Nature did not cast him to play princes. The watery eyes gave him a look both stoic and startled: in Kenneth Tynan's phrase, "like a Teddy bear snapped in a bad light by a child holding its first camera." The body was pear-shaped and the vocal tones were not; they pontificated, or quavered with sentiment. The hands rose and fluttered independently, articulating a sweetly deranged sign language. Ralph Richardson was no matinee idol—no ethereal saint like John Gielgud, whose beautiful voice could coax meaning out of a...
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