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Backward Glances
A collection of this actor's essays which offers portraits of theatrical personalities such as Edith Evans and Ralph Richardson. This book completes the trilogy which also includes "Early Stages" and "Stage Directions".
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1990
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October 29, 2012
This is a series of reflections and simple sketches of various actors, producers and personalities from the world of and through the waspish eyes of John Gielgud. I bought it whilst at Hay on Wye at the beginning of my holiday and it was a perfect accompaniement to pints and pasties. Most of the entries are five or six pages long, though some are shorter and one or two longer but as none of them are exactly taxing in the concentration stakes, it was a perfect book for picking up and carrying around with me for a day or two when I might suddenly find myself waiting for a bus or a friend to turn up.
Gielgud has a mild obsession with being on time. In a number of the sketches he remarks positively on the person's punctuality, I suppose this is something to do with actors not missing their cues and the importance of coming in on time but it also could mark him out as very much a man of his time where duty and obligation were perhaps seen as more central. He is a snob of the highest degree and can be quite dismissive of people. One of the most annoying is where he remarks on how his favourite room, his dressing room, needs to be kept sacrosanct from 'interviewers with tape recordrs, long-forgotten acquaintances, insincere flatterers' and then
'and the occasionally impertinent unknown fan'
this type of arrogance always annoys me because it is those 'impertinent unknowns' who put the arrogant prick where he was and if he didn't have the decency to acknowledge his debt to them he wasn't worth bothering with. Great actor, yep, witty and amusing, to an extent yep but this series of sketches did, as is so often the case, remove him further from my sympathy rather than bringing him closer.
He did, however, damn with faint praise which did make me laugh. Here are a few choice examples
'her unusually talented gift for wearing period costume',
'Although her voice was never very good (she wobbled if she had to sustain a high note and was frequently out of tune) she had learned to use it with beguiling charm'...ouch so very ouch
or again
'She was sometimes tempted, perhaps, to prolong her top notes unduly in order to show off her brilliant breath control, and to yield rather too easily to demand for encores'.
He covers a fifty or sixty years of actors and big personalities. Does this type of person still 'walk the boards'? I would not know but it is a simple, if you'll excuse the pun, raising of the curtain on an otherwise hidden, and perhaps, lost world.
Gielgud has a mild obsession with being on time. In a number of the sketches he remarks positively on the person's punctuality, I suppose this is something to do with actors not missing their cues and the importance of coming in on time but it also could mark him out as very much a man of his time where duty and obligation were perhaps seen as more central. He is a snob of the highest degree and can be quite dismissive of people. One of the most annoying is where he remarks on how his favourite room, his dressing room, needs to be kept sacrosanct from 'interviewers with tape recordrs, long-forgotten acquaintances, insincere flatterers' and then
'and the occasionally impertinent unknown fan'
this type of arrogance always annoys me because it is those 'impertinent unknowns' who put the arrogant prick where he was and if he didn't have the decency to acknowledge his debt to them he wasn't worth bothering with. Great actor, yep, witty and amusing, to an extent yep but this series of sketches did, as is so often the case, remove him further from my sympathy rather than bringing him closer.
He did, however, damn with faint praise which did make me laugh. Here are a few choice examples
'her unusually talented gift for wearing period costume',
'Although her voice was never very good (she wobbled if she had to sustain a high note and was frequently out of tune) she had learned to use it with beguiling charm'...ouch so very ouch
or again
'She was sometimes tempted, perhaps, to prolong her top notes unduly in order to show off her brilliant breath control, and to yield rather too easily to demand for encores'.
He covers a fifty or sixty years of actors and big personalities. Does this type of person still 'walk the boards'? I would not know but it is a simple, if you'll excuse the pun, raising of the curtain on an otherwise hidden, and perhaps, lost world.
January 11, 2026
【Backward Glances / John Gielgud / 1989, Hodder and Stroughton】
This book is a collection of essays, mainly autobiographical ones, from a great British actor and director, John Gielgud. He had a real hawk eye on his contemporaries, or a little bit older actors like Gertrude Lawrence, Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Sybil Thorndike and Claude Rains - only Leigh remains famous thanks to the literary features of a few of her films - but else, their performances are even a little bit hard to find online (for YouTube videos are nowadays demanded copyright loyalty more than anything).
Even though Gielgud gets his eyes blurred whenever it's about his relatives (it was surprising how theater was family business even in 1920s, I mistook that it ended in 1890s actually) and actors much older than himself, and it's a surprise that more than a quarter of this book is about relatives and family members, it's still very interesting to see how the actors and theaters are seen (both as spectators and society members) in the former half of the last century.
--The cast [of The Duchess of Malfi adapted by Aiden in California in 1930s] included a black actor, Canada Lee, as Basola, playing in white face! (p. 19., Elizabeth Bergner)
--No longer can one see a witty actress dabbing her nose with a tiny handkerchief trimmed with lace, so useful to tease and provoke their partners in scenes of flirtation, quarrelling, or social chit-chat... (p. 88., The Glass of Fashion)
--...leading ladies always entered to applause in those days [in early thirties]... (p. 139., Three Witty Ladies)
--Noël Coward has always said that Gertrude Lawrence's instinct was so incredibly quick and true that she ought to be sent home after the first reading of a new play and not to be allowed to reappear until the first performance. (p. 184., A Brilliant Leading Lady)
It's actually a great source of how theater was run in the olden days which is now largely forgotten - you should read it if you're going to be involved with something from the era, like Brecht, Chekhov and O'Neill.
This book is a collection of essays, mainly autobiographical ones, from a great British actor and director, John Gielgud. He had a real hawk eye on his contemporaries, or a little bit older actors like Gertrude Lawrence, Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Sybil Thorndike and Claude Rains - only Leigh remains famous thanks to the literary features of a few of her films - but else, their performances are even a little bit hard to find online (for YouTube videos are nowadays demanded copyright loyalty more than anything).
Even though Gielgud gets his eyes blurred whenever it's about his relatives (it was surprising how theater was family business even in 1920s, I mistook that it ended in 1890s actually) and actors much older than himself, and it's a surprise that more than a quarter of this book is about relatives and family members, it's still very interesting to see how the actors and theaters are seen (both as spectators and society members) in the former half of the last century.
--The cast [of The Duchess of Malfi adapted by Aiden in California in 1930s] included a black actor, Canada Lee, as Basola, playing in white face! (p. 19., Elizabeth Bergner)
--No longer can one see a witty actress dabbing her nose with a tiny handkerchief trimmed with lace, so useful to tease and provoke their partners in scenes of flirtation, quarrelling, or social chit-chat... (p. 88., The Glass of Fashion)
--...leading ladies always entered to applause in those days [in early thirties]... (p. 139., Three Witty Ladies)
--Noël Coward has always said that Gertrude Lawrence's instinct was so incredibly quick and true that she ought to be sent home after the first reading of a new play and not to be allowed to reappear until the first performance. (p. 184., A Brilliant Leading Lady)
It's actually a great source of how theater was run in the olden days which is now largely forgotten - you should read it if you're going to be involved with something from the era, like Brecht, Chekhov and O'Neill.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews