Article: The Last Titan of the Theater: Sir John Gielgud, 1904-2000.(TRANSITION)(Arts and Entertainment)(Brief Article)

I spoke rather well," Sir John Gielgud once said, recalling his early days in the theater, "but rather too well, and fell in love with my own voice." So did the rest of the world. How could you ever, ever describe it? Alec Guinness's much-quoted phrase, "a silver trumpet muffled in silk," suggests its timbre, its tenor range and its musicality, but not the sense that it was a speaking mind--and speaking directly to you. Theatergoers first heard it in 1921, delivering a nothing line from Shakespeare's "Henry V": "Here is the number of the slaughtered French." Between this bit part as a herald at the age of 17 and his last performance this spring at 96, Gielgud impersonated ...

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