Gielgud ignored cinema for decades, then won an Oscar at seventy-seven
Sir John Gielgud treated film lightly for half his career, despite a 1924 silent debut. Regular screen work waited until his sixties; as butler Hobson in Arthur (1981) he won Best Supporting Actor—part of a rare Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony set.
Arthur John Gielgud was born April 14, 1904 in South Kensington into the Terry theatrical dynasty through mother Kate Terry-Lewis; father Frank was a City stockbroker of Lithuanian-Polish descent. Westminster School day-boy years let him sample West End legends. Parents allowed drama training only if he could support himself by twenty-five. Cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry’s 1922 tour and a RADA scholarship under Claude Rains followed Lady Benson’s school, where she said he walked like a cat with rickets.
Oxford Playhouse seasons and Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard taught him he could act. Taking over Noël Coward’s Vortex role and later The Constant Nymph lead when Coward collapsed built West End credit. From 1929 to 1931 the Old Vic made him a Shakespeare star; many judged him the era’s finest Hamlet. He directed, ran a Queen’s Theatre company, and ruled high comedy as Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest. A 1950s conviction for a homosexual offence threatened ruin; colleagues and audiences stood by him.
Becket (1964) brought a first Oscar nomination as Louis VII. More than sixty films followed through Elizabeth (1998). Radio and television dramas stretched from 1929 to 1994; Ages of Man kept him visible when new stage parts thinned. Knighted in 1953, he led RADA as president from 1977 to 1989, and London’s Gielgud Theatre took his name in 1994. He died May 21, 2000, closing an eight-decade arc beside Olivier, Richardson, and Redgrave.
Source: John Gielgud
