Another tidbit: he turned down "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and said "Do you think my varicose veins would show through the fishnet stockings?"
Much more seriously:
As the letters and diaries make abundantly clear, Guinness, although he enjoyed the friendship of glamorous women, was attracted throughout his life to young men, whom he often hired as dressers or assistants.So sad!
Mr. Guinness fought his impulses, first by marrying the very appealing Merula Salaman, a promising actress who abandoned her career under pressure from her husband, and later by embracing the Roman Catholic Church. He lived a secretive, closeted life, tormented by illicit desires and guilt at what he called, in one diary entry, "the sordidness of much of my past." It was not only onstage that profound emotions stirred under a cool, unruffled surface. The theater, he once wrote, saved him from "a very bad suicidal tendency."
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3 comments:
This is what he thought of Star Wars after it was released.
Why does this post only have 2 comments while the one on B-list movies has 30 or something? Emotional stuff strikes people dumb . . . This is an example of the terrible cruelty of society-wide homophobia.
It reminds me a little bit of Andrew Sullivan's piece on Abraham Lincoln likely being gay -- the same loneliness, though not the shame, shines through.
Like Alec Guiness, there was a time when I too struggled with inner demons. I dearly wanted to rob and pilfer--it truely was my inner self. With the love a good woman I came to see this as an impediment to advancement within my chosen profession--banking. I've been quite successful, but at a cost. I'm not able to be fully authentic without grabbing something and making a beeline for a getaway car. I grieve for the memory of Mr. Guiness.
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