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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Alec Guinness
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(b. 1914, kt 1959) Actor famous for the way in which he can submerge himself in an astonishing variety of roles – a talent taken to its bravura extreme when he played all eight murder victims in *Kind Hearts and Coronets. He was already a leading stage actor, known for his Shakespearean roles (including a modern-dress Hamlet in 1938), when his performance as Fagin in David Lean's Oliver Twist (1948) launched him on his cinema career. Among his best-known subsequent films have been The *Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The *Bridge on the River Kwai (1957, an Oscar-winning performance), Tunes of Glory (1960) and Star Wars (1977). For TV audiences his greatest role has been as John Le Carré's world-weary spy master, Smiley, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) and its successor Smiley's People (1982).
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