The Authorised Biography Of John Gielgud

This is the story of one remarkable man in his time, playing many parts across a lifetime of ninety-six years, in private and in public. It is the biography of the greatest classical actor of all time.

In a career spanning almost eighty years on stage and screen, radio and television, John Gielgud effectively reinvented Shakespeare for the modern stage; he was the first great Hamlet of our time; with his brother Val he virtually created BBC radio drama; decades before the founding of the National Theatre or the RSC, he pioneered the idea of a resident classical company in the West End. He made stars of Alec Guinness and Paul Scofield as well as hundreds of other actors, directors and designers; from Peter Brook to Peter Greenaway, he worked with all the revolutionary artists of his time.

The great-nephew of Ellen Terry, John was the bridge from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, and he was the founder and last survivor of a group of classical actors (Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave, Peggy Ashcroft, Sybil Thorndike and Edith Evans) such as the world had never seen and will never see again.

Twelve years before his death, John Gielgud invited Sheridan Morley to become his only authorised biographer, handing over to him letters and diaries and personal files. In addition to this huge archive, Morley has interviewed more than two hundred of John's colleagues, friends, rivals and critics, forming a fully rounded and detailed portrait of one of the most-loved actors of the twentieth century.