R.I.P. Sir John Gielgud

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

http://www.cnn.com/2000/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/22/obit.gielgud.ap/index.html

These articles are from the NY Times, so you may have to register to see them:

John Gielgud, 96, Dies; Beacon of Classical Stage

Remembering the Still, Simple Beauty of Gielgud’s Art By BENEDICT NIGHTINGALE

The author of that last article speaks of Gielgud’s 1974 performance of Prospero in The Tempest: “…we in the audience had the spooky feeling that we were seeing Shakespeare himself using his last play to bid farewell to the stage.”

And "The great exponent of the Method, Lee Strasberg, who might have been expected to have been hostile, once said that ‘when Gielgud speaks the verse, I can hear Shakespeare thinking.’ "

2

A sad day indeed. He will be greatly missed. :frowning:

3

He was the defining precipice of Elegant.

With modern actors, you can still see their ego hovering over a piece. The Old School managed to sublimate that, and extend their self into the character with a timeless expansion. Mr Gielgud was an honorable Master, who could with a wince, realize boundless worlds of shading meaning.

Bless him for letting us see that.