Paul Scofield: 'He made love to the audience'

Paul Scofield was one of the greats of British drama. Simon Callow relives the thrill of performing with the sweet, courteous man who once called him a monster

Monday March 24, 2008, The Guardian

Sensationally handsome ... Paul Scofield. Photograph: Gemma Levine/Getty Images

Paul Scofield was the last of the theatrical titans, a late flowering of that astonishing generation that included Olivier, Gielgud, Ashcroft, Evans, Redgrave and Richardson, and his death last week leaves the stage immeasurably impoverished. No one who saw him treading the boards will ever forget it. He was such an uncommon physical phenomenon: tall and powerful, a fine figure of a man, but complex, even physically so. Every inch of him seemed to be expressing contradictory things. His face was sensationally handsome, but there were contradictions there, too: the soft sensuousness of his mouth denied by the sharp precision of his nose, his eyes often veiled, his brow imperious, his eyebrows endlessly mobile. His skin was astonishingly smooth and soft.

Perhaps the most extraordinary of his physical gifts, though, was his voice: an instrument like none other, an organ with limitless stops, from the mightiest of bass rumbles to falsetto pipings. He seemed to be able to sound several notes at once, creating chords that resonated remarkably, stirring strange emotions, but always for expressive purpose, never for mere virtuosity. Given this exotic physical endowment, it is surprising that he was able to transform himself so completely; his Uncle Vanya and his King Lear, within a few years of each other, scarcely seemed to come from the same planet...