Alastair Sim

Alastair George Bell Sim, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 9 October 1900, was a Scottish actor whose career spanned the stage and screen until his death on 19 August 1976. The youngest child of Alexander Sim, a ladies' tailor and Justice of the Peace, and Isabella Sim, a native Gaelic speaker originally from Eigg in the Hebrides, he grew up above his father's shop on Lothian Road before the family relocated to the Bruntsfield district. He attended Bruntsfield Primary School, James Gillespie's High School, and George Heriot's School, and was admitted to the University of Edinburgh in 1918 to study analytical chemistry before being called up for army training near the end of the First World War.

Following his release from military service, Sim abandoned his university studies and spent roughly a year working among itinerant laborers in the Scottish Highlands after his family received the news poorly. He subsequently took a post in the burgh assessor's office in Edinburgh and, in his spare time, pursued poetry reading, winning the gold medal for verse speaking at the Edinburgh Music Festival. That achievement led to a teaching position at a further education college in Dalry from 1922 to 1924, and after completing advanced training, he was appointed Fulton Lecturer in Elocution at the University of Edinburgh in 1925, a post he held for five years. Alongside his university duties, Sim founded and ran a private drama school for children in Edinburgh, where one of his pupils, twelve-year-old Naomi Merlith Plaskitt, would later become his wife.

The playwright John Drinkwater attended one of Sim's school productions and encouraged him to pursue a professional acting career. Through Drinkwater's influence, Sim was cast in his first professional production, a staging of Othello at the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1930, where he understudied the three principal male roles — played by Paul Robeson, Maurice Browne, and Ralph Richardson — and performed the small role of the messenger. Despite beginning his professional career at the age of thirty, Sim established himself quickly as a West End presence.

His Broadway debut came in October 1931, when he appeared in Clifford Bax's play The Venetian. From 1932 to 1933, Sim spent sixteen months as a member of the Old Vic company, headed by Peggy Ashcroft, performing in ten Shakespeare plays as well as works by Shaw, Drinkwater, and Sheridan. Reviewers began to take notice: The Times praised his portrayal of Duke Senior in As You Like It, and Ivor Brown of The Observer described his Claudius in Hamlet as possessing "a sly roguishness that was immensely alive." During that Old Vic season, on 2 August 1932, Sim married Naomi Plaskitt; they had one daughter, Merlith Naomi.

After a period of incapacitation in 1934 due to a slipped disc, Sim returned to the West End and made a strong impression in the comedy Youth at the Helm, playing the sycophantic bank director Ponsonby. That success led to his first film role, as Sergeant McKay in The Riverside Murder in 1935, launching a screen career that would eventually encompass more than fifty British films. Early film work included Wedding Group (1936), in which both Sim and his wife appeared, The Squeaker (1937), Alf's Button Afloat (1938), The Terror (1938), and the Inspector Hornleigh series from 1939 to 1941.

A significant stage association began when Sim appeared in James Bridie's comedy What Say They? at the last Malvern Festival, playing Professor Hayman. That collaboration with Bridie continued until the dramatist's death in 1951 and included Mr Bolfry (1943), The Forrigan Reel (1945), Dr Angelus (1947), and Mr Gillie (1950), with Sim both acting in and directing several of the productions. By the mid-1940s he had also risen to starring roles in cinema, with notable performances in the thriller Green for Danger (1946), Hue and Cry (1947), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950) opposite Margaret Rutherford, and Laughter in Paradise (1951). He also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950) and An Inspector Calls (1954).

The role for which Sim became most widely recognized internationally was that of Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1951 film adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, released in Great Britain as Scrooge and in the United States as A Christmas Carol. That same year he appeared in The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954), a film in which he played a dual role. A role that did not come to pass was that of Professor Marcus in The Ladykillers (1955); written with Sim in mind, it was ultimately taken by Alec Guinness. Sim had also declined the role of Joseph Macroon in Whisky Galore! (1949), stating, "I can't bear professional Scotsmen."

In the later stages of his career, Sim reduced his film appearances and concentrated primarily on stage work, including productions at the Chichester Festival and continued appearances in both new and classic works in the West End. Though recognized as a capable dramatic actor, he became particularly associated with performances combining comedy and menace. He remained active on the stage until his death on 19 August 1976.