In Search of Gielgud

While putting together his widely praised biography of the great classical actor, Jonathan Croall talked to more than a hundred actors, directors and designers. In Search of Gielgud: A Biographer's Tale is the diary he kept during his exhaustive research. In it he records their revealing personal memories, most of them previously unpublished, of Gielgud on stage, in rehearsal, and off duty. Among those he interviewed were stars such as Alec Guinness, John Mills, Dorothy Tutin, Dirk Bogarde, Richard Briers, Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Simon Russell Beale and Anna Carteret; playwrights Edward Albee, David Storey, Christopher Fry, Charles Wood and Hugh Whitemore; leading directors Peter Brook, Bill Gaskill and John Schlesinger; and designers Jocelyn Herbert, Tanya Moiseiwitsch, and Margaret Harris of Motley. The book also charts the many problems the author had to overcome to prevent the biography from being abandoned, notably a sustained attack by a rival biographer, the wayward behaviour of an elusive editor, and the unpredictable attitude to the book of Gielgud himself.