In Memory Of Paul Scofield



(From the LA Times)
Paul Scofield, one of the giants of the British stage who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film "A Man for All Seasons," has died. He was 86.

Scofield, who had been suffering from leukemia, died Wednesday in a hospital near his home in Sussex, England, his agent, Rosalind Chatto, said in a statement.

Considered one of the most talented actors of his generation, the tall, craggy-faced Scofield had a memorably rich voice that movie director Fred Zinnemann likened to the sound of "a Rolls-Royce being started."

An admiring Richard Burton once said of his fellow actor, whose stage roles included Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and Othello: "Of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's."

Ranked with stage greats Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud by British critics and actors in the 1950s and '60s, Scofield was praised by critic Kenneth Tynan for "his power to enlarge a role until it fits him, as a hatter will stretch a bowler."

Scofield originated the role of More, the morally courageous 16th century chancellor of England who defied King Henry VIII, in Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons" on the London stage in 1960.

A year later, he was playing More on Broadway, a role for which he won a Tony Award for best actor in a play.

"With a kind of weary magnificence," a Time magazine writer observed, "Scofield sinks himself in the part, studiously underplays it, and somehow displays the inner mind of a man destined for sainthood."