Alec Guinness

British actor, writer (1914–2000) | The Man in the White Suit (1951), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Distinguished British stage actor, who in the late 1940s started a spectacular film career first as a master of disguise, then as a young hero and later as any character from Hitler to Obi Wan Kenobi

Mini Biography

Alec Guinness received an honorary Oscar in 1979 ‘for advancing the art of screen acting’.

Latest Alec Guinness Pictures

Screenshot from The Quiller Memorandum (1966) (1) featuring Alec Guinness as Pol — The Quiller Memorandum (1966) screenshot (1) | Alec Guinness

Main title from The Man in the White Suit (1951) (10) featuring Alec Guinness as Sidney Stratton and Cecil Parker as Alan Birnley — The Man in the White Suit (1951) photograph (10) | Guinness, Parker

Photograph from The Man in the White Suit (1951) (9) featuring Alec Guinness as Sidney Stratton — The Man in the White Suit (1951) photograph (9) | Alec Guinness

Photograph from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) featuring Terence Rigby (as Roy Bland) and Alec Guinness (as George Smiley) — Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) photograph | Rigby, Alec Guinness

Select Alec Guinness Filmography

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Personal Details

Born

Died

Born

Alec Guinness was born (as Alec Guinness de Cuffe) in Marylebone, London on 2^nd April, 1914.
Died

Alec Guinness died of liver cancer in Midhurst, West Sussex on 5^th August, 2000, aged 86.

Watch Alec Guinness on British television

- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
- Saturday at 5.50pm on Paramount Network HD
- Saturday at 6.55pm on Paramount Network HD
- British POWs in Burma are employed by the Japanese to build a bridge; meanwhile British agents seek to destroy it.
- Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
- Tuesday at 6.30am on Sky Cinema Greats HD
- Tuesday at 4pm on Sky Cinema Greats HD
- An impecunious heir eliminates eight D’Ascoynes who stand between him and the family fortune.
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- Tuesday at 10.15am on Sky Cinema Greats HD
- Tuesday at 8pm on Sky Cinema Greats HD
- An adventurer’s life with the Arabs, told in flashbacks after his accidental death in the thirties.
- The Ladykillers (1955)
- 30^th June at 9.20am on Sky Cinema Greats HD
- 1^st July at 12.10am on Sky Cinema Greats HD
- An old lady takes in a sinister lodger, who with his four friends commits a robbery. When she finds out, they plot to kill her, but are hoist with their own petards.
- Tunes of Glory (1960)
- 3^rd July at 2.55am on GREAT! movies classic
- 3^rd July at 3.55am on GREAT! movies classic Plus 1
- The new disciplinarian CO of a Highland regiment crosses swords with his lax, hard-drinking predecessor.
- Father Brown (1954)
  
  [as The Detective]
- 3^rd July at 2.10pm on GREAT! movies classic
- 3^rd July at 3.10pm on GREAT! movies classic
- 3^rd July at 3.10pm on GREAT! movies classic Plus 1
- 3^rd July at 4.10pm on GREAT! movies classic Plus 1
- A Catholic clergyman retrieves a priceless church cross from master thief Flambeau.

Alec Guinness News

- Alec Guinness letters and diaries sold to the British Library
- 10^th February, 2013
- Diaries and letters of the British theatre knight, Alec Guinness, have been acquired by the British Library.