Family: His father, Frank Gielgud, was a stockbroker and descended from a Polish émigré family. His mother was Kate Terry-Lewis. His paternal great-grandmother had been a Shakespearean actor in Lithuania. His grandmother, Kate, played Cordelia at the age of 14. His great uncle Fred Terry, made his name acting as the Scarlet Pimpernel. The celebrated stage actor, and leading lady to Henry Irving, Ellen Terry was a great-aunt. Her illegitimate son was the theatre designer-director Edward Gordon Craig. Gielgud's brother, Val, was head of BBC Radio in the 1950s.

Education: Gielgud attended preparatory school at Hillside where he played Shylock and Humpty Dumpty. He then went to Westminster school, and while there he absconded to see matinées of the Diaghilev Ballet.

Work: He made his professional theatre debut at the Old Vic in London in 1921 when he played a French herald in Shakespeare's Henry V. He was hired by his cousin Phylis Neilson-Terry as assistant stage manager and understudy in The Wheel in 1922. He studied for the stage at Lady Benson's Dramatic Academy and then spent a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). His first major London role was as the perpetual student, Trofimov, in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.
Gielgud made his film debut in 1923 in Who Is That Man?.
He was Noel Coward's understudy in 1924 and took over from him in The Vortex and The Constant Nymph.
Gielgud worked with J. B. Fagan's company in Oxford and in the West End before returning to the Old Vic in 1929 to which he was invited by Lilian Baylis. For the next two seasons he played all the major parts.
At the age of 26 he played Hamlet (above) which was the first time the part had been given to an actor under 40. The speed of his delivery was revolutionary. He developed the part over the years to make it his own.
A young Scotswoman was inspired by Gielgud's performances and wrote, under the name Gordon Daviot, the play Richard of Bordeaux which was dedicated to Gielgud who directed the play and played the lead role. He became a box-office sensation and became an idolised public figure. Alec Guinness saw the play fifteen times. This success gave theatre managers the courage to allow Gielgud to put on more of the classics in the West End. He became an innovator and developed the theatre company system, encouraged theatre designers such as the Motley trio, and encouraged other actors including Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness, Edith Evans, and many others.
Gielgud's theatrical agency was H. M. Tennent, and its managing director was Hugh 'Binkie' Beaumont. It was Binkie Beaumont who went behind Gielgud 's back to secure him an exemption from active service during the Second World War. Much to his surprise, he was never called up, but did some fire watching in London. John Perry went to live with Binkie Beaumont and they were together until Beaumont's death.
After the war Gielgud's career entered a new phase when his acting roles changed from romantic to character actor as he came under the direction of the 25-year-old Peter Brook in 'Measure for Measure'.
On the night of 21st. October 1953 Gielgud was arrested for homosexual importuning in Chelsea and ordered to appear before a magistrate the following morning. On the charge sheet he described himself as 'Arthur Gielgud, 49, a clerk, of Cowley Street Westminster' and he pleaded guilty and apologised. He was fined £10. He had followed the usual practice of the time of giving a false job description in the hope that the press would not pick up on the incident.
However, a journalist from the Evening Standard was in the court and the story appeared in the lunchtime edition under the headline 'Sir John Gielgud fined: See your doctor the moment you leave here'. His humiliation became very public and painful and he was afraid of what the reaction of the audience might be when he next appeared on stage. In fact the play (N. C. Hunter's 'A Day by the Sea') was brought to standstill by a standing ovation when Gielgud first made his entrance. However, there was a public backlash led by the press which complained of the 'homosexual menace'. The choreographer Frederick Ashton said 'He's ruined it for us all'. Paul Anstee burnt all his letters out of fear.In Arthur with Dudley Moore and Liza Minelli
In 1955 he played King Lear but it was not a success and his style of acting seemed to have gone out of favour. In 1957 he appeared at the Edinburgh Festival with a solo recital of excerpts from Shakespeare's, 'The Ages of Man' which was very popular and he toured with it for a decade. He began to transform himself with his part in the 1967 film 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and as the schoolmaster in Alan Bennett's public school satire '40 Years On' in 1968. In 1976 he played the seedy poet in Harold Pinter's 'No Man's Land'. He also played with difficulty in Peter Brook's 'Oedipus' in 1968.
He made his final acting appearance on the stage at the age of 83 in Hugh Whitemore's conversation piece The Best of Friends, (1988).
He had roles in about 80 films but his superciliousness an waspishness did not make him into a loveable film actor.
On the night of John Gielgud's death the lights of the Gielgud Theatre and 12 others in the Really Useful Group were dimmed for three minutes as a tribute. A simple memorial service was held on 1st. June at All Saints church in Wotton Underwood.

Greatest Achievements: With his performance as Richard II he became the leading British Shakespearean actor. Gielgud was given a knighted in the coronation honours list in June 1953. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1977. He was awarded an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film Arthur in 1981. Gielgud was also awarded the BAFTA fellowship award for his lifetime contribution to showbusiness in 1992.
In 1994 the Globe Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, in the West End of London was renamed the Gielgud Theatre.
He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1996.

Friends & Relationships: In 1926, during the run of 'The Constant Nymph', he met John Perry with whom he had his first long-standing relationship. Perry went to live with Gielgud in his flat overlooking Seven Dials in Covent Garden.
In 1953, he began a relationship with Paul Anstee. It was in the early 1960s while viewing a Kokoschka exhibition at the Tate gallery when Gielgud spotted Martin Hensler and became friends with him. They kept in touch afterwards, and after six years Martin Hensler moved in with Gielgud. Hensler was his companion for 40 years until he died in 1999. In their later years they lived quietly together in their country house, South Pavilion, at Wotton Underwood, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
After his arrest in 1953 for importuning, Gielgud did not talk about the matter again, and despite the press coverage, after a number of the years most of the general public would not have known that he was gay. In fact, after instigation by Martin Hensler, and approval by Gielgud, Sheridan Morley wrote in the 1988 programme note for Best of Friends that they had lived together happily for many years. It was not picked up by the press.


Writing: Early S tages, an autobiography, 1939, Macmillan.
1990, revised edition, Teach Yourself, 224 pages, ISBN 0340530391 (paperback). John Gielgud: an actor's biography in pictures, (compiled and described by Hallam Fordham), 1952, London: Lehmann, 128 pages. Stage Directions, 1963. 1992, Teach Yourself, 160 pages, ISBN 0340552042 (paperback). Distinguished company, 1972, London: Heinemann Educational, 123 pages, ISBN 0435183532. An Actor in His Time, an autobiography (in collaboration with John Miller and John Powell), 1979, London: Sidgewick and Jackson, 253 pages, ISBN 0283985739. 1989, revised and updated, London: Sidgewick and Jackson, 300 pages, ISBN 0283998555. Backward glances: part one, time for reflection: part two, distinguished company, 1989, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 214 pages, ISBN 0340429259. 1993, Teach Yourself, 224 pages, ISBN 0340579854 (paperback). Shakespeare - Hit or Miss?, (with John Miller), 1991, London: Sidgewick, 192 pages, ISBN 0283060883 (hardcover). Acting Shakespeare, 1992, a re-publication of Shakespeare - Hit or Miss?. 1999, Applause Theatre Books Publishers, 234 pages, ISBN 1557833745 (paperback). Notes from the Gods: playgoing in the Twenties, (edited by Richard Mangan), 1994, London: Nick Hern Books, 111 pages, ISBN 1854591053 (hardcover).

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