Paul Scofield

David Paul Scofield was born on 21 January 1922 in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. Within weeks of his birth, his family relocated to Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, where his father, Edward Harry Scofield, served as headmaster at the Hurstpierpoint Church of England School. His mother, Mary, was Roman Catholic, while his father was Anglican, and Scofield later described his spiritual upbringing as divided between the two faiths. He attended Varndean School in Brighton, where he first encountered Shakespeare at the age of twelve, and credited those annual productions as the defining discovery of his youth. In 1939, at seventeen, he left school and began training at the Croydon Repertory Theatre. He was subsequently ruled unfit for military service during the Second World War due to a physical condition affecting his feet.

Scofield launched his professional stage career in 1940 with a performance in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms at the Westminster Theatre, drawing early comparisons to Laurence Olivier. He went on to perform at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre before joining the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, where he appeared in Walter Nugent Monck's 1947 revival of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The following year, his portrayal of Hamlet at the same theatre, opposite a then-unknown Claire Bloom as Ophelia, earned him the distinction of being called "The Hamlet of his generation." The production featured two actors alternating in the title role, with Robert Helpmann sharing the part. Scofield also played Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice during this period, with Bloom again in the cast.

Over the following decade, Scofield built a reputation as one of the foremost Shakespearean performers of his era while also demonstrating considerable range. His credits included the musical Expresso Bongo in 1958 and Peter Brook's celebrated stage production of King Lear in 1962. Brook later recalled in his memoir Threads of Time the striking physical transformation Scofield achieved when entering the stage for one production, having altered his bearing so completely that those present momentarily failed to recognize him.

The role that defined much of Scofield's legacy was Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, which opened in July 1960. Scofield later described it as the one role in which his initial instincts failed him entirely, requiring him to abandon his intuitive approach and rebuild the performance from the text outward. He identified the challenge as conveying the sincerity and humility of a man of deep spiritual conviction, and arrived at his interpretation through sustained trial and error. The production transferred to Broadway in 1961, and Scofield received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1962 for his portrayal of More.

Four years after the Broadway run, Scofield reprised the role of Thomas More in Fred Zinnemann's 1966 film adaptation of A Man for All Seasons. Columbia Pictures had initially preferred Laurence Olivier or Richard Burton for the lead, along with Alec Guinness as Cardinal Wolsey and Peter O'Toole as King Henry VIII. Zinnemann and screenwriter Robert Bolt resisted the studio's preferences, and Scofield was ultimately cast. His performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him one of eleven performers to receive both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for the same role.

Scofield's screen career extended well beyond that single landmark performance. He appeared in The Train in 1964, King Lear in 1971, A Delicate Balance in 1973, Henry V in 1989, and Hamlet in 1990. His portrayal of Mark Van Doren in the 1994 historical drama Quiz Show earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later, he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing Thomas Danforth in the 1996 film adaptation of The Crucible. His television work included Male of the Species in 1969, for which he received the Primetime Emmy Award.

Those three honors — the Tony, the Academy Award, and the Primetime Emmy — constituted the Triple Crown of Acting, an achievement Scofield earned across a career spanning six decades. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1956 and became a Companion of Honour in 2001, having previously declined the offer of a knighthood. Scofield died on 19 March 2008.