Word: gielguds
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...rhetoric." That gift took Burton to Oxford during World War II, and in 1948, after a mandatory stint in the Royal Air Force, to London's West End, where he soon established himself as a logical successor to the reigning monarchs of the stage: Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. Coriolanus, he thought, was his greatest role, and others agreed. "Nobody else can ever again play Coriolanus now," said Olivier. Added Critic Kenneth Tynan: "We thought he could be another Edmund Kean, that he was going to be the greatest classical actor living...
Does Sir Peter ever have any fun? On the Diaries' evidence, a little. Though Hall is frustrated by Olivier's "Machiavellian love of intrigue," he delights in John Gielgud's fussy modesty, Ralph Richardson's engaging bluster, Albert Finney's eagerness to tackle any role. He enjoys the artistic adventure of rehearsing: "It's really why I do this job." But there is another pleasure: confiding to the diary-and now to any Briton with ?12.95 to spend-his colleagues' amorous intrigues (but rarely his own). In 1975 he reports that Pinter...
BLOODY AND ABUSED, SIR PETER SOLDIERS ON. Surveying his domain from his aerie in the National, Hall finds as many defenders as snipers. Gielgud praises his "tremendous enthusiasm and energy." Playwright David Hare (Plenty) values Sir Peter's "help, experience and support." Michael Billington, drama critic of the Guardian, argues that "overall, Hall should get very high marks." Actress-Director Maria Aitken finds Sir Peter "very clever, very sexy, very stimulating...
...light by a child holding its first camera." The body was pear-shaped and the vocal tones were not; they pontificated, or quavered with sentiment. The hands rose and fluttered independently, articulating a sweetly deranged sign language. Ralph Richardson was no matinee idol?no ethereal saint like John Gielgud, whose beautiful voice could coax meaning out of a computer printout; no demon lover like Laurence Olivier, with hellfire in his eyes and the coil of sexual danger. Sir Ralph walked the earth, with sure, heavy strides. When he left it last week at 80, his place was secure...
Peggy Ashcroft thinks of Gielgud as one of the last of the Edwardians, not just in age, but in temperament. It is not a judgment with which he will quarrel. He fondly remembers the London of his youth as a bright and magical city. "I do think with great nostalgia of the old days," he says "But I wouldn't want them back. I'd rather be taken back to a somewhat later period when I first saw my name in lights on marquee and said, 'I'm going to be star...