British actor Paul Scofield dies at 86

BRITAIN:  Paul Scofield, hailed as one of the great British actors of his generation and awarded an Oscar for his haunting performance in A Man For All Seasons , has died aged 86 of leukaemia.

Scofield, a fiercely private actor who spurned the limelight, had the voice and presence to outdo any other classical actor with unforgettable performances in roles ranging from Shakespeare's King Lear to a homosexual barber in the comedy Staircase.

But Hollywood did not appeal and he was quite happy not to match the glamour of his contemporaries Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier. "Of the 10 greatest moments in the theatre, eight are Scofield's," Burton once said.

Agent Rosalind Chatto said Scofield died peacefully at a hospital near his home in southern England on Wednesday. "He had leukaemia and had not been well for some time," she said.

Hollywood's Academy Award as best actor of 1966 went to Scofield in the film A Man For All Seasons for his portrayal of Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More, who chose to be executed by King Henry VIII rather than betray his conscience. The film was adapted by Robert Bolt from his play, in which Scofield was acclaimed on stages in London and New York.

Despite a volley of offers from Hollywood, Scofield chose a lower profile, making few more films but still commanding the stage in such roles as Othello and Macbeth .

In the 1980s he scored one of his greatest successes as composer Antonio Salieri in the London production of Amadeus, Peter Shaffer's box office hit about Mozart.

Director Peter Brook once said Scofield had the ability "to leave space around him on a stage".

The self-deprecating Scofield was a private man who hid behind the mask of a talented actor. "There seems little to say about myself," he once said. "About my work I believe, like the conjuror at a children's party, if you show them how the rabbits come out of the hat, then somehow next time I try to do the trick it will go wrong."

Scofield made his acting debut at the age of 13 in a school production of Romeo and Juliet as Juliet.

He began a long association with Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-on-Avon after the second World War, from which he had been exempted for medical reasons. Between Stratford seasons he triumphed in the capital as Richard II in a production in which the queen was played by his wife, Joy Parker.

His interpretation of Hamlet won rave reviews in Moscow in the winter of 1955-1956 when the Royal Shakespeare became the first English-speaking company to appear there since the Russian revolution.

Scofield lived with his wife in the Sussex countryside. They had a son and daughter, who both became teachers. 

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times