Overview

John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star is the most authoritative and comprehensive account of the finest classical actor of the twentieth century. This entertaining but critical biography charts the ups and downs of Gielgud's long and glittering career, from his young ground-breaking Hamlet to his later success in plays by Pinter, Storey, Bond and Bennett, and his recognition as a major movie star following his role in Arthur. It also reassesses his complex relationship with his great rival Laurence Olivier and throws fresh light on his personal relationships and the turbulent episodes of his private life that threatened to shatter his career. For this biography Jonathan Croall's exhaustive research has included over a hundred new interviews with key people from his life and career, including Peter Brook, Kenneth Branagh, Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins, and it draws on several hundred letters to and from Gielgud that have never been published, including correspondences with Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham, Siegfried Sassoon, Edith Evans and Edward Gordon Craig. What emerges is an intimate, complex and often startling portrait of this great actor and much-loved man. Gielgud's interpretations of Shakespeare's great roles made Shakespeare's plays a commercial success on London's West End for the first time. He was also hugely influential as a director and an actor-manager and worked extensively in film and television later in life. Since Jonathan Croall's first biography of Gielgud was published in 2000 a considerable amount of new material has come to light and the result is a much more rounded, candid and richly textured portrait of this celebrated stage and screen actor.

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9781408131060

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Reviews

His public loved him, and so does the author of this thoroughly readable biography. New Statesman. May 23, 2011 Magisterial biography...Authoritative yet sensitive handling...[Croall] is very good on the rivalry between Gielgud and Olivier...On this and aspects of Gielgud's homosexuality, Croall is revealing without going into excessive detail, quoting love letters in which the actor, with startling frankness for such a reserved man, analyses and explains himself...[Croall] demonstrates to those who do not know it, and confirms to those who do, Gielgud was the greatest actor of the century. Theatre News Online An authoritative, nicely balanced account of both Gielgud's public and private lives... Croall also emphasizes what an important, modernizing figure he was as a director... This is by no means an uncritical biography of Gielgud - Croall illustrates his character defects of snobbery, tactlessness...and impatience...but overall he comes across as an attractively modest man with a mischievous sense of humour, possessing an evergreen enthusiasm for and deep understanding of theatre. This book does full justice to a protean performer who bestrode the stage like a Colossus Exeunt John Gielgud's life makes such a good story...the book is a significant reminder of a silken-voiced, altogether singular talent. Sunday Times The work of a stage actor, however great, is writ on water...It was for his theatrical work that Kenneth Tynan (who, mind you, preferred Laurence Olivier) could refer to [Gielgud] as 'not an actor, but the actor.'...So, whatever the limitations of merely reading about a magnificent actor, it is gratifying to have such a well-researched and fluently written, committed yet not adulatory biography...[Gielgud] emerges as a witty, charming, conversationally apt human being. (refers to the previously released edition) New York Times '(A) tremendous biography...the result of a great deal more material which had become available to the biographer -- mostly letters, but also people more willing to speak openly. (The contents) illuminate not only the man himself but also the great changes that have taken place in social and legal attitudes in the past half-century. This is a splendid book, impressively researched and extremely readable. ' Harriet Devine's Blog 'Elegantly written...riveting.' The Independent 'As entertaining and full of variety as the subject himself' Oldie Magazine

His public loved him, and so does the author of this thoroughly readable biography. New Statesman. May 23, 2011 Magisterial biography...Authoritative yet sensitive handling...[Croall] is very good on the rivalry between Gielgud and Olivier...On this and aspects of Gielgud's homosexuality, Croall is revealing without going into excessive detail, quoting love letters in which the actor, with startling frankness for such a reserved man, analyses and explains himself...[Croall] demonstrates to those who do not know it, and confirms to those who do, Gielgud was the greatest actor of the century. Theatre News Online An authoritative, nicely balanced account of both Gielgud's public and private lives... Croall also emphasizes what an important, modernizing figure he was as a director... This is by no means an uncritical biography of Gielgud - Croall illustrates his character defects of snobbery, tactlessness...and impatience...but overall he comes across as an attractively modest man with a mischievous sense of humour, possessing an evergreen enthusiasm for and deep understanding of theatre. This book does full justice to a protean performer who bestrode the stage like a Colossus Exeunt John Gielgud's life makes such a good story...the book is a significant reminder of a silken-voiced, altogether singular talent. Sunday Times The work of a stage actor, however great, is writ on water...It was for his theatrical work that Kenneth Tynan (who, mind you, preferred Laurence Olivier) could refer to [Gielgud] as 'not an actor, but the actor.'...So, whatever the limitations of merely reading about a magnificent actor, it is gratifying to have such a well-researched and fluently written, committed yet not adulatory biography...[Gielgud] emerges as a witty, charming, conversationally apt human being. (refers to the previously released edition) New York Times

His public loved him, and so does the author of this thoroughly readable biography. New Statesman. May 23, 2011

Author Information

Jonathan Croall is the author of Buzz Buzz: Playwrights, Actors and Directors at the National Theatre. He edits and writes for the programmes at the Old Vic theatre, and was editor of the National Theatre's StageWrite magazine 1992-2007.

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