Death of actor Sir Alec Guinness at 86

The legendary British actor Sir Alec Guinness died on Saturday night at the age of 86, it was announced last night.

The legendary British actor Sir Alec Guinness died on Saturday night at the age of 86, it was announced last night.

The star of numerous Ealing comedies and Star Wars passed away at the King Edward VII Hospital in Midhurst, West Sussex, a hospital spokesman said.

He had been taken ill at his home in the village of Steep Marsh, near Petersfield, Hampshire, on Thursday, and was rushed to hospital by ambulance.

A spokeswoman, Ms Jenny Masding, a palliative care consultant, said he died at 9.50 p.m. on Saturday. She would not confirm the suspected cause of his death. He had been in ill-health for a number of years.

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He had also suffered from chronic glaucoma and cataracts for a number of years and underwent extensive surgery to restore his vision.

He was perhaps the most reluctant superstar of the British film and theatre world.

In a career spanning more than 60 years, his roles ranged from Shakespearian classics and Ealing comedies to the acclaimed television portrayal of spymaster Smiley and major cinema performances.

But to anyone under 30 he was probably most famous for playing the part of Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1977's Star Wars. It was, however, a role he professed to despise, saying he threw away all Star Wars fan-mail unopened.

His great film roles included the Colonel in Bridge On the River Kwai - for which he won an Oscar - and the Fuhrer in Hitler, The Last Ten Days.

The hallmarks were always the same - extreme attention to detail and an ability to "live" the character he played.

But his considerable fame left him unmoved. He preferred always to walk unnoticed down the street.

"You can only be your own personality," he once said. "And I'm just happy to be an actor. If I tried to swan around, I wouldn't know how to behave. If I tried to be a superstar, I'd be a laughing stock!"

He even dismissed the publicity tag given to him by his own agents - "The man of a thousand faces".

"It's absolute rubbish - it has plagued me all my life," he complained.

It was a life that began in London on April 2nd, 1914. He was the son of a banker, but soon after he was born, his parents split up and he said he could not remember his father at all.

He always wanted to be an actor - often walking the three miles from his home in Bayswater, central London, to the Old Vic to spend his pocket money on watching performances there.

At six he was sent away to boarding school and spent his holidays living in small hotels and boarding houses.

"I wasn't miserable - children accept what happens - but I had a lonely childhood and I suppose acting came from inventing things for myself," he said.

As a schoolboy he made a name for himself as the Messenger in Macbeth, by running three times round the playground beforehand so as to enter the stage in a state of exhaustion.

He was educated at Pembroke Lodge and Roborough, Eastbourne, but despite his acting ambitions, he joined an advertising firm as a copy writer at 18.

He then landed a scholarship at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art. It was a vital boost for the aspiring actor who had already been advised to try another career - and who had been brushed off by Sir John Gielgud after bravely ringing him for advice.

But it was Sir John, in fact, who later gave Sir Alec his big break, casting him as Osric in his production of Hamlet in 1934.

The war interrupted Sir Alec's blossoming career when he joined the navy in 1942. But going to America to take over his first command, a new landing craft, he was held up pending its completion and was able to make his first Broadway appearance in Flare Path.

After the war, the films came thick and fast. He played Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations and then came one of his finest roles - Fagin in Olvier Twist.

One of his most notable achievements followed in Kind Hearts and Coronets, where he played eight different characters. It established beyond doubt his brilliant versatility - and the Ealing Studios built a succession of films around him.

They included The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955). Then came his Oscar-winning performance in Bridge On the River Kwai (1959) and, to cap it all, his knighthood in the same year. He had been made a CBE in 1955.

Later films which consolidated his status as one of Britain's greatest actors included Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973), Star Wars (1977) and A Handful of Dust (1988).

In 1980, Sir Alec was awarded an honorary Oscar "for advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable and distinguished performances".

But he had continued his stage work too with performances in The Cocktail Party, A Voyage Round My Father and Habeas Corpus.

The actor who always loved a challenge took his career another step forward when he portrayed Le Carre's Smiley on television, first in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and then in Smiley's People.

He starred in a film version of EM Forster's A Passage to India - and returned to Shakespeare after 20 years, playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, at Chichester.

Most recently he appeared in the American televised film Eskimo Day (1996), playing the character of James.

But despite his hugely successful professional career, Sir Alec's private life remained intensely important to him. What revelations he did publish about his life did little to illuminate the man behind the name.

He married playwright Merula Salaman in 1938 and for many years they lived near Petersfield, Hampshire, well away from the spotlight. There was one son, Matthew.

In 1956, Sir Alec became a Catholic, saying later that he "bared his soul" once a month to an anonymous priest, but to no one else.