The POP-EXPOSE ‘Alec Guinness’ by Mitchell Smith’!
Alec Guinness was born April 2nd 1914. Guinness was born in England to Agnes Cuffe. Although he was never certain, but his father may have been a member of the Anglo-Irish Guinness family who make Guinness beer. Guinness started out in theater at age 20. He enjoyed Shakespeare most and was involved in Shakespeare plays for his entire career. During WWII he was in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves. He commanded a landing craft at the Allied invasion of Sicily. During the war he was granted leave to appear in the Broadway production of Terence Rattigan’s play, Flare Path, which was about the RAF Bomber Command. Guinness won an Academy award for his performance as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Then Guinness took the roll as Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, a film he felt was fairy tail rubbish. Guinness was professional on and off screen never the less. Although Guinness said he did not enjoy speaking his lines, he was brilliant in creating one of the greatest characters in the Star Wars franchise. Guinness had a great amount of fame from Star Wars and a great amount of royalties In his personal life Guinness was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1955 and was knighted in 1959. He had a very successful acting career, and lived a relatively quite and humble personal life. He was a loyal husband to his wife Merula Salaman. She was his only spouse and she died just 2 months after him in Oct 2000, they were both 86 when they died. I grew up watching Star Wars and Old Ben Kenobi.
I think it is interesting to take a deeper look into an actors’ past and watch old movies and see how they lived. Although its hard to watch his old work without seeing Obi Wan Kenobi, but he just did what he enjoyed. It wasn’t for the money or the popularity. He just enjoyed going on stage and performing and entertaining people. Sir Alec Guinness is now chiseled out in time, and he is embedded in the Star Wars franchise forever. Who knows, with today’s technology we may see Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi in the upcoming Star Wars movie.
Are you a fan of Alec Guinness? Let us know AFTER THE JUMP!
