Harriet Devine's Blog

Gielgoodies

Anyone who knows about the history of the British theatre will know about John Gielgud, perhaps the greatest actor of the last century. And anyone who knows about Gielgud will probably be aware that he was celebrated -- if that's the right word -- for his gaffes. I mentioned this in passing last year, when I reviewed Jonathan Croall's impressive biography of Gielgud, and this year a slim volume has appeared which is partly dedicated to some of these terrible, hilarious faux-pas, and also includes some of his witty perceptive comments on the people and events of his day. 

This is not in any way an academic book, but it's very entertaining. My parents knew Gielgud so I was more or less brought up on the famous Eddie Knoblock story "He's the most frightful bore, just like old Eddie Knoblock -- oh, Eddie, I'm most terribly sorry". Evidently this was not the only occasion as he seems to have done much the same to Edith Evans, Athene Seyler, Clive Morton and several others. Most people seem to have dealt with this sort of thing very well, like Elizabeth Taylor, whose ex-husband Michael Wilding Gielgud had recently met:

'Such a charming man', he said. 'I can't imagine how he got mixed up with all those dreadful tarts'. Elizabeth said, 'John, I was one of them'. 

He was evidently completely unable to see how insulting some of his comments could be: 'We have two very beautiful men playing Bushy and Bagot. You might make a good contrast' (to Peter Sallis); 'Get someone to teach you to act. Try Martita Hunt -- she'll be glad of the money' (to Alec Guiness); 'You girl, move to the right. No, no, not you. The ugly one with the big nose' (to Jill Bennett); 'Have you ever known an American who could play Shakespeare? Oh, sorry, Orson. I thought you were Irish. Or something'. But most people took this kind of thing extremely well, perhaps because, as Alec Guiness remarked, his gaffes were 'entirely forgiveable, because they sprang spontaneously from the heart without a glimmer of malice'. His private observations about his friends and acquaintances were equally perceptive, iconoclastic,  and funny, and often summed people up remarkably well: 'Dear Ingrid [Bergman], she speaks five languages and can't act in any of them'; Lindsay Anderson was 'quite a pleasant little man. Rather short, wore a funny cap. I think gay, but not quite up to it'; Edward Albee 'looked like a surly pirate with his drooping moustache'; 'Isabel Jeans' walk splays outwards with a strange totter that suggests the cab horse about to slip on an icy paving stone saving itself by a valiant effort'. Laurence Olivier played Malvolio 'like a Jewish hairdresser, with a great lisp. He would fall off a bench in the garden scene, which I begged him not to do'; John Barrymore's acting was 'like a monstrous old make impersonator jumping through a hoop'. 

I suppose what I liked the most about this slim volume -- it's less than 150 pages -- is the way it shows Gielgud's absolutely genuine innocence, sweetness and honesty. It must have been particularly hard for him to have to disguise his homosexuality in public, but he clearly made up for it in his private letters and comments to his closest friends. He loved silly puns, and often brought rehearsals to a halt by causing his fellow actors to collapse in giggles. He lived, of course, to be 96, rather regretting, as he said on his 90th birthday, that 'most of my friends seem either to be dead, or deaf, or living in the wrong part of Kent'. But he never lost his sense of humour, or his ability to keep dropping bricks -- as he said to Giles Brandreth when invited lunch at the House of Commons: 'I'm delighted to have been asked. You see, all my real friends are dead'.

This little book would make a great Christmas present -- highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a giggle, particularly when laced with a good swig of theatre history.

John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star

"You, girl, move to the right. No, no, not you. The ugly one with the big nose."  

Just one example of John Gielgud's famous faux-pas, this one was addressed to the actress Jill Bennett. There are plenty more scattered through this new biography, and very entertaining they are. Gielgud never intended to hurt -- he had a sort of innocence which seems to have made him blind to the effect he sometimes had on people. And as he was much loved, he was generally forgiven -- Bennett, apparently, "dined out" on the story for the rest of her life.

Jonathan Croall's tremendous biography (688pp) is actually a much revised version of his earlier Gielgud: A Theatrical Life, which appeared in 2000, the year of Gielgud's death at the age of 96. The revisions are the result of a great deal more material which had become available to the biographer -- mostly letters, but also people more willing to speak openly.

Unsurprisingly, much of it relates to Gielgud's homosexuality. Born in an era when it was not only illegal but also widely misunderstood and the cause of much anger and revulsion in society, Gielgud was forced to conceal his sexual orientation from the public for much of his long life. So, when he was arrested in 1953 for soliciting a homosexual act in a public lavatory, there was a huge outcry. He had recently been knighted -- later than his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, probably because of his gayness -- and there were many violent reactions, such as that of  Earl Winterton, who said that Gielgud should be stripped of his new knighthood and horsewhipped in the street. He was terrified that his career would suffer, but he was persuaded to continue with a play that was in rehearsal, and received a standing ovation when the play opened in Liverpool. 

All this is fascinating, and not just for prurient reasons. These events, and the many extracts from Gielgud's letters to his lovers and close friends, illuminate not only the man himself but also the great changes that have taken place in social and legal attitudes in the past half-century. Much of Gielgud's character -- his self-consciousness about his appearance, his shyness, his lack of self-confidence in public situations -- certainly owed a great deal to the constant need for concealment of his true nature. But this is not to suggest that he was an unhappy man or that he lacked friends of both genders and orientations. On the contrary, he seems to have inspired huge affection as well as admiration from most of the people he met and worked with during his remarkably long life. 

Naturally much of this full and impressively reasearched volume is devoted to Gielgud's work as an actor and a director. Descended from an illustrious theatrical family -- the great actress Ellen Terry was his great aunt -- he became almost instantly successful in the London theatre, first as a matinee idol and soon as the country's leading classical actor. His work at the Old Vic in the late 1920s and his two London seasons at the Queen's and the New Theatres in the 1930s saw him at the absolute peak of his profession both on stage and as a director. By the 1950s, though, he seems to have become a little uncertain of what path to follow. His beautiful voice ("like a silver trumpet muffled in silk" according to Alec Guiness) and his expressive verse speaking had come to seem old fashioned and he appeared mostly in forgettable West End dramas. Unlike his greatest rival Olivier, he resisted film parts and turned down offers of new work at emerging new theatres such as the Royal Court.

All this changed in the early 1970s, however, when he agreed to appear there in David Storey's Home alongside one of his oldest and closest friends and colleagues Ralph Richardson. The production was a huge success, and led to performances in plays by Pinter, Bond, Alan Bennett and other new and challenging writers.  He also took to the movies and TV, and appeared in numerous films, including Arthur, in which he played Dudley Moore's foul-mouthed manservant and delighted audiences with lines such as "Now I suppose you want me to wash your dick, you horrible little shit". In 1981 he played Prospero in Peter Greenaway's experimental film Prospero's Books, a radical reworking of The Tempest in which Gielgud spoke every line and spent much of the time delightedly surrounded by naked boys.

Gielgud continued to act on stage until well into his 80s and on radio, TV and film into his 90s. He became a little physically frail, but he remained mentally alert and interested in the world and its goings on right up to his death, though he suffered badly from the death, in 1998, of his longtime partner Martin Hensler. 

This book made me long to be able to see some of those great performances -- his Hamlet, his Lear, and many others. But it also brought him to life as a man -- his great appreciation for fine art, music and literature, his love of filthy jokes, his ability to reduce fellow actors to helpless giggles, his tendency to burst into tears at the slightest provocation, both onstage and off. I actually did meet him a few times when I was a child, and in fact I could say that he was the cause of my very existence, since my parents first met when they were working on one of his productions. He had agreed to speak at the funeral of my aunt, Margaret (Percy) Harris, his exact contemporary and a theatre designer with whom he had been closely associated and who had remained his friend. But the day before, after a good lunch, he stood up and collapsed instantly, his heart simply giving out. 

This is a splendid book, impressively researched and extremely readable. 

Uncle Vanya

I don't often write about plays on here -- in fact I don't think I ever have before. But I went to see a new production of Chekhov's tragi-comic masterpiece a couple of nights ago and I liked it so much I thought I'd tell you about it.

Written in 1899, the play is set in an old estate in the depths of the Russian countryside. There live Uncle Vanya, an intelligent but disillusioned man in his 50s, his gentle, sweet-natured niece Sonya, his old mother, and various hangers on. A frequent visitor is the local doctor, Astrov, with whom Sonya is secretly in love. When the play begins, Sonya's father, a retired academic, has arrived for a visit with his beautiful young second wife Elena. The play explores the impact of their visit on the household, and its no exaggeration to say that this is pretty devastating. Both Vanya and Astrov fall in love with Elena, Sonya sees her hopes go up in smoke, the professor announces that he wants to sell the estate and buy a summer cabin in Finland. It all sounds rather depressing put like that, but in fact there is comedy there too, and the ending, though sad, is rather wonderful, as Sonya comforts her uncle with a vision of a glorious afterlife when all their hard work will be rewarded with rest.

This new production of the play is by the celebrated director Helena Kaut-Howsen, who also did the translation. The acting is superb -- it seems unfair really to single anybody out, but I particularly liked Simon Gregor as Astrov, Hara Yannas as Sonya, Marianne Oldham as Elena and Geoffrey Whitehead as the professor. The sets and costumes, by Sophie Jump, are wonderfully authentic, the music is haunting, the lighting is atmospheric -- what's not to like?

It's on at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry till Easter, and then moves to the Arcola Theatre in London. If you want to read more about it and see more photos, have a look on here. Or go and see it!