Alec mccowen autobiography example

English actor (–)

Alexander Duncan McCowen, CBE (26 May ^[1] – 6 February ) was an English actor. He was known for his work in numerous film and stage productions.

Early life

McCowen was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the son of Mary (née Walkden), a dancer, and Duncan McCowen, a shopkeeper.^[2] He attended The Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells - he was known as 'Squeaker' McCowan by his friends - and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Career

Early theatre work

McCowen first appeared on stage at the Macclesfieldrepertory theatre in August as Micky in Paddy the Next Best Thing. He appeared in repertory in York and Birmingham –45, and toured India and Burma in a production of Kenneth Horne's West End comedy Love in a Mist during with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA).

He continued in repertory –49, during which time he played a season at St John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

McCowen made his London debut on 20 April , at the Arts Theatre as Maxim in Anton Chekhov's Ivanov, and made his first appearances on the New York City stage at the Ziegfeld Theatre on 19 December , as an Egyptian Guard in Caesar and Cleopatra, and on 20 December , as the Messenger in Antony and Cleopatra.

Following a series of roles at the Arts and with the Repertory Players, he had rising success as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge at the then New Theatre, Bromley, and appeared as Barnaby Tucker in The Matchmaker at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, both

After appearances as Dr Bird in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial at the London Hippodrome in , and Michael Claverton-Ferry in T.

S. Eliot's The Elder Statesman, first at the Edinburgh Festival in , then at the Cambridge Theatre, he joined the Old Vic Company for its –60 season, among several parts taking the title role in Richard II, then stayed on for the –61 season to play Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Malvolio in Twelfth Night.

McCowen joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in September , appearing at Stratford-upon-Avon playing Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors and the Fool to Paul Scofield's King Lear, subsequently appearing in both plays at the Aldwych Theatre in December – performing these roles again for a British Council tour of the Soviet Union, Europe and the United States from February to June With the RSC he also played "the gruelling role"^[3] of Father Riccardo Fontana in Rolf Hochhuth's controversial play The Representative at the Aldwych in December

Later theatre work

McCowen enjoyed a career breakthrough at the Mermaid Theatre in April as Fr.

William Rolfe in Hadrian the Seventh, winning his first Evening Standard Award as Best Actor for the London production and a Tony nomination after the transfer to Broadway.

At the Royal Court in August , McCowen was cast to play the title role in Christopher Hampton's sophisticated comedy, The Philanthropist.

If a philanthropist is literally someone who likes people, McCowen's Philip was a philologist with a compulsive urge not to hurt people's feelings – the inverse of Molière's The Misanthrope. Following enthusiastic reviews the production played to packed houses and transferred to the Mayfair Theatre where it ran for a further three years, making it the Royal Court's most successful straight play.

McCowen and his co-star Jane Asher went with it to Broadway in March where he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance.

McCowen's next big successes were in National Theatre Company productions at the Old Vic. In February he co-starred with Diana Rigg in Molière's The Misanthrope for which he won his second Evening Standard award; followed in July by the role of psychiatrist Martin Dysart ("played on a knife edge of professional skill and personal disgust by McCowen", according to Irving Wardle reviewing for The Times) in the world premiere of Peter Shaffer's Equus.

McCowen took part in the first professional UK staging of Weill's Street Scene, at the Palace Theatre, London on 26 April (as Harry Easter), a charity performance in aid of London Lighthouse conducted by John Owen Edwards.^[4]

McCowen devised and directed his own solo performance of the complete text of the St.

Mark's Gospel, for which he received international acclaim and another Tony nomination. It opened first at the Riverside Studios in January before beginning a long West End season at the Mermaid Theatre then at the Comedy Theatre.

Sample student autobiography life: Career [ edit ]. Liberation Publications. Very good run of page with some browning evident. He made regular screen appearances on film and television, but had his greatest success in theatre, notably with his solo performance of the St Mark's Gospel - a show he devised and directed himself - which earned him one of his three Tony Award nominations.

Taking the production to New York, he appeared at the Marymount Manhattan and Playhouse theatres.

Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of George Steiner's novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. at the Mermaid in gave McCowen a great final speech, an attempted vindication of racial extermination delivered by Adolf Hitler, which for Guardian critic Michael Billington was "one of the greatest pieces of acting I have ever seen: a shuffling, grizzled, hunched, baggy figure, yet suggesting the monomaniac power of the Nuremberg Rallies, inhabiting the frail vessel of this old man's body." It was a performance that also won him his third Evening Standard Best Actor award, a record equalled only by Laurence Olivier and Paul Scofield.

Two years later, again at the Mermaid, McCowen gave a portrayal of the British poet Rudyard Kipling in a one-man play by Brian Clark, performed in a setting that exactly matched Kipling's own study at Bateman's (his Jacobean rustic haven in Sussex) "and turning", as Michael Billington wrote, "an essentially private man into a performer." McCowen appeared in the play on Broadway and on television for Channel 4.

Directing

While preparing to co-star as Vladimir to John Alderton's Estragon in Michael Rudman's acclaimed production of Waiting for Godot at the National Theatre in November , McCowen also spent a busy autumn staging Martin Crimp's trilogy of short plays Definitely the Bahamas at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, having previously enjoyed Crimp's style of writing in a BBC radio version of Three Attempted Acts.

As Charles Spencer wrote in The Daily Telegraph: "As a director McCowen captures both the subtlety and the richness of these three original and beautifully written plays."

At the Hampstead Theatre in December he directed a revival of Terence Rattigan's wartime London comedy While the Sun Shines.

Film and television

McCowen made his film debut in The Cruel Sea released in His other film credits include roles in Town on Trial (), A Night to Remember (), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (), The Witches (), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (), Travels with My Aunt (, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination), Never Say Never Again () in which he played the opinionated secret service quartermaster, "Q", named Algynon, Personal Services () and Henry V ().

McCowen's television roles included the BBC's four-part adaptation of J. B. Priestley's Angel Pavement (), and his one-man stage performance of The Gospel According to Saint Mark, transferred to television by Thames for Easter ^[5]

McCowen appeared alongside Maureen Lipman and Arthur Askey performing comic monologues in The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog, which was recorded , and broadcast by Channel 4 in ^[6]

McCowen appeared in the BBC Television Shakespeare series as Malvolio in Twelfth Night and as Chorus in Henry V.

In and McCowen starred in the ten episodes of the short-lived television series Mr Palfrey of Westminster as a "spy catcher" working for British intelligence under the direction of a female boss (played by Caroline Blakiston).

McCowen's one-man performance as Rudyard Kipling was broadcast on television in ^{[citation needed]} His later appearances included playing Albert Speer and Rudolf Hess in the BBC docudramas The World Walk in and , and as astronomer Sir Frank Dyson in Longitude in ^[7] He was the subject of This Is Your Life in , when he was surprised by Michael Aspel at the Strand Theatre in London.^{[citation needed]} He was annoyed when no mention was made of his long-term male partner, fellow actor Geoffrey Burridge and threatened to stop the show from being broadcast.

The dispute was resolved by the host, Michael Aspel, adding a voiceover over the final credits acknowledging the relationship.

McCowen was the narrator in a recording of Gerhard's cantata (after Camus) The Plague, with the Washington National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Doráti in , and also took the part of the Narrator in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, with Peter Pears, Kerstin Meyer and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti; the music for this was recorded in March , his spoken part later and the first issue was in February ^[8]

Literature

McCowen published his first volume of autobiography, Young Gemini in , followed a year later by Double Bill (Elm Tree Books).

Personal life

McCowen's partner, the actor Geoffrey Burridge, died from AIDS complications in ^[9][10][11]

Death

McCowen died, aged 91, on 6 February , and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.^[12]

Filmography

List of theatre roles

• Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly in The Cocktail Party, Phoenix Theatre, July ;
• Nikolai in Brian Friel's Turgenev adaptation Fathers and Sons, National Theatre, July ;
• Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, National Theatre, November ;
• Harry Rivers in Jeffrey Archer's Exclusive, Strand Theatre, September ,
• George in A Single Man, Greenwich Theatre, June ;
• Jack in Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, Abbey Theatre, Dublin and National Theatre, October ; Phoenix Theatre, March ; and Garrick Theatre, December ;
• Caesar in Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, Greenwich Theatre, February ,
• Michael in Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Hampstead Theatre, July ; Vaudeville Theatre, September ; the Booth Theatre, New York, November to June ;
• Edward Elgar in David Pownall's Elgar's Rondo, RSCThe Pit, May ;
• Prospero in The Tempest RSC Barbican Theatre, July ;
• Reginald Pager (a retired opera singer) in Ronald Harwood's Quartet, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre and Albery Theatre, September – January

Honours

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours^[13] and promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the New Year Honours.^[14]

On 2 May , McCowen was accorded a memorial service at St.

Paul's Church in Covent Garden (known as "the actors' church"), conducted by the Reverend Simon Grigg. McCowen's nephew, Reverend Nigel Mumford, read an affectionate remembrance from McCowen's sister Jean Mumford's memoirs titled "Childhood memories of Pantos". The tribute was read by Dame Penelope Wilton, followed by a tribute from the playwright Christopher Hampton.

Rebecca Trehearn sang "Bill" from Show Boat, which was followed by a tribute from the theatre critic Michael Billington and a tribute by the actor Malcolm Sinclair. After final prayers a plaque to McCowen was dedicated by Grigg to the left of the altar.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

• Theatre Record and its annual Indexes
• Who's Who in the Theatre, 17th edition, ed Ian Herbert, Gale () ISBN&#;
• Double Bill (autobiography) by Alec McCowen, Elm Tree Books () ISBN&#;
• The National: The Theatre and its Work – by Simon Callow, Nick Hern Books/NT () ISBN&#;
• Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies, 4th (and final) edition, ed John Walker, HarperCollins ISBN&#;
• Halliwell's Television Companion, 3rd edition, Grafton () ISBN&#;
• Memorial service notes added by Bryan Hewitt

See also

References

External links