BARKWORTH, PETER — First Houses on Becoming an Actor

London, Secker & Warburg. 1983. Hardcover with dust jacket, 24 Cm. Book, review-contents British actor Barkworth recalls his early years in the theater--starting as a teenage reciter of dialects and funny poems at fundraising concerts during WW II. Seeing Gielgud's Hamlet in 1944, however, made him want to be a "serious and great actor": he won a scholarship to RADA (supplemented by family sacrifice); provincial repertory followed--with one compelling little anecdote about breaking a contract in order to take a more attractive job. (The theater manager in Folkestone was furious; Barkworth carried the guilt for some time after.) And, after an agent saw him in Sheffield, Barkworth was off to London circa 1952--but with disappointing results. So only after deciding to give up and turn to teaching did Barkworth "fall in love again with the whole business of being an actor"--leading to his first big West End success, Roar Like a Dove. 132 well bound clean pp, bw pix interspersed , Very Good/Good.