He guarded his God-given talent like a tiger; his loyalty to it was fierce and without concession, and he was willing to give up a great deal for it. His talent was, indeed, a secret, in all senses of that word: it was the source of his success, it was private, and it was a great and abiding mystery. He takes it with him to his grave, but he has left behind an enduringly inspiring example of what an actor who is also an artist might achieve: a body of work of such depth, breadth, imaginative and indeed visionary power that it rivals that of any great artist in any sphere. At the age of seventy-five, he took his leave of the stage he had commanded so incomparably for so many years with one of his very greatest incarnations, John Gabriel Borkman, ‘a man,’ as Scofield said, ‘frozen and trapped by the past, embracing his own obsessive drive towards an anarchical climax, proclaiming his mad preoccupation with the forces and spirits of the earth, until his brain and body simply crack under the force of his avid desire to dominate his own small kingdom.’ That was the scale on which Paul Scofield worked, that was the breadth of his canvas, addressing nothing less than the human condition, head-on.
That is what the theatre, what acting, can and should be.
Acknowledgements
Learning
Peter Pan Country Life, 1997
Shakespeare and Me Programme for a Sonnet show, Stratford, Ontario, 2008
Learning to faint backwards Zambia Spotlight, 2005
Shakespeare and Me II Programme note for There Reigns Love, Stratford, Ontario, 2008
The Old Vic Sites Insight (The Architectural Heritage Fund), 2006
Kenneth Tynan Review of Dominic Shellard’s biography in the Sunday Times, 2003
Opera and Me The Independent, 1995
Charlie Chaplin Programme for London Philharmonic Orchestra concert, 2003
Peter Ustinov Review of John Miller’s biography in the Sunday Times, 2002
David Garrick Review of Ian McIntyre’s biography in the Sunday Times, 1999
Henry Irving Review of Jeffrey Richards’ biography in the Guardian, 2005
Diana Boddington Entry in the Dictionary of National Biography (OUP), 2005
Laurence Olivier Entry in Cassell’s Encyclopaedia of Theatre in the Twentieth Century, 2002
Companies The Times, 1997
John Gielgud Review of Sheridan Morley’s biography in the Guardian, 2001
Next Season Introduction to paperback edition of Michael Blakemore’s novel (Applause Theatre Books), 1996
Victor Henry ‘Farewell Henry the Great’, London Evening Standard, 1985
Rudolf Nureyev Review of Julie Kavanagh’s biography in the Guardian, 2007
Micheál mac Liammóir Gown magazine, Queen’s University Belfast, 1969
Peter Barnes Obituary for the Royal Literary Society, 2005
Peter Barnes II Obituary in The Times, 2005
Michael Redgrave Review of Alan Strachan’s biography in the Guardian, 2004
Peter Brook Review of Michael Kustow’s biography in the Guardian, 2005
Yat Malmgren Obituary in The Times, 2002
Konstantin Stanislavsky Introduction to Folio Society’s edition of My Life in Art, 2000
Lee Strasberg Review of Strasberg’s A Dream of Passion in the Sunday Times, 1988
Laurence Olivier ‘Laurence Olivier and My Generation’ in Olivier in Celebration, ed. Gary O’Connor (Hodder and Stoughton), 1987
Drama Schools Speech to the Association of Drama Schools, printed in the Drama Centre prospectus, 2003
Working
Christmas in Lincoln The Guardian, 2004
Max Wall Wallpaper (the Max Wall Society’s magazine), 2007
Nigel Hawthorne Review of Hawthorne’s autobiography in the Daily Mail, 2002
David Hare Diary column in the Independent, 1998
Titus Andronicus Around the Globe (Shakespeare’s Globe magazine), 1997
Amadeus The Guardian, 2007
Shylock Review of The Birth of Shylock, the Death of Zero Mostel by Arnold Wesker in the Sunday Times, 1997
Ralph Richardson Profile for Double Exposure by Roddy McDowall (William Morrow), 1989
Gielgud and Richardson The Daily Telegraph, 2007
Amadeus II Gramophone magazine, 2009
Peter Shaffer The Daily Telegraph, 2001
Applause The Guardian, 2008
Paul Scofield The Guardian, 2008
Michael Gambon Vogue magazine (US edition), 1989
Shakespeare’s Sonnets The Guardian, 1994
Was Shakespeare Gay? The London Evening Standard, 1990
The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B The London Evening Standard, 1981
Sylvia Coleridge The London Evening Standard, 1986
Rupert Everett Review of Everett’s autobiography in the Guardian, 2006
Expanding
Alec Guinness Review of Garry O’Connor’s biography in the Guardian 2002
Simon Gray Review of his book, An Unnatural Pursuit, in the Sunday Times, 1985
Simon Gray II The Guardian, 2008
Snoo Wilson The Sunday Telegraph, 1997
Directing Unknown source
The Bush Theatre The Bush Theatre Book (Methuen), 1997
On the Spot Programme note for the 1984 production
Charles Laughton Unknown source
Amadeus on Film The Guardian, 1985
A Room with a View The Sunday Telegraph, 1986
Denholm Elliott Review of Susan Elliott’s biography in the Mail on Sunday, 1994
Ismail Merchant The Daily Mail, 2005
Jean Cocteau Programme note for Les Parents Terribles, 1994
Faust The Independent, 1988
Lev Dodin Review of Dodin’s Journey Without End, for the Guardian (unpublished), 2005
Alan Bennett Review of his book, Untold Stories, in the Guardian, 2005
Postcards from the Edge Diary column in the Independent, 1990
The Ballad of the Sad Café The Sunday Telegraph, 1991
Orson Welles Unknown source
Orson Welles II Review of Barbara Leaming’s biography in the Sunday Times, 1985
Leo Lerman Obituary in the Guardian, 1994
Faltering
Carmen Jones The Daily Telegraph, 1994
My Fair Lady Programme note for the production, 1992
The Theatre of Plague The Independent, 1993
Gay Cinema Foreword to Out at the Movies by Steven Paul Davies (Kamera Books), 2008
Screened Out Review of Richard Barrios’s film in the Guardian, 2002
Charlotte Coleman The Guardian, 2001
Les Enfants du Paradis The Daily Telegraph, 1996
Going Solo
Micheál mac Liammóir II The Sunday Telegraph, 1997
Charles Dickens Review of Malcolm Andrews’s Dickens as a Reader in the Guardian, 2006
Charles Dickens II The Chicago Examiner, 2003
Charles Dickens III The New York Times, 2002
Rethinking
Theatre Architecture Review of John Earl’s British Theatres and Music Halls in The Victorian, 2005
Actor Training Introduction to To the Actor by Michael Chekhov (Routledge), 2002
Falstaff The Independent, 1998
Critics The Independent, 1993
Antony Sher Review of Sher’s Year of the King in the Sunday Times, 1985
Love Scenes The Guardian, 2009
Onstage Nudity The Sunday Times, 2003
Actors and Their Bodies The Sunday Times, 2003
Pantomime The Guardian, 2006
Noël Coward Review of Coward’s Letters in the Guardian, 2007
The Pajama Game Programme note for the 1999 production
Slava Polunin Review of Slava’s Snowshow in the Sunday Express, 1997
Tommy Cooper The Observer, 2003
Tony Hancock Review of John Fisher’s biography in the Guardian, 2009
F
rankie Howerd Review of Graham McCann’s biography in the Guardian, 2004
Mrs Shufflewick Review of Patrick Newley’s biography in the Guardian, 2007
Waiting for Godot The Guardian, 2006
Waiting for Godot II Programme note for the 2010 production
Charles Mathews Programme note for Dr Marigold and Mr Chops, 2009
Dans la peau d’un acteur Extract from French edition of Being an Actor (Espaces 34), 2006
Envoi
Paul Scofield Funeral address, 2009
*
My greatest debt, of course, is to the editors who commissioned most of the pieces collected here. For the last eight years, I have been under exclusive contract as a book reviewer to the Guardian newspaper, and my editor there, Claire Armitstead, has been a model of patience and tact. I’d also like to thank Claire Tomalin who, as Books Editor of the Sunday Times, gave me my first book to review, and spare a grateful thought for the late Charles Wintour, father of Anna, who, as editor of the London Evening Standard, commissioned my first printed pieces. Matt Applewhite and Jodi Gray of Nick Hern Books have put a sprawling and much-modified manuscript into wonderfully elegant form; my secretary Fiona Wilkins has devoted many hours to deciphering ancient and yellowing cuttings and typing them up. That fine actress Gwendoline Christie gave up a good deal of her spare time to do the initial research, which greatly helped to shape the book. Finally, I must thank Nick Hern – AGAIN. This book was his idea, as was my very first book; Simon Callow, author, was, in fact, more or less his invention. His forbearance over what has been, even by my standards, an uncommonly protracted gestation period, has been admirable, as he read and reread literally hundreds of pieces of sharply varying merit. His advice and encouragement have been indispensible, to say nothing of his unerring identification of error or clumsiness. Nearly thirty years of warm friendship and close professional collaboration lie behind this book, which is, among other things, a monument to our unfailingly happy working partnership.
About the Author
Simon Callow
Simon Callow is an actor, director and writer. He has appeared on the stage and in many films, including the hugely popular Four Weddings and a Funeral. Callow’s books include Being an Actor, Shooting the Actor, a highly acclaimed biography of Charles Laughton, a biographical trilogy on Orson Welles (of which the first two parts have now been published), and Love is Where it Falls, an account of his friendship with the great play agent, Peggy Ramsay.
A Nick Hern Book
MY LIFE IN PIECES
First published in Great Britain in 2010
by Nick Hern Books Limited,
14 Larden Road, London W3 7ST
This ebook edition first published in 2012
Copyright © 2010 Simon Callow
Sources of material previously published elsewhere are given in the list of Acknowledgements on p. 419 Extract on p. 411 from Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot reproduced with permission of Faber and Faber Limited
Simon Callow has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design by Ned Hoste, 2H
Front cover photograph by Kevin Davis, imagecounterpoint.com
Typeset by Nick Hern Books, London
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78001 012 0 (ePub format)
ISBN 978 1 78001 013 7 (Mobi format)
ISBN 978 1 78001 014 4 (PDF format)
ISBN 978 1 84842 054 0 (Print edition)
CAUTION This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.