Before He Tangled With Darth Vader, Obi Wan Kenobi Took on the Nazis
Sir Alec Guinness (1914 – 2000) was one of Britain’s greatest stage and film actors. His decades-long career included roles such as his Oscar-winning performance in 1957’s Bridge on the River Kwai, as well as notable performances in movies like Great Expectations and Oliver Twist in the 1940s, Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia in the 1960s. However, the role for which he is best known today is as Obi Wan Kenobi. It is ironic, because he thought the Star Wars trilogy was tripe.
Less known about Sir Alec Guinness is that he was also a British Royal Navy veteran who saw combat in WWII. Guinness had begun his career in the theater at age twenty, while still a drama student. By age twenty two, he had attracted attention as a Shakespearean actor, and was befriended and mentored by stage legends of his day. After WWII broke out, Guinness enlisted as a seaman in the Royal Navy Reserves in 1941, at age twenty seven. By 1942, he had been commissioned a naval officer.
