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Commentary (2013) - His Masterful Voice

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Abstract

Nothing is more legendary than the work of a legendary stage actor, since it is all but impossible to leave behind a permanent record of the live performances that made his reputation. To be sure, some of the great stage actors of the 20th century made sustained attempts to master the more naturalistic technique of screen acting and establish parallel careers in film. Rarely, though, has there been so sharp a discontinuity between the stage and film careers of a classical actor as in the case of John Gielgud. Throughout his extraordinarily long career, Gielgud was generally regarded as the greatest of English-speaking classical actors. It was not until the late 1960s that Gielgud changed his mind about movies. Between 1970 and 2000 he played supporting roles in some four dozen films, winning an Oscar for Arthur, in which he was cast as a Jeeves-like butler with a penchant for uttering four-letter words.

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His Masterful Voice

John Gielgud, from the neck up

NOTHING is more legendary than the work of a legendary stage actor, since it is all but impossible to leave behind a permanent record of the live performances that made his reputation. And because theatrical acting usually looks and sounds overemphatic, at times grotesquely so, when filmed and viewed on a screen, many of the most storied stage actors have been reluctant to make movies or appear on TV. As a result, such once celebrated artists of the past as Katharine Cornell, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and Laurette Taylor are now known for the most part only as names in books.

To be sure, some of the great stage actors of the 20th century made sustained attempts to master the more naturalistic technique of screen acting and establish parallel careers in film. One of them, Laurence Olivier, took the medium seriously enough that he turned himself into a director in order to adapt such Shakespeare plays as Henry V (1944) and Hamlet (1948) for the screen, in the process documenting his own much admired performances. Olivier's contemporaries, however, typically settled for supporting roles, saving their best efforts for the stage. It is still uncommon for a major stage actor to appear in starring film roles that fully convey his power and range, the way Alec Guinness did in the 1940s and 50s.

Rarely, though, has there been so sharp a discontinuity between the stage and film careers of a classical actor as in the case of John Gielgud. Throughout his extraordinarily long ...

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TERRY TEACHOUT IS COMMENTARY'S critic‑at‑large and the drama critic of the Wall Street Journal. His next book, Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, will be published this fall.

Notes

  1. ↑ He also starred in Prospero's Books (1991), Peter Greenaway's avant‑garde version of The Tempest, but it is a very free adaptation of Shakespeare's play that gives only a limited idea of how Gielgud played the role of Prospero on stage.
  2. ↑ Unlike many of his contemporaries who were similarly attracted to anonymous sex in public places, Gielgud got off with a fine and a warning.
  3. ↑ In addition, the BBC taped in‑studio TV performances of some of Gielgud's later stage appearances, most notably Pinter's No Man's Land, which co‑starred his old friend Ralph Richardson, and a 1962 version of his own English‑language adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, in which he played Gaev.</private>
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