Scripts and scripture The hardest character Alec Guinness had to play was that of a good man, says Helen Osborne

From: The Sunday Telegraph London | Date: October 12, 2003| Author: | Copyright information

Alec Guinness

by Piers Paul Read

Simon & Schuster, pounds 20, 632 pp

pounds 18 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222

ON HIS DEATH bed Sir Alec Guinness advised his wife and son, "If a biographer called Garry O'Connor should approach you, tell him to f-- k off." These might not be the silken words one would expect from a knight of the realm making his peace with the world, but he had a point. There was to be no stopping O'Connor who pursued his creepy mission to "out" Sir Alec beyond the grave like a demented scavenger.

Piers Paul Read is the family's altogether more sober choice as "authorised" ...

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