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Alec Guinness was born Alec Guinness de Cuffe in London, England in 1914 (his mother was unwed, and "de Cuffe" was his mom's maiden name). After a brief career in advertising, he became a stage actor at 22, starting in John Gielgud's Hamlet as Osric. In 1938, he played the lead in Hamlet, and in 1939 he played Romeo. He played many other Shakespearean roles, and was Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations in 1939. Alec was a seaman in the Royal Navy from 1941 to 1945. After the war he did more stage work, in both secondary and lead roles, opposite the top English actors of the day. After his movie role in Great Expectations in 1946 (where he repeated his stage role), he was a memorable Fagin in Oliver Twist. In 1949, he played eight different characters in the wonderful black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, and he followed with a string of truly great performances, including The Lavender Hill Mob (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers in 1955. In 1957, he played the lead in The Bridge On The River Kwai (winner of the Best Actor Academy Award for this film), in a truly amazing performance. He played important roles in several epic pictures that followed, including Lawrence of Arabia, The Fall of the Roman Empire and Doctor Zhivago. He played the role of the blind butler in the silly Murder by Death. While making Murder by Death, he read the script for George Lucas' Star Wars. He didn't want to do the movie, but Lucas badly wanted a major star, and he offered Guiness $150,000 plus 2% of profits, and Guinness agreed, and became Obi-Wan Kenobi (nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film), but with the stipulation his character would die before the end of the movie, so he would not have to appear in the inevitable sequels (which he actually did appear in)! In 1988, he starred in Little Dorrit (nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film), and he continued acting until 1996, and he passed away in 2000 at the age of 86. He is surely one of the very finest actors ever, and he left behind a truly remarkable body of work!

Important Added Info: Note that this still has been personally autographed (signed) by Alec Guinness!

Note that this autographed item is part of a remarkable collection. In each of our last several all-signed auctions, we auctioned hundreds of items from this collection and now we are auctioning many more signed photos and miscellaneous other signed items (plus many signed index cards that have a different note on those)!
     In the 1970s, our consignor was a teacher who taught a film class, and he also part-time ran the local movie theater (and he saved all the presskits from the movies the theater showed).
     Starting in the late 1970s through the late 1980s, he wrote to famous celebrities, and enclosed an 8x10 still or repro (or sometimes another item) from his collection, and he wrote a literate personalized letter, talking about his work as a film teacher, and discussing his favorite movie by that star.
     He received signed photos back from a good percentage of the people he wrote to, and if the people simply sent him a stock photo back, he did not save it, but if he felt the autograph was genuine, and if they added a personalized note, then he did save them.
     In the late 1980s, he pretty much stopped sending letters and photos, simply because he was just too busy. So this item (and the vast majority of the other photos and other items we are auctioning for this consignor) were obtained in the late 1970s or 1980s, through personal correspondence with this star. This is of course excellent, because back at that time celebrities were not selling their signatures nearly as much, and many of the stars were pretty forgotten and were happy to get letters from people like our consignor!
     He of course does not have any "Certificates of Authenticity", but he only kept ones he felt were surely authentic, and those are the ones we are auctioning. However, bidders can certainly compare the signatures to known examples on the internet to judge for themselves.
     As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

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Bruce Hershenson,
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