Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000), known as Sir John Gielgud, was an Emmy, Grammy, Tony and Academy Award-winning theatre and film actor. He is generally regarded as one of the great English actors in history.
Arthur John Gielgud was born in Kensington in London to a Protestant mother, Kate Terry, and a Catholic father Frank Gielgud and was raised a Protestant. Gielgud had a head start in the theatrical profession, being a great nephew of Dame Ellen Terry. His elder brother was Val Gielgud who was a pioneering influence in BBC Radio.
After Westminster School, where he gained a King's Scholarship, Gielgud trained at RADA and 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, was hailed as a Broadway star in Guthrie McClintic's production in which Lillian Gish played Ophelia in 1936 (and which was assisted by a rival staging starring Leslie Howard that opened shortly afterwards and failed badly by comparison), a 1939 production that Gielgud again directed that was the last play performed at Henry Irving's Orpheum Theatre and was later taken to Elsinore Castle in Denmark (the actual setting of the play), 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, and 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 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.
Gielgud had an enormous influence on the development of English Theatre when he produced a season of plays at the Queen's Theatre in 1937/38, presenting Richard II, The School for Scandal, The Three Sisters, and The Merchant of Venice with a permanent company (that included Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness) that would shape the development of such 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 The Three Sisters. The greatest success of the season was the production of The Three Sisters, with Gielgud's performance as Vershinin, coupled with his successes in The Seagull (1929 and 1936), The Cherry Orchard (1954), and Ivanov (1965) establishing Chekhov's acceptance on the English-speaking stage.
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 definitive performances of his favorite role of Prospero in The Tempest in four productions (as well as the 1991 film Prospero's Books), 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 Nights Dream twice, Romeo three times, King Lear four times (as well as taking on the part for a final time in a radio broadcast at the age of 90), in addition to 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 VII (1959) (although his 1960 performance as Othello was not a success). His crowning achievement 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. Among his non-Shakespearean Renaissance roles, his Ferdinand in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi was well-known.
As he aged, Gielgud began to adapt more to changing fashions 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 Whitmore's play The Best of Friends as museum curator Sydney Cockerell.
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 Benjamin Disraeli in The Prime Minister (1940), Cassius in Julius Caesar (1953, BAFTA Award for Best British Actor), George, Duke of Clarence to Laurence 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, a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Providence (1977), 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 the film Prospero's Books.
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 only onscreen appearance with both Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson 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.
Gielgud's Catholic father of Lithuanian-Polish szlachta descent, Franciszek GieÅ‚gud was born 1880. The original Lithuanian form of the name was Gelgaudas, the Gelgaudai was an old Lithuanian family GieÅ‚gud coat of arms, originating from the town of GelgaudiÅ¡kis in MarijampolÄ— County, Lithuania. Sir John's grandfather was Adam GieÅ‚gud (1834-1920), married with Leontyna Aniela Aszperger. Adam GieÅ‚gud's father's, Jan GieÅ‚gud, mother was Countness Eleonora Tyszkiewicz-Å?ohojski, Leliwa coat of arms. As a descendant of Tyszkiewicz (lit. TiÅ¡keviÄ?ius) counts he was related to many famous and great Polish and Lithuanian people, include actress Beata Tyszkiewicz and also to many Polish noble families.
He was convicted of persistently importuning for immoral purposes (cottaging) in a Chelsea mews in 1953. Instead of being rejected by the public, he received a standing ovation at his next stage appearance. Biographer Sheridan Morley writes that while Gielgud never denied being gay, 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. Longtime lover Martin Hensler, 30 years his junior, died just a few months before Sir John did in 2000. He only publicly acknowledged Hensler as his partner in 1988, in the programme notes for Best of Friends which was his final stage performance. Despite going to Hollywood to appear alongside Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar in early 1950s, Gielgud would avoid Hollywood for over a decade for fear of being denied entry because of the arrest.
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, Kevin Kline and Judi Dench
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.
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.
