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Blessings in Disguise is Sir Alec's title, but the blessings in this all- too-short autobiography (Knopf; $17.95) wear no masks. Along with an engaging picture of Guinness himself, there are candid and almost always hilarious portraits of some of those he has met along the way to his threescore and eleven: George Bernard Shaw, Tyrone Guthrie, Edith Evans, Martita Hunt, Noel Coward and even Ernie Kovacs, who, he says, was "just about the funniest man I have ever...
...afternoon during the filming of Our Man in Havana, in which Kovacs played a corrupt police chief, Sir Alec passed the comedian's hotel room. The door was open, and Kovacs was sitting at a desk and typing furiously, surrounded by half a dozen naked girls reading magazines. "Shall I shut your door?" Guinness politely suggested. "No! For heaven's sakes!" replied Kovacs. "What would people say? They'd say Kovacs is in that room with a | bunch of naked broads. And they'd think the worst. With the door open they can see for themselves it's all perfectly...
Perhaps the most endearing portrait is that of the eccentric Richardson. Directing Guinness in an Old Vic production of Richard II, Sir Ralph had only a few words of advice. Holding up a sharpened pencil, he said, "Play it like this pencil, old cock." Guinness admits that he was not greatly illuminated, and his Richard was a failure of which he is still ashamed...
...later years Richardson always had a silver tankard of champagne waiting for those who visited him backstage. Once, when Guinness came by, he rose and made a military-style toast: "To Jesus Christ. What a splendid chap!" Another time, when they were both starring in Doctor Zhivago, Sir Alec walked into Richardson's hotel suite in Madrid. "Who can one hit," said Richardson, "if not one's friends?" -- and punched him in the jaw. By the time Guinness raised himself from the floor to ask what was going on, Richardson was sound asleep in an armchair...
...most ominous moment came that same morning, shortly after Marcos announced on a televised news conference that he was declaring a state of emergency. At that point his armed forces Chief of Staff, General Ver, whispered to Marcos in a voice that was audible to the whole nation, "Sir, we are ready to annihilate them at your orders . . . We are left with no option but to attack." Marcos did not respond. Whether he knew it or not, his failure to move swiftly against Enrile and Ramos, one of the more honorable acts of his tarnished presidency, had already cost...