Alec Guinness Net Worth

Alec Guinness's Quotes

• [on how much he disliked working on Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and his attempts to encourage George Lucas to kill off Obi-Wan Kenobi] And he agreed with me. What I didn't tell him was that I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo.
• I shrivel up every time someone mentions Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) to me.
• Failure has a thousand explanations. Success doesn't need one.
• We live in an age of apologies. Apologies, false or true, are expected from the descendants of empire builders, slave owners, persecutors of heretics and from men who, in our eyes, just got it all wrong. So with the age of 85 coming up shortly, I want to make an apology. It appears I must apologize for being male, white and European.
• [in 1985 to The Guardian newspaper, on what he intends to do by the end of his life] A kind of little bow, tied on life. And I can see myself drifting off into eternity, or nothing, or whatever it may be, with all sorts of bits of loose string hanging out of my pocket. Why didn't I say this or do that, or why didn't I reconcile myself with someone? Or make sure that someone whom I like was all right in every way, either financially or, I don't know...

Interesting Facts about Alec Guinness

1. He was known to have a love-hate relationship with what became his most famous role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Guinness claimed that Obi-Wan's death was his idea as a means to limit his involvement in the film. Guinness was also said to throw away all Star Wars related fan mail without even opening it. Contrary to popular rumors, he did not hate working on the films. What he hated was the fact that many of the Star Wars fans only knew him as Obi-Wan Kenobi despite all the success of his previous roles. He was also frank in saying that he disliked the dialogue. Although he often spoke critically of Star Wars, the three leads, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, have always spoken very fondly of him, praising him as being a very professional actor who was always respectful to the people he worked with.
2. He was the father of actor Matthew Guinness and grandfather of Sally Guinness.
3. He was one of the last surviving members of a great generation of British actors, which included Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson.
4. "de Cuffe" is his mother's surname; he never knew the identity of his father (source: obituary, Daily Telegraph, 7 August 2000).
5. He was awarded the Companion of Honour in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.
6. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1955 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.
7. He was created a Knight Bachelor in the 1959 Queen's New Year Honours List for his services to drama.
8. He was a huge fan of the television series Due South (1994).
9. Despite popular belief, he never uttered the line "May the force be with you" in any of the Star Wars films (the closest he came was "the force will be with you").
10. He was voted third in the Orange Film 2001 survey of greatest British film actors.
11. The qualities he claimed to most admire in an actor were "simplicity, purity, clarity of line".
12. He made his final stage appearance at the Comedy Theatre in London on May 30, 1989, in a production called "A Walk in the Woods", where he played a Russian diplomat.
13. His widow, Merula Salaman, died on October 17, 2000, just two months after her husband.
14. In his last book of memoirs, "A Positively Final Appearance", he expressed a devotion to the television series The Simpsons (1989).
15. Many of his films, including some of his early films, were studied by Ewan McGregor in preparation for his role as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) to ensure accuracy in everything from his accent to the pacing of his words.
16. He received an honorary D.Litt degree from Oxford University (1977) and an honorary D.Litt degree from Cambridge University (1991).
17. He was a Grammy nominee in 1964, in the Spoken Word category, for the album "Alec Guinness: A Personal Choice" (RCA Victor Red Seal: 1964), on which he read a selection of his favorite poems.
18. He had starred as Eric Birling alongside Sir Ralph Richardson in the first-ever showing of "An Inspector Calls" at the New Theatre in London on October 1, 1946.
19. He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Special Award in 1989 (1988 season) for his outstanding contributions to West End Theatre.
20. His biography is in "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 198-199. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387.