Alec Guinness - Blessings in Disguise (Abridged) - Read by Alec Guiness


Source Cassette Tape
Duration approx 2:49 hours
FhG MPEG 1 Layer III 48 Kbps CBR
44100Hz, 16-bit, Mono


The book

The memoirs of the actor Sir Alec Guinness. The book includes pen portraits of such characters as Ralph Richardson, Sybil Thorndike and John Gielgud, as well as accounts of Guinness's film career, religious beliefs and wartime experiences. 


The author and reader

Sir Alec Guinness, CH, CBE (2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. He was featured in several of the Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai. He is known for playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia, and George Smiley in the TV adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He is also known for his portrayal of Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946).

Guinness was born at 155 Lauderdale Mansions South, Lauderdale Road, Maida Vale, London as Alec Guinness de Cuffe. His mother's maiden name was Agnes Cuff. She was born 8 December 1890 to Edward Cuff and Mary Ann Benfield. On Guinness's birth certificate, the space for the mother's name shows Agnes de Cuffe. The space for the infant's name (where first names only are given) says Alec Guinness. The column for name and surname of father is blank.

It has been frequently speculated that the actor's father was a member of the Anglo-Irish Guinness family. However, it was a Scottish banker, Andrew Geddes, who paid for Guinness's private school education. From 1875, under English law, when the birth of an illegitimate child was registered, the father's name could only be entered on the certificate if he were present and gave his consent. Guinness and Geddes never met, and the identity of Guinness's father has never been confirmed. Guinness was uninterested in his mother, who later had a short marriage to a violent, shell-shocked veteran of the Irish War of Independence.



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