Sir Alec Guinness was a stage, television and film actor whose career spanned from the 1940s to the 1990s. Guinness worked with director George Lucas on the Star Wars trilogy, portraying the Jedi Master, Obi Wan Kenobi.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000027/bio He began is career in 1934, in Sir John Gielgud's production of Hamlet.http://www.fandango.com/alecguinness/biographies/p29203 During his career, the actor worked with talents such as Laurence Olivier, David Lean, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000027/

Guinness won 26 awards over the years, including an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1958 Academy Awards for his work in The Bridge on the River Kwai. He also won an honorary Oscar for his career achievements.http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000027/awards

Alec Guinness de Cuffe was born on April 2, 1914 in London, England. As a child he always had an interest in acting but his family never encouraged him to pursue it. When he was 18 years old he worked at an advertising agency while he studied at the Fay Compton School of Dramatic Art. He made his stage debut as an extra in Hamlet in 1934.http://www.fandango.com/alecguinness/biographies/p29203 He would appear in a number of stage productions including Richard II and The Merchant of Venice.http://www.biography.com/articles/Sir-Alec-Guinness-9323177?part=0

Guinness joined the Royal Navy in 1941 and served until the end of the war. He immediately resumed his acting career full-time and in 1946 made his cinematic debut as Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations. He would go on to play roles in notable films such as The Ladykillers in 1955 and The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar at the Academy Awards. In 1962, he would co-star with Laurence Olivier in Lawrence of Arabia.http://www.biography.com/articles/Sir-Alec-Guinness-9323177?part=1

In 1977, he would begin work with George Lucas on the original Star Wars trilogy, making appearances in each film - A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He had notable roles in A Passage to India in 1984 and Little Dorrit in 1987. After his film career began to dwindle, he compiled two volumes of diary entries, titled My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor and A Positively Final Appearance, in 1997 and 1999 respectively. The actor would die of liver cancer on August 5, 2000. He was 86 years old.http://www.biography.com/articles/Sir-Alec-Guinness-9323177?part=1http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000027/bio

• 1946: Great Expectations
• 1949: Kind Hearts and Coronets
• 1955: The Ladykillers
• 1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai
• 1960: Tunes of Glory
• 1962: Lawrence of Arabia
• 1964: The Fall of the Roman Empire
• 1965: Doctor Zhivago
• 1977: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
• 1984: A Passage to India
• 1991: Kafka

"I consciously knew I wanted to be an actor by the time I was 16, that's for sure. If I look back now, I think I always was an actor by the age of 5 or 6." &mdash Alec Guinness, interview with Film Extrahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnT5izzzffM

"A refurbished 'Star Wars' is on somewhere. I have no intention of revisiting any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it's mentioned." &mdash Alec Guinness, reciting diary entires on BBC London Radiohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfEw5H_LSoQ&feature=related