McCowen, Alec Duncan

McCowen, Alec Duncan [ Alexander Duncan McCowen] (1925– ), English actor, who gained his early experience in repertory and was first seen in London in 1950. He was particularly admired as Claverton-Ferry in T. S. Eliot's The Elder Statesman (1958) and was with the Old Vic company, 1959–61, where he played such varied parts as Richard II, Touchstone in As You Like It, and Malvolio in Twelfth Night. For the RSC he was seen as the Fool in King Lear (1962) and Father Riccardo Fontana in Hochhuth's The Representative (1963). In 1968 he made an international reputation in the title-role of Peter Luke's Hadrian VII (NY, 1969), following it with an outstanding Hamlet at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (1969). A year later he was back in London in Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist (NY, 1971), and in 1973 he played Alceste in Molière's The Misanthrope (NY, 1977) and Martin Dysart in Peter Shaffer's Equus for the National Theatre. In 1974 he was an excellent Higgins to Diana Rigg's Eliza in Shaw's Pygmalion; in 1977 he played Antony in Antony and Cleopatra for Prospect and in 1978, in London and New York, gave a remarkable solo performance in which he recited the whole of St Mark's Gospel from memory. He returned to the National Theatre in revivals of Rattigan's double bill The Browning Version and Harlequinade in 1980 and Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 1987. Other notable performances were as Hitler in Christopher Hampton's The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. (1982), which included a 25-minute monologue, and another solo performance, as Kipling (1984).