Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:
Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000), renowned British actor, converted to Catholicism after playing a priest in the 1954 film “The Detective,” aka Father Brown.
Perhaps best known for his role as the bearded sage Obi-Wan Kenobi in the “Star Wars” films, Guinness was born into a broken family. His mother, Agnes Cuffe, was unmarried. He never knew his father. Abused by a brutal stepfather, as an adolescent Guinness discovered the solace of the theater. Confirmed into the Anglican church at 16, as a youth he dabbled in various religions while secretly considering himself an atheist.
Religion, he believed, was “so much rubbish, a wicked scheme of the Establishment to keep the working man in his place.”
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