JOHN GIELGUD

Sir John Gielgud made his Shakespearean debut in 1920 as Orlando in an amateur open-air production of "As You Like It", "I strode on to the lawn at the first performance, drew my sword fiercely and declaimed "Forebear and eat no more!", but unfortunately I tripped over a large log and fell flat on my face". From that inauspicious start John Gielgud has gone on to enjoy one of the longest and most distinguished careers in theatre history. This book presents a portrait in words and pictures of a remarkable actor and director whose work has quite extraordinary range, from silent movies in the 1920s to Hollywood in the 1980s, from Chekhov and Shaw to David Storey and Harold Pinter from Sheridan and Wilde to Noel Coward and Alan Bennett, and always Shakespeare, from the Old Vic in 1921 to the National Theatre in 1977. Illustrated with outstanding photographs, filmstills, playbills, reviews and caricatures, the book reveals the whole gamut of Gielgud's work, as an actor and director in the theatre, as well as a television performer and Film star.