John Gielgud

Also known as Arthur John Gielgud, Sir John Gielgud

British actor and theatre director (1904-2000)

OverviewAI-generated

John Gielgud was a British theatrical director and actor who performed on stage, in film, and on television. Born in South Kensington in 1904, he began his work period in 1924. He was educated at Westminster School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, studying under Helen Haye and Claude Rains. His career spanned various genres, including Shakespearean comedy and spoken word performances.

Gielgud received several awards, including the Laurence Olivier Awards, the Praemium Imperiale, the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Tony Awards for Best Direction of a Play and Best Actor in a Play. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died at Wotton House in 2000 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

Synthesized by Vinony from 31 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Film & TV

London, England

Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH, was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937. He was known for his beautiful speaking of verse and particularly for his warm and expressive voice, which his colleague Sir Alec…

Known for

Nothing Like a Dame — Self (archive footage)2018
Play On! Shakespeare in Silent Film — Self2016
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films — Hogarth (archive footage) (uncredited)2014
Discovering Hamlet — King Hamlet's Ghost (archive footage)2011
Behind The Scenes of Caligula2009
Revisiting Brideshead — Self (archive footage)2005
Check the Gate: Putting Beckett on Film — Self - The Protagonist ("Catastrophe")2003
Catastrophe — The Protagonist2001
The Tichborne Claimant — Cockburn1999
Elizabeth — The Pope1998

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Gender: Male
Origin: United Kingdom
Active from: 1904-04-14
Active to: 2000-05-21

Discography

Discogs

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 1,306
Total plays: 7,838

Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Arthur
Gender: male
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Place of birth: South Kensington
Place of death: Wotton House
Occupation: film director
Educated at: Westminster School
Languages spoken: English language
Award: honorary doctorate
Genre: Shakespearean comedy
Image: John Gielgud Allan Warren cropped.jpg

Show 9 more facts

Commons category: John Gielgud
date of birth: 1904-04-14
date of death: 2000-05-21
nominated for: Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play
member of: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
archives at: British Library
Commons gallery: John Gielgud
start of work period: 1924-00-00
place of burial: Westminster Abbey

Sources (9)

via Wikidata · CC0

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Gielgud as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, 1959

Sir Arthur John Gielgud (/ˈɡiːlɡʊd/ GHEEL-guud; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “John Gielgud” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.