Reply #164: Paul Scofield, Best Actor winner for "A Man for All Seasons." [View All]

[CBHagman]

Okay, folks, I need a happier hobby. Word has come that the British actor Paul Scofield has died of leukemia. Movie lovers will remember him as Mark Van Doren in Quiz Show, the French king in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Henry V, and of course Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

What a lovely voice he had. He sounds like a class act, too, from what I've read of him.

The Guardian obituary:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2266795,00.html

Scofield was appointed a CBE in 1956 after an appearance in Peter Brook's Hamlet, in Moscow.

But he more than once rejected a knighthood, saying he wanted to remain "plain Mister".

"If you want a title, what's wrong with Mr? If you have always been that, then why lose your title? But it's not political. I have a CBE, which I accepted very gratefully."

Although scrupulously polite, he was also known for shunning the press and he disliked parties and film premieres. A private man, he enjoyed walking in the area around his home in Balcombe, West Sussex, and at his holiday home in Scotland.


Credits on IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006890/


With Leo McKern


With Katharine Hepburn