Actor Sir Alec Guinness Dies at 86

[GypsyCaine]

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No: HPFGUIDX C6244
From: GypsyCaine
Subject: Actor Sir Alec Guinness Dies at 86
Date: 8/8/00 12:32 pm  (ET)

Actor Sir Alec Guinness Dies at 86
 By MATT WOLF=
Associated Press Writer=LONDON (AP)
>From Dylan Thomas to George Smiley to Obi-Wan
Kenobi: Sir Alec Guinness made them all live during an acting career that
stretched across six mesmerizing decades.Tributes poured forth Monday
for the self-effacing actor, who died at age 86 on Saturday. Hospital
officials did not specify the cause of death, but newspapers said it was
liver cancer. ``The world has lost a great artist,'' said George Lucas,
creator of the ``Star Wars'' movies that, beginning in 1977,
brought Guinness to a vast international audience, winning him an Oscar
nomination for best supporting actor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Guinness had
previously taken the best actor prize for playing a British colonel
in David Lean's 1957 film, ``The Bridge On the River Kwai.'' In 1980,
he received an honorary Oscar for his overall career. John Mills,
Guinness' co-star in his screen debut in another Lean film, the 1946
``Great Expectations,'' called him ``one of the greatest character actors
.. a very, very rare person.'' Guinness was a reluctant superstar,
preferring to go about unrecognized. ``Dear Ron,'' he wrote the writer
Ronald Harwood, who compiled tributes to the actor on his 75th birthday,
``wouldn't it be good to call the whole thing off? I must say I'd
breathe more easily.'' Guinness gave an interview to The Associated
Press during the 1988 Berlin Film Festival _ but only on condition that
it take place at the Berlin Zoo, where the actor enjoyed chatting to the
animals. ``Star Wars'' co-star Carrie Fisher recalled Guinness's quiet
poise: ``While the rest of us were sitting on the set, it was as if
(Alec) were sitting on the deck of a yacht. He had a way of elevating
his environment.''