Sir Alec Guinness, who died Saturday at the age of 86, would have thought it unseemly that a fuss should be made of his passing.
As an actor, he was self-effacement personified, slipping quietly into every role. Whether he was playing Fagin in the 1948 film production of "Oliver Twist," a ramrod-straight British commander in "The Bridge on the River Kwai," Prince Faisel in "Lawrence of Arabia," the unassuming inventor of "The Man in the White Suit," or Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars," Guinness never imposed himself on the character, choosing instead to allow the character to seep through him by dint of detail, movement and enormous reserves of empathy.
"I chose this role because this man was such a bore," Guinness said of his Oscar-winning performance as the stiff Col. Nicholson in "The Bridge on the River Kwai." "All he knows is British military etiquette. ... I wanted to see if I could put him across and make him a human being."
The result was a film career (which Guinness never claimed as enthusiastically as his life in the theater) as remarkable as Guinness himself was understated.
In today's star-driven cinematic economy, where it seems that actors are rewarded in direct proportion to their ability to draw attention to themselves, Guinness' reticence is of another era, when courtliness, discretion and a mordant lack of ego were the order of the day.
As Faisel, Guinness delivered the film's most cannily powerful portrayal while his colleagues chewed the scenery.
(How ironic that Guinness found his directorial alter-ego in David Lean, whose love for emotionalism and spectacle would seem to be anathema to Guinness' own reserve.)
The contradictory nature of Guinness' virtuosity as an actor was well summed up in "Star Wars," when Darth Vader supposedly cut through Obi-Wan Kenobi with a light saber - only to find that no one was there.
Alec Guinness made his stage debut in 1933 and would become a contemporary of such thespian legends as Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. Guinness appeared on stage in "The Cocktail Party," "Richard III" and "All's Well that Ends Well."
But his most famous role was as the title character in "Hamlet," under the direction of Gielgud, who had already made the role his own. At a tense stage in rehearsal, Guinness reportedly asked Gielgud if he was fired. "No! Yes! No, of course not. But go away. Come back in a week. Get someone to teach you how to act," Gielgud replied.
