Sorry Alec, I couldn't let you off the hook
He charmed the 'nasty' Alec Guinness, and then dissected him in a biography that outraged critics. How could the gentleman author Piers Paul Read do such a thing? David Thomas meets him.
David Thomas
12:01AM BST 07 Oct 2003
Piers Paul Read is not a movie buff, still less a theatre-lover. "I would never read a biography of an actor, never!" he declares in a quiet, rather donnish voice, in which the faintest trace of his native Yorkshire occasionally shows through the gentlemanly patina of his accent.
So it comes as a surprise that Read should have been chosen to be the official biographer of Sir Alec Guinness, whose seven-decade career took him from playing Hamlet on the pre-War London stage to Obi-Wan Kenobi, in a galaxy far, far away. Guinness's face - round, jug-eared and quizzical - is staring down at us as we speak, for we are at Ealing Studios in a room decorated with posters for Guinness's quartet of Ealing classics: Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit.
Like his subject, the 62-year-old Read has a meticulous, yet somewhat detached air about him. He is impeccably dressed in tie and beautifully-cut tweed jacket. His steel-grey hair is neatly brushed. His mouth turns down in repose and his blue eyes sit beneath sad, bassett-hound eyebrows. Yet he is by no means humourless, even if his wit is as fastidious as the rest of his personality.
Read is, in short, an unlikely muckraker. Yet this is how he was portrayed by outraged critics after a newspaper serialisation of his book that emphasised the more shocking elements of Guinness's life and character - his illegitimacy; his hatred of his drunken, feckless, thieving mother; his possible homosexuality and his cruelty to his wife Merula and son Matthew. An actor loved for his understated screen manner and gentle, witty volumes of memoirs was shown to have feet of clay. Read is clearly stung by the furore.
"People have suggested that I've sexed up this book to make it sell. But most of the stories about Alec's cruelty towards Merula and Matthew come from Matthew. My worry was that people were going to think I'm a Catholic covering up the flaws of a fellow-Catholic, doing a hagiography.
"I suffered severe anxiety to begin with, because I'd never written a biography before, nor shown any interest in actors. I was just worried I'd be completely out of my depth. The joy of writing the book was reading Alec's letters and diaries, because he wrote so beautifully well. And Merula's letters are charming, too."
It was Merula Guinness who chose Read to write her husband's story,shortly after his death from prostate cancer. At the time she, too, was suffering a terminal illness (the couple died in 2000, just 72 days apart). And so, says Read, "When Merula asked me to write the book, I didn't think, 'This is an interesting project.' I thought, 'I mustn't disappoint this dying woman.' "
The book makes it clear that Guinness felt threatened by the possibility that Merula might step out of his shadow. He insisted she abandon her own acting career, mocked the spelling mistakes in her letters, and criticised her cooking in front of dinner guests. But these were particular incidents within a long, essentially loving marriage and Read insists that the depiction of Guinness as an abusive husband is an over-simplification of a much more complex relationship.
"Alec was a nasty man trying very hard to be good. Because of his upbringing, he could be bitchy and bullying, and he knew it. He fought against it and to some extent succeeded. But where the will [to be good] isn't enough in those intimate, domestic relationships."
Read's ability to dissect Guinness's emotions suggests why Merula thought he was the right man for the job. Sure, he isn't a paid-up member of the luvvies' union. Nor do his many novels and works of non-fiction concern the entertainment world, although Alive! - his tale of the South American rugby team forced to eat their dead comrades after an air crash in the Andes - did become a Hollywood film. But, in his character and his Catholicism, he was perfectly suited to his task.
He was, furthermore, a friend of Sir Alec's. They had met in 1988, when Read went to interview the actor for a weekend magazine."I was told to take Alec Guinness out to lunch," says Read. "I rang his agent and the agent said, 'No, Alec will be taking you out to lunch. Please turn up at the Connaught at one o'clock.' "
Guinness, though charming, was determined to reveal nothing of his inner self to his interviewer. Yet something about Read clearly struck a chord for, even before the piece was published, Guinness invited him and his wife Emily to dinner, again at the Connaught. When asked why Guinness might have been so taken by him, Read develops the embarrassed hesitancy of a properly-educated public schoolboy, unavoidably forced to swank.
He charmed the 'nasty' Alec Guinness, and then dissected him in a biography that outraged critics. How could the gentleman author Piers Paul Read do such a thing? David Thomas meets him.
David Thomas
12:01AM BST 07 Oct 2003
Piers Paul Read is not a movie buff, still less a theatre-lover. "I would never read a biography of an actor, never!" he declares in a quiet, rather donnish voice, in which the faintest trace of his native Yorkshire occasionally shows through the gentlemanly patina of his accent.
So it comes as a surprise that Read should have been chosen to be the official biographer of Sir Alec Guinness, whose seven-decade career took him from playing Hamlet on the pre-War London stage to Obi-Wan Kenobi, in a galaxy far, far away. Guinness's face - round, jug-eared and quizzical - is staring down at us as we speak, for we are at Ealing Studios in a room decorated with posters for Guinness's quartet of Ealing classics: Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit.
Like his subject, the 62-year-old Read has a meticulous, yet somewhat detached air about him. He is impeccably dressed in tie and beautifully-cut tweed jacket. His steel-grey hair is neatly brushed. His mouth turns down in repose and his blue eyes sit beneath sad, bassett-hound eyebrows. Yet he is by no means humourless, even if his wit is as fastidious as the rest of his personality.
Read is, in short, an unlikely muckraker. Yet this is how he was portrayed by outraged critics after a newspaper serialisation of his book that emphasised the more shocking elements of Guinness's life and character - his illegitimacy; his hatred of his drunken, feckless, thieving mother; his possible homosexuality and his cruelty to his wife Merula and son Matthew. An actor loved for his understated screen manner and gentle, witty volumes of memoirs was shown to have feet of clay. Read is clearly stung by the furore.
"People have suggested that I've sexed up this book to make it sell. But most of the stories about Alec's cruelty towards Merula and Matthew come from Matthew. My worry was that people were going to think I'm a Catholic covering up the flaws of a fellow-Catholic, doing a hagiography.
"I suffered severe anxiety to begin with, because I'd never written a biography before, nor shown any interest in actors. I was just worried I'd be completely out of my depth. The joy of writing the book was reading Alec's letters and diaries, because he wrote so beautifully well. And Merula's letters are charming, too."
It was Merula Guinness who chose Read to write her husband's story,shortly after his death from prostate cancer. At the time she, too, was suffering a terminal illness (the couple died in 2000, just 72 days apart). And so, says Read, "When Merula asked me to write the book, I didn't think, 'This is an interesting project.' I thought, 'I mustn't disappoint this dying woman.' "
The book makes it clear that Guinness felt threatened by the possibility that Merula might step out of his shadow. He insisted she abandon her own acting career, mocked the spelling mistakes in her letters, and criticised her cooking in front of dinner guests. But these were particular incidents within a long, essentially loving marriage and Read insists that the depiction of Guinness as an abusive husband is an over-simplification of a much more complex relationship.
"Alec was a nasty man trying very hard to be good. Because of his upbringing, he could be bitchy and bullying, and he knew it. He fought against it and to some extent succeeded. But where the will [to be good] isn't enough in those intimate, domestic relationships."
Read's ability to dissect Guinness's emotions suggests why Merula thought he was the right man for the job. Sure, he isn't a paid-up member of the luvvies' union. Nor do his many novels and works of non-fiction concern the entertainment world, although Alive! - his tale of the South American rugby team forced to eat their dead comrades after an air crash in the Andes - did become a Hollywood film. But, in his character and his Catholicism, he was perfectly suited to his task.
He was, furthermore, a friend of Sir Alec's. They had met in 1988, when Read went to interview the actor for a weekend magazine."I was told to take Alec Guinness out to lunch," says Read. "I rang his agent and the agent said, 'No, Alec will be taking you out to lunch. Please turn up at the Connaught at one o'clock.' "
Guinness, though charming, was determined to reveal nothing of his inner self to his interviewer. Yet something about Read clearly struck a chord for, even before the piece was published, Guinness invited him and his wife Emily to dinner, again at the Connaught. When asked why Guinness might have been so taken by him, Read develops the embarrassed hesitancy of a properly-educated public schoolboy, unavoidably forced to swank.
