Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

I was interested to read in another thread that a broadcast of an Ibsen play starring Wolfit had been made recently.
Wolfit seems to be something of a forgotten figure these days; even when he was alive opinion about him differed wildly with the likes of Edith Evans and Anthony Quayle waxing lyrical about his interpretations while such as Alec Guinness and John Gielgud were disparaging. It seems there was a great deal of enmity between Gielgud and Wolfit; Wolfit referred to Gielgud as "The enemy" and would, apparently, turn red with anger at the mention of his name.
Wolfit appeared in quite a few films but his starring roles were in rather second-rate films such as "Isn't Life Wonderful?", "Blood of the Vampire" and "Svengali" - the last-named part being one to encourage his "hammy" tendencies.
Wolfit was known principally, of course, as a Shakespearean actor (the character of "Sir" in The Dresser seems to have been modelled, in part, on him) but he is ill-represented, as such, in surviving available recordings. He seems to have made a sound recording, in full, of only one complete Shakespeare play for the Caedmon label, King John. He recorded abridged sound-recordings of several other plays including "King Lear". As this was said to be his greatest role it is scandalous that all we have of it is a truncated version. And this brings me to my final point- A friend told me that he had heard that there does survive a complete performance by Wolfit as Lear (whether on film or just sound he didn't know) and this set me wondering if this was true or just a rumour and also just how much of this actor's work survives in the archives. Does anybody know how I could find out? (The BBC, in my past experience, have been not at all helpful with requests of this nature).

PS Since making this post I had the idea of searching the British Library sound catalogue and there does appear to be a complete BBC "Lear" there. However if anybody could give me any ideas about any Wolfit film archive I would be most grateful.

Rob Compton

Jeff - thanks for such an interesting post. What you have said rather confirms my knowledge of Wolfit, especially his latter film career. Why, do you think, did he accept parts in such films? Was it simply that he needed the money, or public recognition, or both? Gielgud, in turn, of course also played some pretty dire films as well.

rgds
Rob

Ascoyne D'Ascoyne

Rob, thank you for that. Although I have read both Wolfit's autobiography and Harwood's biography of him, it was some years back and my memory on certain details is rather hazy. Wolfit belonged to the old actor/manager school (and quite a few notable British actors had been with his company including, I believe, Richard Wattis and Donald Sinden) and was never fabulously wealthy. Money was probably a big factor in tempting him into some of the film parts he accepted. I believe that he considered the cinema a rather poor relation of the "theatre"; there is a story of him haranguing a cinema queue with the purpose of getting them to leave it and attend a theatre in another part of town where his company was playing. I regret I never saw Wolfit in the flesh but I have spoken to those who did and have been told that he really used to hog the stage. Apparently he didn't like the subordinate roles in the plays he produced to be too finely acted in order that the main role (ie that played by himself) should shine more brightly - a very "old-fashioned" view of acting, but I believe it is that that makes him very interesting as one of the last representatives of the old school of acting. There might have been an element of self-display in Wolfit's decision to appear in poor-quality films but it could be that he felt by appearing in popular fodder he might attract audiences to the theatre where they might watch him in some of the classics, so it could be seen as a form of "missionary work."