Originally Published May 2000

I had a hard time writing a fan letter to John Gielgud. For years this was a running joke with my students. I'd arrive at class in the evening to the question, "Written it yet?" and leave class at night to their mock insistence: "Bring us the first paragraph tomorrow, you hear?" But no, I just couldn't.

As an actor born in 1904, Sir John had one foot in the 19th century and one in the 21st. For most of his life—which ended yesterday--he was said to have the most beautiful speaking voice of anyone alive. With that voice, he showed the world how to play the declamatory 19th century style as well as the fragmented, stuttering texts of our own time. His interpretations of the great Shakespearean roles have been historic—and I myself am particularly interested in this fact because what he did with those roles was inextricably related to his interests in the avant-garde and in painting. Actor, director, producer, writer extraordinaire—this man, whom I never met, has played an intimate and inspirational role in my artistic life for over thirty years.

In December of 1997, when he was 94, we dedicated an End-of Term Recital to Sir John at the Actors' Training Project. It was called, "The Ages of Man As They Pertain to Christmastime." This title was in honor of Sir John's "Ages of Man," a brilliant evening of readings he devised from the great Shakespeare speeches and sonnets. He grouped these pieces together under three headings: Youth, Manhood and Age, and introduced each section with a revealing sentence or two. Here is a description of Gielgud's "Recital":

It was remarkable feat to sustain an evening in the theatre purely on the strength of the lines, without props, except for a lecturn and a book which was almost never consulted, no scenery and the actor himself wore a dinner jacket. Yet it was an evening of hypnotic power.

The Recital we did in Sir John's honor was our Christmas program—and we were not so much "hypnotic" as "festive." But our program was organized under the Youth-Manhood-Age headings, we had our lectern, our book, our sentences-or-two—and no costumes or lighting!

A few days after the Recital, I saw a way around my Fan Letter Problem. At midnight on December 31st, as the year changed, I was composing this message to accompany a copy of our program:

Dear Sir John Gielgud,

I have spent my life (half as long as yours) in the theatre, in various capacities. I cannot go so far as to suggest that people can see your influence in my acting or directing, but I assure you that you have been the inspiration for my work—and sometimes been the reason to go on with it at all—for many years indeed.

This month the acting students in my charge gave a recital at the end of our term. What follows here is the text of the opening remarks I made that night, dedicating the recital to you. Perhaps you will not recognize yourself in what I've said, but I made my comments in a spirit of the deepest admiration and gratitude.

I thought perhaps you would enjoy knowing that, on another continent, you have played an enormous and inspirational role in the life of someone you've never known existed---surely one of many.

In humility and thanks,

[signed]

Within two weeks I received His Letter. Handwritten on his letterhead, in tiny letters, arranged eccentrically on the page, like a modern poem:

Miss Tyler Renaud.

I was greatly touched and pleased
to receive your charming letter
and enclosure. It is indeed
a pleasure to know that I
am still remembered so
warmly in the United
States and now fairly
well known all over
many countries through
my films and television
and I return your good
wishes with grateful thanks.

Very sincerely,
John Gielgud

"With grateful thanks, " he wrote. I love that—the effusive redundancy of it. When I think of Sir John, I think of one word: Godsend.

The box for the "Ages of Man" cassette tapes has a large picture of Sir John on it. When my boy Kiril was two, he was shuffling through a pile of such tape boxes and, pulling out that one, gazed at the picture on it with intense concentration. "Who is that man?" I asked him, wondering if he thought it was someone he knew. "Mama's favorite man," he answered with great clarity.

And he was right. Not just a letter but a whole life, my whole body of work is for Sir John Gielgud, my favorite man.

With grateful thanks.

In October of 2001—that is, not much after I wrote this May 2000 piece—I happened to notice, on an online theatre forum, that a bookseller in London was selling Gielgud's own copy of Directors on Directing (Cole and Chinoy) and I thought: "Well, it was probably snapped up within moments of its being posted, since I can't imagine anyone in the theatre not wanting to own Gielgud's own copy of that book—but let me try." So I contacted the bookseller, little knowing that from that one email would unfold one of the loveliest experiences of my life.
 
First, I learned that the book was still available. Then, it emerged over the next days that the bookseller had 60 more of Gielgud's theatre books. They were all available, so I wanted all of them. Then he gave me a price, which I sent to a student of mine who was dear to me, who knew my nature, my devotion to Gielgud, and who was also knowledgeable about purchasing such things. His reply: "Just buy them! It will be embarrassing if you have to spend the next three years kicking yourself. – Dave." So, looking into "just buying them," I saw that the amount was pretty much the sum of all my bank accounts together, but that it also left me $11.75, so I decided to proceed. Then the bookseller found about five more of Gielgud's books. But the price didn't noticeably change. In fact, it started going down. The bookseller wrote: "It might be a cliché, but in this case I really am glad the books are going to a good home."

I commissioned a sculptor to design a Shelf for Gielgud's books. I came to know the London bookseller as Peter, and to enjoy a delightful and surprising regular correspondence with him for the next six months—exchanging thoughts on culture; learning about his shop, his wife's gardening, their children and their family holidays—and sporadically for several years after. And when the books arrived, I loved them and felt that Gielgud didn't mind they were with me.

I learned so much. That good things can happen online. That lots of theatre people don't care about owning Gielgud's Directors on Directing. That my fondness for Dave was well placed, how touched I was to have his friendship and consultation. That someone in London whom I'd never met would understand and enter into my Book Adventure in precisely the right spirit, and become an unforgettable correspondent. That a sculptor could build a bookshelf with minimal visible support, so the shelf appears to be floating but can hold all those books. That even though life seems pretty complicated pretty much of the time, occasionally it gets as simple as: I want that, I get that, I have that, I love that.

That Gielgud read some of the same books I read, and also some other marvelous ones I hadn't known. That he read very old and very current books. That he really read his books, and didn't just keep them to look at (his library had over 2000 books in it). That both famous friends and strangers wrote charming messages for him in the front of books they gave him. That seeing Sir John Gielgud's books in my home fifty or a hundred times a day would continue to be exciting, and also to feel completely natural for all this time.

The theme for this issue of Scene4 is "Everything Old is New Again." Indeed. The way Gielgud closed his brief letter to me in 1998, and I closed the piece above that I wrote in 2000, is the same way I enjoy living with his books—and all that came with acquiring them—today: with grateful thanks.