; the book no doubt could have been shorter than its 600-plus pages but no less interesting had Read omitted copious recounts of how much Guinness spent on hotel rooms or lunches.

Ultimately, ALEC GUINNESS is a sad book. One has the feeling that between the sexual situation, concerns over finances, and relationships with family and friends --- and despite all of the artistic accomplishments --- Sir Alec was rarely truly happy. Read makes us actually feel sorry for the legendary actor.

--- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan (...)

When Alec was a young boy, he figured out that his mother was something of a tart. She infuriated him by refusing to reveal the name of his real father. Out of such childhood trauma an unpleasant personality was born, but Piers Paul Read shows us that the same whirlpool of insecurity and class consciousness was the birthplace of Guinness' amazing talent. He could slip so deeply into character that oft-times those directing him worried that he would never again come out, and indeed, as Read ably shows, aspects of some of his roles seem to have grafted themselves onto his personality aftewards, so that a few of his roles marked him deeply. Sometimes this seems silly; imagine that his famous conversion to Roman Catholicism was due to him playing a priest early on and liking the way he was feeling.

The reader ponders all these imponderables, and quietly gives up hope for Alec Guinness about halfway through the book. He was so mean and nasty to poor Merula, who authorized Piers Paul Read to write this biography. I bet she did, if only to get her own back. But alas she died before it could be published. Read interviews many members of her family all of whom lived in fear of Alec Guinness, who admittedly was in a difficult position. He was making huge sums for his acting, and he began to feel, not without warrant, that some of Merula's relations were just leeching onto them for the money involved. Thus he treated them like scum and they had to learn to take it, or do without the necessary. Little Matthew, his only child, had a troubling bout with polio in the 1950s, and Alec met a bet with God; if he would cure Matthew, then Alec would convert to Catholicism. What kind of God makes bargains like that? And yet that is exactly what happened.

Was Alec Guinness gay? Read says he can't find a single believable account of anyone who slept with him (outside of Merula). However on the other hand every other thing in the book seems designed to persuade us that this was Guinness' big secret. Just printing that one photo of ultra-sexy Omar Sharif that Alec is said to have snapped while making LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is enough to convince me. No straight man took that photo, I could swear to it!

It seems he was in love with Glenn Ford, which I did not know, and that one way or another Glenn decided to cool Alec's jets by eventually withdrawing from his company. Kind of sad.

Poor Eileen Atkins deserves a medal, the way she sought to maintain a friendship with the ultra-difficult Alec. And yet he could be charming when he wanted to. People say he was the most amazing conversationalist and could make anyone feel at home, feel loved; and then he would turn on you when you did something wrong. He was the unlikeliest of stars, and the most self-effacing, disappearing into his roles like a tortoise withdrawing his head into his shell.

This book is long on (basically negative) innuendo and the author's unsubstantiated (and uninteresting) opinions; short on substance or meaningful insights. It rambles. The reader is also treated to plenty of low grade psychobabble. It's a posthumous hatchet-job with lots of typos. No wonder Sir Alec wouldn't have anything to do with the author when approached for an interview.