Sir Arthur John Gielgud,
OM,
CH (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor/director/producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937. He was known for his beautiful speaking of verse and particularly for his warm and expressive voice, which his colleague
Sir Alec Guinness likened to "a silver trumpet muffled in silk".
[Robertson, Nan. "A Reticent Alec Guinness Awaits a Movie Tribute;" The New York Times, 27 April 1987. Retrieved 22 May 2008.][Clarke, Gerald. "Alec Guinness Takes Off His Masks;" Time]], 17 March 1986. Retrieved 22 May 2008.] Gielgud is one of the few entertainers
who have won an Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.
Birth and family background
John Gielgud was born in
South Kensington in
London to Kate Terry and Frank Gielgud. He was of theatrical lineage on his mother's side, being the grandson of actress
Kate Terry and the great nephew of Dame
Ellen Terry, as well as of
Marion Terry,
Fred Terry, and all their actor siblings.
Gielgud's
Catholic father, Franciszek Giełgud, born 1880, was a descendant of a
Lithuanian
noble family residing at
Gelgaudiškis manor dating back to the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now a town in
Marijampolė County,
Lithuania). The Lithuanian form of the name Giełgud is
Gelgaudas. Sir John's grandfather was Adam Giełgud (1834-1920), married to Leontyna Aniela Aszperger. Adam Giełgud's father's (Jan Giełgud's) mother was Countess Eleonora Tyszkiewicz-Łohojski,
Clan Leliwa (by heraldic adoption). As a descendant of
Tyszkiewicz (
Tiškevičius)
counts he was related to many well-known Polish and Lithuanian personalities, including actress
Beata Tyszkiewicz and other
Lithuanian noble families.
In his autobiography, Gielgud states repeatedly and clearly that his father was Polish Catholic. No reference is made to Lithuanian background of any kind.
His elder brother
Val Gielgud came to be a pioneering influence in
BBC Radio. His niece
Maina Gielgud is a dancer and one time artistic director of
The Australian Ballet and the
Royal Danish Ballet.
Career
Early stages
After Hillside Preparatory School in
Godalming,
Surrey and
Westminster School, where he gained a King's Scholarship, Gielgud trained briefly at
RADA and understudied
Noel Coward in Coward's
The Vortex in the West End. He had his initial success as a stage actor in classical roles, first winning stardom during a successful two seasons at the
Old Vic Theatre from 1929 to 1931 where his performances as
Richard II and
Hamlet were particularly acclaimed, the latter being the first
Old Vic production to be transferred to the
West End for a run. He returned to the role of
Hamlet in a famous production under his own direction in 1934 at the
New Theatre in the West End. He was hailed as a
Broadway star in
Guthrie McClintic's production in which
Lillian Gish played
Ophelia in 1936. (The production's popularity was assisted when a rival staging featuring film star
Leslie Howard opened shortly afterward and was critically denounced in comparison to Gielgud's. Gielgud's production broke the long-run record for a Broadway "Hamlet.") There followed a 1939 production that Gielgud again directed at the
Lyceum Theatre, historic for having been the professional home for
Henry Irving's company. This was the last production to play the Lyceum until 50 years later when it was restored to host, among other shows, the hit musical
The Lion King. Gielgud's Hamlet would be later taken to
Elsinore Castle in
Denmark (the actual setting of the play), there was a 1944 production directed by
George Rylands, and finally a 1945 production that toured the Far East under Gielgud's own direction. In his later years, Gielgud would play the Ghost of Hamlet's Father in productions of the play, first to
Richard Burton's Melancholy Dane on the
Broadway stage which Gielgud directed in 1964, then on
television with
Richard Chamberlain, and finally in a radio production starring Gielgud's
protégé Kenneth Branagh.
Gielgud had triumphs in many other plays, notably his greatest popular success
Richard of Bordeaux (1933) (a romantic version of the story of
Richard II),
The Importance of Being Earnest which he first performed at the
Lyric Hammersmith in 1930 and which would remain in his repertory until 1947, and a legendary production of
Romeo and Juliet (1935) which Gielgud directed and alternated the roles of
Romeo and
Mercutio with a young
Laurence Olivier in his first professional
Shakespearean leading role. Olivier's performance won him an engagement as the leading man of the
Old Vic Theatre the following season, starting his career as a classical actor, but he was said to have resented Gielgud's direction and developed a wary relationship with Gielgud which resulted in Olivier turning down Gielgud's request to play the Chorus in Olivier's film of
Henry V and later doing his best to block Gielgud from appearing at the
Royal National Theatre when Olivier was its director .
[
] (1936).]]
Queen's Theatre season
Gielgud had hoped to stay in
America after his
Broadway performance as
Hamlet in 1936 to play
Richard II in
New York, but director
Guthrie McClintic was so certain that the production would fail in the
U.S. that Gielgud gave up the idea (and was dismayed when
Maurice Evans had a legendary success in the play on
Broadway after Gielgud gave him his blessing to mount it when he decided not to).
Howevermuch Gielgud may have wished to stay in America, his return to
London in 1937 had an enormous influence on the development of English Theatre. In 1937/38, he brought his celebrity and talent to bear in producing a season of plays at the
Queen's Theatre, presenting the aforementioned
Richard II, The School for Scandal, Three Sisters, and
The Merchant of Venice with a permanent company that included himself,
Peggy Ashcroft,
Michael Redgrave and
Alec Guinness. Although not always acknowledged for this achievement, Gielgud set a precedent in establishing a company of actors gathered together to present classics. This effort proved it could be done and shaped the development of such future theatrical institutions as the
Royal Shakespeare Company and the
Royal National Theatre. Gielgud acted in all four productions and directed the two
Shakespeare plays, while
Tyrone Guthrie directed
The School for Scandal and
Michael Saint-Denis staged
Three Sisters. From Sheridan Morley's authorized biography: "Accustomed as we have now become to...the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, it is almost impossible to conceive how revolutionary John's idea was for the West End of 1937, where there had simply been nothing like it since the heyday of Henry Irving and the actor-managers more than fifty years earlier."
Laurence Olivier said that Gielgud's performance in
The School for Scandal was "the best light comedy performance I have ever seen - or ever shall!" and considered his
Shylock to be among his greatest impersonations, but the greatest success of the season was the production of
Three Sisters. That production went far toward Gielgud's successful effort to establish
Chekhov's's viability on the English-speaking stage. Gielgud's own performance as Vershinin, along with his past successes as Treplev in
The Seagull (1929 and 1936), and his later work in
The Cherry Orchard (1954), and
Ivanov (1965) were part of that Chekhovian legacy.
Shakespearean legacy
[
Hamlet.jpg|right|thumb|180px|Gielgud played Hamlet at the [[Noël Coward Theatre|New Theatre] in 1934.]]
It would always be, however, for his
Shakespearean work that Gielgud would be best known. In addition to
Hamlet which he played over 500 times in six productions, he gave what some consider definitive performances in
The Tempest (as Prospero) in four productions (and in the
1991 film Prospero's Books), as well as in other roles -
Richard II in three productions,
Benedick in
Much Ado About Nothing which he first played in 1930 and revived throughout the 1950s,
Macbeth and
Oberon in
A Midsummer Night's Dream twice,
Romeo three times, and
King Lear four times (as well as taking on the part for a final time in a radio broadcast at the age of 90). He also had triumphs as
Malvolio in
Twelfth Night (1931),
Shylock in
The Merchant of Venice (1937),
Angelo in
Measure for Measure (1950), Cassius in
Julius Caesar (1950) (which he immortalized in the 1953
film), Leontes in
The Winter's Tale (1951), and
Cardinal Wolsey in
Henry VIII (1959) (although his 1960 performance as
Othello was not a success). It became rumored that Gielgud also provided the voice for the uncredited role of the Ghost of Hamlet's Father in
Laurence Olivier's 1948 film version, but the voice was actually that of Olivier, electronically distorted. Gielgud did voice the Ghost in both the stage and
film version of the Richard Burton Hamlet, which he directed in 1964, and in the 1970
Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation starring
Richard Chamberlain.
Gielgud's crowning achievement, many believe, was
Ages of Man, his one-man recital of Shakespearean excerpts which he performed throughout the 1950s and 1960s, winning a
Tony Award for the
Broadway production, a
Grammy Award for his recording of the piece, and an
Emmy Award for producer
David Susskind for the 1966 telecast on
CBS. Gielgud made his final
Shakespearean appearance on stage in 1977 in the title role of
John Schlesinger's production of
Julius Caesar at the
Royal National Theatre. He also made a recording of many of
Shakespeare's sonnets in 1963. Among his non-Shakespearean Renaissance roles, his Ferdinand in
John Webster's
The Duchess of Malfi was well-known.
Later stage work
As he aged, Gielgud sought out distinctive new voices in the theatre, appearing in plays by
Edward Albee (
Tiny Alice),
Alan Bennett (
Forty Years On),
Charles Wood (
Veterans),
Edward Bond (
Bingo, in which Gielgud played
William Shakespeare), David Storey (
Home), and
Harold Pinter (
No Man's Land), the latter two in partnership with his old friend
Ralph Richardson, but he drew the line at being offered the role of Hamm in
Beckett's Endgame, saying that the play offered "nothing but loneliness and despair" . It looked as though Gielgud would retire from the stage after appearing in
Half Life at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1978, but he made a successful comeback in 1988 in
Hugh Whitemore's play
The Best of Friends as museum curator
Sydney Cockerell.
Directing career
Gielgud was almost as highly regarded for his work as a theatre director as for his acting, having staged his first production as a guest director of the
Oxford University Dramatic Society production of
Romeo and Juliet in 1932. The custom of OUDS at the time was to cast student undergraduates in the male roles and professional actresses in the female roles. Gielgud engaged
Peggy Ashcroft as
Juliet and
Edith Evans as the nurse, who would play the same roles three years later in his legendary production of the play at the
New Theatre.
Gielgud quickly rose to the status of being one of the top directors for
Binkie Beaumont's H.M. Tennent, Ltd. production company in London's
West End Theatre and later on
Broadway, his productions including
Lady Windermere's Fan (1945),
The Glass Menagerie (1948),
The Heiress (1949), his own adaptation of
The Cherry Orchard (1954),
The Potting Shed (1958),
Five Finger Exercise (1959),
Peter Ustinov's comedy
Half Way Up a Tree (1967), and
Private Lives (1972). Gielgud won a
Tony Award for his direction of
Big Fish, Little Fish in 1961, the only time he won the award in a competitive category (having won honorary awards for "Best Foreign Company" for his 1947 production of
The Importance of Being Earnest and for his one-man show
Ages of Man). He also directed the operas
The Trojans in 1957 and
A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1960.
Gielgud directed other actors in many of the Shakespearean roles that he was famous for playing, notably
Richard Burton as
Hamlet (1964),
Anthony Quayle as
Benedick in
Much Ado About Nothing (1950), and
Paul Scofield as the title role in
Richard II (1952). But Gielgud didn't always have the magic touch, staging a disappointing revival of
Twelfth Night with
Laurence Olivier and
Vivien Leigh in 1955 and a disastrous production of
Macbeth with
Ralph Richardson in 1952.
But Gielgud was best known for directing productions in which he also starred, including his greatest commercial success
Richard of Bordeaux (1933), his definitive production of
The Importance of Being Earnest (1939, 1942, 1947),
Medea with
Judith Anderson's
Tony Award-winning performance of the title role with Gielgud supporting her as
Jason (1947),
The Lady's Not for Burning (1949) that won
Richard Burton his first notoriety as an actor, and
Ivanov (1965). But many believed that his greatest successes were in Shakespearean productions in which he both directed and starred, especially
Romeo and Juliet (1935),
Richard II (1937, 1953),
King Lear (1950, 1955),
Much Ado About Nothing (1952, 1955, 1959) and his signature role of
Hamlet (1934, 1939, 1945).
Radio work
Gielgud's brother
Val Gielgud became the head of
BBC Radio Production in 1928 , and John made his radio debut there the following year in a version of
Pirandello's The Man With the Flower in His Mouth, which he was then performing at the
Old Vic Theatre. In the ensuing years, John played many of his greatest stage roles on BBC Radio including
Richard of Bordeaux, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Tempest, and
Hamlet, one production of which featured
Emlyn Williams as Claudius,
Celia Johnson as Ophelia, and
Martita Hunt as Gertrude (the part she played in Gielgud's debut in the role at the Old Vic in 1930). He also played some
Shakespearean roles which he would never essay on stage, such as
Iago in a 1932 broadcast of
Othello opposite
Henry Ainley as the Moor, Buckingham (1954) and Cranmer (1977) in
Henry VIII, and Friar Laurence in
Romeo & Juliet for the first time when he was eighty-nine.
John Gielgud played
Sherlock Holmes for BBC radio in the 1950s, with
Ralph Richardson as
Watson. Gielgud's brother, Val Gielgud, appeared in one of the episodes, perhaps inevitably, as the great detective's brother
Mycroft. This series was co-produced by the American Broadcasting Company.
Orson Welles appeared as
Professor Moriarty in
The Final Problem.
Gielgud gave one of his final radio performances in the title role of an All Star production of
King Lear in 1994 that was mounted to celebrate his 90th birthday. The cast included
Judi Dench,
Kenneth Branagh,
Derek Jacobi, and
Simon Russell Beale.
Film work
Although he began to appear in British films as early as 1924, making his debut in the
silent movie Who Is the Man?, he would not make an impact in the medium until the last decades of his life. His early film roles were sporadic and included the lead in
Alfred Hitchcock's
Secret Agent (1936),
Benjamin Disraeli in
The Prime Minister (1940), Cassius in
Julius Caesar (1953) (
BAFTA Award for Best British Actor),
George, Duke of Clarence to Olivier's
Richard III (1955), and
Henry IV to
Orson Welles'
Falstaff in
Chimes at Midnight (1966). But he lost his aversion to filming in the late 1960s, and by the 1980s and 1990s he had thrown himself into the medium with a vengeance, so much so that it was jokingly said that he was prepared to do almost anything for his art. He won an
Academy Award for his supporting role as a sardonic butler in the 1981 comedy
Arthur, starring
Dudley Moore and
Liza Minnelli, a
New York Film Critics Circle Award for
Providence (1977), and a
BAFTA Award for
Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and his performances in
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968),
The Elephant Man (1981), and
Shine (1996) were critically acclaimed. In 1991, Gielgud was able to satisfy his life's ambition by immortalizing his
Prospero on screen in
Peter Greenaway's extremely offbeat version of
The Tempest, a film called
Prospero's Books in which Gielgud voiced every single character in the play.
[Sir John Gielgud: A Life in Letters, Arcade Publishing (2004).]
Television also developed as one of the focal points of his career, with Gielgud giving a particularly notable performance in
Brideshead Revisited (1981). He won an
Emmy Award for
Summer's Lease (1989) and televised his stage performances of
A Day by the Sea (1957),
Home (1970),
No Man's Land (1976) and his final theatre role in
The Best of Friends as
Sydney Cockerell in the 1991 Masterpiece Theatre Production, along with
Patrick McGoohan and Dame
Wendy Hiller. In 1983, he made his second onscreen appearance with fellow theatrical knights
Laurence Olivier and
Ralph Richardson (following Olivier's own
Richard III) in a television miniseries about composer
Richard Wagner. In 1996 he played a wizard in the TV adaptation of
Gulliver's Travels. Gielgud and
Ralph Richardson were the first guest stars on
Second City Television. Playing themselves, they were in Toronto during their tour of
Harold Pinter's
No Man's Land. According to
Dave Thomas, in his book,
SCTV: Behind the Scenes, their sketch stank and the actors gave a bad performance. Gielgud's final television performance was on film in
Merlin in 1998, his final television studio appearance having been in
A Summer Day's Dream recorded in 1994 for the
BBC 2 Performance series.
Gielgud was one of the few people
who has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award.
Gielgud's final onscreen appearance in a major release motion picture was as Pope Paul IV in
Elizabeth which was released in 1998. His final acting performance was in a film adaptation of
Samuel Beckett's short play
Catastrophe, opposite longtime collaborator
Harold Pinter and directed by American playwright
David Mamet; Gielgud died mere weeks after production was completed at the age of 96 of natural causes.
Personal life
Gielgud lived and thrived in an era when there was a conspiracy of silence around homosexuality outside of theatrical circles. And so, not too long after he was knighted, Gielgud endured an horrific humiliation. In 1953, Gielgud was convicted of "persistently importuning for immoral purposes" (
cottaging) in a
Chelsea mews, i.e., he was arrested for trying to pick up a man in a public lavatory.
There was much discussion behind closed doors about whether his career could endure the ignominy, but he continued to rehearse the play in which he was scheduled to direct and act. Instead of being rejected by the public, he received a standing ovation at the play's initial opening in Liverpool, in part because of his co-star Sybil Thorndike, who seized him as he stood in the wings unable to bring himself to make his first entrance and brought him onstage, whispering "Come on, John darling, they won't boo me." Biographer
Sheridan Morley writes that while Gielgud never denied being homosexual, he always tried to be discreet about it and felt humiliated by the ordeal. Some speculate that it helped to bring to public attention a crusade to decriminalise homosexuality in England and Wales.
The 'Gielgud case' of 1953, above, was dramatised by critic turned playwright
Nicholas de Jongh in the play
Plague Over England and performed at the Finborough, a small London theatre, in 2008, with
Jasper Britton as Gielgud. In 2009 the play was presented for a limited run at the Duchess Theatre, in London's West End, with Michael Feast (who had worked with Gielgud) in the main role.
Gielgud's long-standing professional relationship with producer Hugh
Binkie Beaumont had its personal side as well. It included that Gielgud's first significant lover, playwright John Perry, left Gielgud for Beaumont. Later, Perry went on to partner Beaumont in the H.M. Tennent organization under which Gielgud continued to work. Beaumont, himself
closeted outside the theatrical community, was a very powerful, classy producer. He stood behind Gielgud during the 1953 scandal, and, with Perry, took the risk of backing Gielgud's Queens' Theatre season. However, Morley's biography states: "Binkie...was..to keep him.....on such an extremely tight salary that it wasn't until Gielgud first escaped to Hollywood in 1953 that he began to earn the kind of money that Olivier and Richardson and Redgrave had earned for decades."
In the same biography, Keith Baxter remarks on Gielgud's private life: "...the theatre was always much more important to John G. than any private relationship..."
Longtime partner
Martin Hensler died just a few months before Gielgud's own death in 2000 . He publicly acknowledged Hensler as his partner only in 1988, in the programme notes for
The Best of Friends, which was his final stage performance.
Gielgud would avoid Hollywood for over a decade for fear of being denied entry because of the arrest.
Laurence Olivier's friendship with Gielgud was peppered with barely acknowledged competitive tension, for, while Olivier's fame as a film actor eventually eclipsed Gielgud's, Gielgud had been the great Shakespearean actor when Olivier was just coming up and that was hard for Olivier to forget. Gielgud maintained a very close relationship with Olivier's second wife, the film and stage star
Vivien Leigh, throughout the Oliviers' marriage, their divorce and her subsequent descent into madness. In
Curtain (1991),
Michael Korda's novel based on the marriage of
Laurence Olivier and
Vivien Leigh, Gielgud becomes Philip Chagrin.
Another fictionalised Gielgud – this time given the family name John Terry – appeared around the same time as de Jongh's play in
Nicola Upson's detective novel
An Expert in Murder, a crime story woven around the original production of
Richard of Bordeaux.
John Gielgud was
cremated at Oxford Crematorium.
Awards and honours
- The National Portrait Gallery, London commissioned artist David Remfry to paint a portrait of Sir John for the collection in 1980.
- The Globe Theatre in London was renamed the Gielgud Theatre in 1994 in his honour.
Laurence Olivier Awards
Academy Awards
Emmy Awards
Tony Awards
- 1948: Winner for Outstanding Foreign Company, The Importance of Being Earnest
- 1959: Winner, Special Award, for contribution to theatre for his extraordinary insight into the writings of Shakespeare as demonstrated in his one-man show, Ages of Man
- 1961: Winner for Best Director (Dramatic), for Big Fish, Little Fish, a play by Hugh Wheeler
- 1963: Nominated for Best Director (Dramatic), for The School for Scandal
- 1965: Nominated for Best Actor (Dramatic), for Tiny Alice
- 1971: Nominated for Best Actor (Dramatic), for Home
Evening Standard Awards
Grammy Awards
- 1959: Nominated for Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording, for Ages of Man
- 1964: Nominated for Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording, for Hamlet with Richard Burton, Hume Cronyn, Alfred Drake, George Voskovec, Eileen Herlie, William Redfield and George Rose
- 1964: Nominated for Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording, for Ages of Man, Volume 2 (One Man in His Time) Part Two - Shakespeare
- 1979: Winner for Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording, for Ages of Man - Recordings from Shakespeare
- 1982: Nominated for Best Spoken Word, Documentary or Drama Recording, for No Man's Land with Ralph Richardson
- 1983: Nominated for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording, for Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats with Irene Worth
- 1986: Nominated for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording, for Gulliver
- 1988: Nominated for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording, for A Christmas Carol
- 1989: Nominated for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Recording, for Sir John Gielgud Reads Alice in Wonderland
- 1991: Nominated for Best Album for Children, for The Emperor's New Clothes with Mark Isham
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
- 1981: Best Supporting Actor, for Arthur
- 1985: Best Supporting Actor, for Plenty
There is also the
Sir John Gielgud Award for "Excellence in the Dramatic Arts" presented by the US-based Shakespeare Guild. Past winners include
Ian McKellen,
Kenneth Branagh, Glen Joseph,
Kevin Kline and
Judi Dench
Other interests
Sir John Gielgud believed that animals should not be exploited. He was particularly fond of birds and joined
PETA's campaign against the
foie gras industry in the early 1990s, narrating PETA's video exposé of the force-feeding of geese and ducks. Many chefs and restaurateurs who saw that video dropped foie gras from their menus. Sir John received PETA’s Humanitarian of the Year Award twice, in 1994 and 1999.
[Peta foie gras. The Observer Magazine. 22 June 2003.]
Following his death it was revealed that late in his life he had made financial contributions to the lobby group
Stonewall, but had insisted that his support not be made public.
He also authored several books, including his memoirs in
An Actor and His Time,
Early Stages and
Distinguished Company. He also co-wrote, with John Miller,
Acting Shakespeare.
Selected filmography
