Word: alec
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...Alec finds himself by imitating others. He is a superlative mimic. Like Charles Dickens, one of his favorite writers, he learns what a character is by imitating what he does; like Dickens, he sometimes mistakes caricature for characterization. He invariably begins a character by deciding what he would wear and how he would look-he works from the outside in. In the early stages of a part he is nervous and unsure of himself, prone to tantrums and small cries of "God, I'm inadequate" and piteous little interviews in which he offers to quit "for the good...
...Anonymity is to Alec," says a friend, "what the Channel is to England." His second line of defense is an impenetrable English hedge of middle-class respectability. Sewed up in a sober suit of excellent cut, clamped in a boiled collar, braced with his faithful brolly, Guinness looks as safe as the Tower...
Very few get past the Guinness reserve, but those who do report that the Alec nobody knows is a Joseph's coat of glowing talents and darkly mysterious seams and good grey patches of worsted virtue...
...Sense of Dignity. Alec is almost magically sensitive to people and to atmosphere. Director Lean "never knew anybody with so many antennae out at once. He knows more about you in a minute than most people would in a lifetime." Along with the sensitivity goes a quick, clear intelligence, soundly educated and widely informed, especially in the arts. His overriding passion is his work, but he is also a devoted husband and father. He met his wife Merula, an exactress, when they both played in Noah (1935)-she was a tiger, he a wolf. Son Michael, 16, attends Beaumont College...
Slowly, surely, Guinness devours his part. Like a cannibal, he gnaws away at the physical details. But what he is really after is the soul. When he gets it, the gestures are pushed aside like a cocoon, and a new existence emerges. Indeed, Alec's essential gift is not for creating characters, but existences. His people are all somehow like children, playing alone in corners, a life unto themselves. "His is the art of public solitude," says Critic Tynan. "He can seem unobserved...