Alastair Sim
Alastair Sim CBE | |
---|---|
Born | Alastair George Bell Sim 9 October 1900 Edinburgh, Scotland |
Died | 19 August 1976 London, England | (aged 75)
Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1930–1976 |
Spouse | |
Children | 1 |
Alastair George Bell Sim,
After a series of false starts, including a spell as a jobbing labourer and another as a clerk in a local government office, Sim's love of and talent for poetry reading won him several prizes and led to his appointment as a lecturer in elocution at the University of Edinburgh in 1925. He also ran his own private elocution and drama school, from which, with the help of the playwright John Drinkwater, he made the transition to the professional stage in 1930.
Despite his late start, Sim soon became well known on the London stage. A period of more than a year as a member of the
In the later 1940s and for most of the 1950s, Sim was a leading star of British cinema. They included Green for Danger (1946), Hue and Cry (1947), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), Scrooge (1951), The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954) and An Inspector Calls (1954). Later, he made fewer films and generally concentrated on stage work, including successful productions at the Chichester Festival and regular appearances in new and old works in the West End.
Early life
Sim was born in
After the end of the
While maintaining his university position, Sim also taught private pupils and later founded and ran his own drama school for children in Edinburgh. This developed his skills as a director and occasional actor. One of his pupils, Naomi Merlith Plaskitt, aged 12 when they met, became his wife six years later. The dramatist John Drinkwater saw one of Sim's productions for the school and encouraged him to become a professional actor.[9] Through Drinkwater's influence, Sim was cast in his first professional production, Othello at the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1930; he understudied the three principal male roles (played by Paul Robeson, Maurice Browne and Ralph Richardson) and played the small role of the messenger.[1][10]
Early stage and screen career
Sim followed Othello with productions ranging from a musical
For several months in 1934, Sim was incapacitated by a
Starring roles
Sim returned to substantial stage roles at the last
By the mid-1940s, Sim was being cast in starring roles in films. His earliest successes as a leading man included the police detective in the thriller Green for Danger (1946); the headmaster of Nutbourne College, co-starring with Margaret Rutherford, in the farcical comedy The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950); and a writer of lurid crime fiction in the comedy Laughter in Paradise (1951). His other films included Waterloo Road (1944), London Belongs to Me (1948), Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), Scrooge (A Christmas Carol) (1951), Folly to Be Wise (1953) and An Inspector Calls (1954).[17]
Sim turned down the role of Joseph Macroon in Whisky Galore! (1949), saying, "I can't bear professional Scotsmen".[18] An even more central role for which he was intended was the mad criminal mastermind Professor Marcus in The Ladykillers (1955). The role was written with him in mind but was finally taken by Alec Guinness, who, in the words of Mark Duguid of the British Film Institute, played it "with more than a hint of Sim about him", to the extent that according to Simpson many people thought then and still think that Sim played the part.[19][20]
Sim's performance in Scrooge (1951) is considered by many to be the best portrayal of the title character on screen,
Sim was among the top British film stars of the early and mid 1950s,[n 3] but his films of the late 1950s are considered by the critic Michael Brooke to be of lesser quality, because of poor scripts or lack of innovative direction.[8] Sim made no films in the decade between 1961 and 1971; it is not clear whether this was, as Brooke suggests, because he found the scripts offered to him unacceptable or, as Simpson proposes, because film makers in the 1960s thought him unsuited to the kitchen sink dramas then fashionable.[8][29]
After Bridie's death in 1951, Sim appeared in only two stage productions during the rest of the decade. The first was a revival of Bridie's Mr Bolfry in 1956, in which Sim moved from the role of the puritanical clergyman to that of the Devil.
In 1959, Sim sued the food company
1960s and last years
After doing little stage work in the 1950s, Sim resumed his theatre career in earnest in the 1960s. His range was wide, from Prospero in The Tempest (1962) and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1964), to the villainous Captain Hook in Barrie's Peter Pan (1963, 1964 and 1968) and the hapless Mr Posket in Pinero's farce The Magistrate (1969). The new plays in which Sim appeared were Michael Gilbert's Windfall (1963), William Trevor's The Elephant's Foot (1965) and Ronald Millar's Number Ten (1967); he directed all three productions. The first was dismissed by The Times as a tepid comedy about a progressive young headmaster thwarted by a reactionary member of his staff; the second, billed as a pre-London tour, started and finished in the provinces; the last was castigated by Philip Hope-Wallace in The Guardian as "maladroit playmaking" with a tedious plot about political machinations.[35] Sim's performances provided some consolation: in the first, The Times said, his "treacherously sweet smiles, triple takes and unheralded spasms of apoplectic fury almost make the evening worth while".[35]
Much more successful among Sim's 1960s appearances were two productions at the
On television, Sim portrayed Mr Justice Swallow in the comedy series
On stage Sim returned to Pinero farce, playing Augustin Jedd in Dandy Dick at Chichester and then in the West End. Once again he co-starred with Patricia Routledge. His last stage appearance was in a return to the role of Lord Ogleby in a new production of The Clandestine Marriage at the Savoy in April 1975.[1]
Personal life and honours
Sim and his family guarded their privacy carefully. He seldom gave press interviews and refused to sign autographs. In his view, the public's interest in him should be solely confined to his stage or screen performances. In a rare interview with the magazine Focus on Film he said, "I stand or fall in my profession by the public's judgement of my performances. No amount of publicity can dampen a good one or gloss over a bad one."[40]
Sim and his wife Naomi promoted and encouraged young acting talent. Among their protégés was George Cole, who lived with them on and off from 1940, when he was 15 years old, until 1952, when he married and bought a house nearby. Cole appeared with Sim in eight films from Cottage to Let (1941), to Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957).[41] An obituary of Naomi Sim noted in 1999: "Cole wasn't the only youngster to benefit from the Sims' generosity and love of youthful spirits. At least half a dozen others – 'our boys' as Naomi called them – mostly unhappy at home, have cherished memories of life at Forrigan, the welcoming woodland retreat built by the couple near Henley-on-Thames in 1947". They had a daughter, Merlith, who lives at Forrigan with her family. The actor George Cole lived next door to the family, remaining close to Naomi Sim to the end.
In 1948, Sim was elected
Sim died in 1976, aged 75, in London, from lung cancer. His widow Naomi died on 3 August 1999. She published a memoir, Skylark: Fifty Years with Alastair Sim in 1987.[1]
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ In her memoirs, Sim's widow, Naomi, wrote that he worked after leaving school at fourteen; in his 2011 biography of Sim, Mark Simpson questions this, observing that Sim took his Intermediate School Certificate at the age of sixteen
- The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Michael Gilbert identifies Sim's harassed headmaster in The Happiest Days of Your Life as "the fondest memory for many".[1] and in 2005, Michael Brooke wrote in the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound, "The St Trinian's films may be the first we think of, but Alastair Sim was a vastly versatile actor without whom the landscape of British cinema's heyday would be a less joyful place." Brooke describes Sim's Scrooge as the "unimpeachably definitive" cinema portrayal.[8]
- ^ For a number of years in the 1950s, British film exhibitors voted him among the top ten local stars at the box office in an annual poll for the Motion Picture Herald: 1950 – equal eighth with Margaret Rutherford;[25] 1951 – 6th;[26] 1952 – 2nd;[27] 1953 – 4th; 1955 – 4th (8th overall).[28]
- ^ The voice was that of the actor Ron Moody, who regularly imitated Sim, along with many others, as part of Moody's stage act.[33] Sim evidently bore Moody no ill will, and they appeared together in the 1975 revival of The Clandestine Marriage.[34]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Gilbert, Michael. "Sim, Alastair George Bell (1900–1976)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2011, retrieved 11 July 2014 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Simpson, p. 15
- ^ "Early Years".
- ^ Margaret Rutherford, Alistair Sim, eccentricity and the British character actor, Chris Wilson, Sheffield Hallam University, 2005, p. 11
- ^ Alastair Sim- the Real Belle of St Trinian's, Mark Simpson, History Press, 2011, pp. 14-16
- ^ "Spellbinding times at Heriot's". The Scotsman. 13 August 2009.
- ^ Simpson, p. 19
- ^ a b c d e f Brooke, Michael. "The actors: Alastair Sim – Funny Peculiar", Sight and Sound, 15.7, British Film Institute, July 2005, pp. 34–36
- ^ a b "Obituary: Mr Alastair Sim – Idiosyncratic comedian of stage and screen", The Times, 21 August 1976, p. 14
- ^ "Biography – Annual Overview", Alastair Sim, retrieved 11 July 2014
- ^ Gaye, pp. 1184–1185
- ^ The Venetian, Internet Broadway database, accessed 15 July 2014
- ^ "The Old Vic", The Times, 1 November 1932, p. 12
- ^ Brown, Ivor. "Hamlet", The Observer, 24 April 1932, p. 15
- ^ Brown, Ivor. "The Week's Theatres – Youth at the Helm", The Observer, 24 February 1935, p. 5
- ^ "Malvern Festival: "Mr James Bridie's What Say They?", The Manchester Guardian, 8 August 1939, p. 11
- ^ "Alastair Sim", British Film Institute, retrieved 13 July 2014
- ^ McArthur, p. 34
- ^ Simpson, pp. 91–92
- ^ Duguid, Mark. "Ladykillers, The (1955)", British Film Institute, retrieved 12 July 2013
- ^ "Scrooge" (1951), Screenonline, retrieved 30 December 2015
- ^ Ferrara, Greg. "A Christmas Carol (1951)", Turner Classic Movies, retrieved 30 December 2015
- ^ Simpson, pp. 121–22
- ^ "The Anatomist". British Film Institute. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
- ^ "Success of British Films", The Times, 29 December 1950, p. 4
- Townsville Daily Bulletin, Queensland, 29 December 1951, p. 1
- Sunday Herald, Sydney, 28 December 1952, p. 4
- ^ "The Dam Busters", The Times, 29 December 1955, p. 12
- ^ Simpson, p. 162
- ^ "Aldwych Theatre", The Times, 31 August 1956, p. 5
- ^ "The Brass Butterfly", The Times, 18 April 1958, p. 3
- ^ Simpson, pp. 150–51
- ^ Simpson, p. 151
- ^ Simpson, p. 187
- ^ a b Lyric Theatre. "Mr Sim again the Indulgent Pedagogue", The Times, 3 July 1963, p. 13 (Windfall); "Briefing", The Observer, 4 April 1965, p. 22 (The Elephant's Foot); and Hope-Wallace, Philip. "Number 10 at the Strand Theatre", The Guardian, 16 November 1967, p. 6 (Number Ten)
- ^ Trewin, J C. "Ha! Ha! That's Admirable!", Illustrated London News, 11 June 1966, p. 31
- ^ Trewin, J C. "Frenzy by Gaslight", Illustrated London News, 31 May 1969, p. 32
- ^ Simpson, p. 172
- ^ "The Ruling Class" and "Royal Flash", British Film Institute, retrieved 13 July 2014
- ^ Interview, Focus on Film, Summer 1972, p. 10
- ^ "George Cole", British Film Institute, retrieved 13 July 2014.
- ^ "People", The Guardian, 23 July 2008
- ^ "Alastair Sim's birthplace located", Filmhouse Cinema, retrieved 12 July 2014
Sources
- Gaye, Freda, ed. (1967). Who's Who in the Theatre (fourteenth ed.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. OCLC 5997224.
- McArthur, Colin (2003). "Whiskey Galore!" and "The Maggie". New York: Tauris. ISBN 1417520396.
- Simpson, Mark (2009). Alastair Sim: The Star of "Scrooge" and "The Belles of St Trinian's". Stroud, UK: History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-5372-9.
Further reading
- Quinlan, David (1992). Quinlan's illustrated directory of film comedy stars. London: Batsford. ISBN 0713461497.
- Sim, Naomi (1987). Dance and Skylark: Fifty years with Alastair Sim. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747500525.
External links
- Alastair Sim at IMDb
- Alastair Sim at the TCM Movie Database
- Alastair Sim at the BFI's Screenonline
- Alastair Sim at the Internet Broadway Database
- Funny Peculiar – Sight & Sound profile of Alastair Sim by Michael Brooke