{"id":8383,"date":"2008-09-02T08:44:46","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T12:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=8383"},"modified":"2024-04-21T14:38:20","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T18:38:20","slug":"the-books-my-name-escapes-me-the-diary-of-a-retiring-actor-alec-guinness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=8383","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cMy Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor\u201d (Alec Guinness)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"012142.jpg\"Daily Book Excerpt: Entertainment Biography\/Memoir:<\/p>\n

My Name Escapes Me<\/a>\"\", by Alec Guinness<\/p>\n

I know some people were disappointed by this book because there doesn’t seem to be much in it. It’s just a year in the life of Alec Guinness, his diary entries from his 82nd year. So not much is going on. He has lunches with old friends, he goes to mass and writes about the sermons (he was a devout Catholic), he and his wife enjoy their pets … sometimes he goes in to London for public appearances … he comments on the news a little bit … So I think some people felt the book to be a little thin.<\/p>\n

I loved it. I love to read people’s diaries, though – it’s one of my favorite kinds of books … and when you read someone’s diary, you have to let go of looking for a narrative. You have to succumb to the everyday ups and downs we all experience, that may seem random, or chaotic. It’s interesting to me that Guinness chose to publish a book this way … with such an incredible career, I would love to hear more about it (from his perspective) – his working life, how he worked on a part, his experiences with different directors, all that – but this is not the book for that. I guess I knew that going in, so I wasn’t disappointed.<\/p>\n

My Name Escapes Me<\/i> is also honest, in a really refreshing way. Guinness obviously just handed over his diaries as they were … and let the not-so-flattering stuff remain. Or – it’s not that it’s not flattering, it’s that it’s so honest about himself it sometimes is like a punch in the stomach. “How I regret myself so often,” he writes. He writes about his Catholic faith, the masses, his contemplations on Holy Days. He seems to really be hard on himself at times (he’s rude to a woman sitting next to him in church for whatever reason and he is so upset about his behavior he has to write about it later in his diary: “I feel like I ruined Palm Sunday for both of us.”) I love that kind of honesty. Wow.<\/p>\n

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So while I would love to read, you know, a real<\/i> biography of the man – this is a quiet intellectually satisfying read … and you get glimpses of who Alec Guinness was as an actor. He’s not sure if he will ever act again (at the time of this diary) – but there are moments when thoughts about it start percolating up again. It’s like he can’t help it. Someone mentions to him a possible opportunity – not even concrete yet – and he can’t help it: his imagination starts to go. That’s the kind of excerpt I chose. I like to see how it’s not even a question of the opportunity being real<\/i> or not … that’s the whole thing when you’re an actor. You have to prepare for an audition and you have to want<\/i> it. It takes time. You can’t just throw it together. I just like how automatic it is for him here in this excerpt … showing that he has lived his entire life in service to this craft, and there are some things that just come<\/i>, you don’t have to work at it. He has been an actor long enough that he knows the questions to ask about the part (to ask to himself, I mean … investigative questions) … and his curiosity is alive and well.<\/p>\n

\"SirAlecGuinness_Bridge_Nicholson.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Alec Guinness gave what I feel is one of the best performances by a male actor in the history of cinema in Bridge Over the River Kwai<\/i>. I’d put it up there with any of Brando’s greatest moments. And I just love in the excerpt below, how … even despite himself …. his imagination starts going. He has no other choice.<\/p>\n

Look at how he imagines himself into that part. Look at how DETAILED it is. Look at how before-sleep mental meanderings can be some of the most essential work that an actor does. John Strasberg (son of Lee Strasberg) told us in his classes, “Always leave room for dreams. Create a dream-space around the character. Inhabit your own dream.”<\/p>\n

This is the kind of thing Strasberg was talking about.<\/p>\n

EXCERPT FROM My Name Escapes Me<\/a>\"\", by Alec Guinness<\/b><\/p>\n

Sunday 19 November<\/i><\/p>\n

Holy Communion was brought to the house this morning for M. There is always a special good feeling about this; a particular domestic blessing. I was scared the dogs would be unwelcoming with loud barks but they were absolutely quiet.<\/p>\n

Yesterday evening Keith Baxter for dinner, who bravely risked my attempt at an Irish stew. It was O.K., but hadn’t enough white pepper. Always difficult to know what to drink with it. Whiskey, for preference, I think, but I didn’t offer that as Keith was to drive home. So we settled for champagne throughout the evening and it worked admirably. Not what you could call Potato Famine fare.<\/p>\n

Keith asked me what my reaction would be if offered Friar Laurence in a production of Romeo<\/i> he is thinking of. I said, which is sadly true, that I’d be fearful of being able to learn so many lines; also that the long speech the Friar has at the end, when he tells the assembled cast and the audience all that they have witntessed in the past two hours, is very tedious. I have seen weary actors trying to look interested and astonished at all the revelations and failing desperately. However, after I had gone to bed I had one of my somewhat insane fancies.<\/p>\n

In a half-awake state I saw Fr. L. dressed correctly (for once) as a Franciscan, entering with his cowl pulled over his head. According to the lines it is first light, pre sun-up, and he is alone. He might appear as a rather sinister figure – Death perhaps, with a pruning knife instead of a scythe. He carries, of course, his osier basket of wild flowers and herbs. He starts with the rather pretty speech, in rhyming couplets, about the good and baleful properties of various flowers (and curiously enough, of stones) before he is joined by Romeo. He doesn’t see Romeo to begin with but, picking up a flower, says, ‘Within the infant rind of this weak flower \/ Poison hath residence and medicine power.’ The speech ends with the words, ‘Full soon the canker death eats up that plant,’ and Romeo says, ‘Good morrow, father!’ Laurence acknowledges this with a blessing, ‘Benedicte<\/i>.’ That is the moment, I think, when he should throw back his cowl and appear as the ordinary man he is. (I have written to Keith suggesting half a dozen actors who would be revealed satisfactorily, rather than me.) There is more to the part than I had realized.<\/p>\n

In today’s Observer<\/i> is a large photograph of a youngish man wearing pyjamas and looking sleepy. No explanation. After some thought I realized it was a still of me in the film of Priestley’s Last Holiday<\/i>.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, somewhere, there was an equally large photo from the dismaying A Passage to India<\/i>. Again it was me, in Hindu garb, and underneath it said it me as Aziz. Not at all. Aziz was played by the admirable, young, handsome Indian actor Victor Banerjee. It seems the only press photographs we can rely on are of the Princess of Wales in gym work-out clothes. Aziz, of course, is a Muslim.<\/p>\n

Wednesday 22 November<\/i><\/p>\n

To London yesterday for a day and a night. Matthew came down to hold the fort here. Bank, a haircut, household shopping. Lunched alone at Wilton’s, wolfing an excellent Sole Colbert.<\/p>\n

In early evening to a friend’s flat where I made my long overdue confession to a holy ad illuminating priest. It was a memorable experience which gently sponged away all my recent irascibility, anxieties and spiritual turmoil. Perhaps kneeling at a dining-room table is more relaxing than the upright coffin of an elaborately carved confessional. It would be good to think that from now on I shall spread only sweetness, light and understanding, but I fear I know myself too well. The bad habits of a lifetime, when tackled head on, seem only to bend, not break.<\/p>\n

Dined with Alan B. National Gallery talk and wonderment over the palace drama which has riven the nation – in my opinion into the knowing and observant quarter of the population on one side, and the moist-eyed lovers of popular entertainment on the other. It is a series that is likely to run and run.<\/p>\n

Thursday 23 November<\/i><\/p>\n

A grey day. I have been thinking about Friar Laurence; or, rather, not about Fr. L. in particular but more to do with the prescience Shakespeare shows in some of the plays. Is it deliberate, accidental or wholly unconscious? Probably just the way his mind worked. In Macbeth<\/i>, of course, it is deliberate. The first encounter with the witches contains an evil prophecy; their appearance brings to the surface his vaulting ambition, which possibly he hasn’t fully recognized until then.<\/p>\n

In Antony and Cleopatra<\/i>, at the beginning of the play, the Soothsayer tells Charmian’s future by reading her hand. He says, ‘You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.’ Charmian’s comment on that is, ‘O excellent! I love long life better than figs.’ At the end of the play the Clown brings Cleopatra a basket of figs in which are nestled the asps which will kill her, and a few minutes later will kill Charmian.<\/p>\n

I like to think the same actor played the Soothsayer and the Clown. It would make a good double, as well as working on the audience’s unconscious memory of figs and death.<\/p>\n

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