One of the most remarkable things about Paul Scofield was his ability to turn jobs down, Ann Marie Hourihan.
WAS THE actor Paul Scofield the last private man? He died last Wednesday, at the age of 86. It is hard to remember him ever being photographed on a red carpet, being labelled a love rat or going into rehab. Most decidedly not, actually.
Those of us who never saw him on stage will remember him from the film A Man For All Seasons (the nuns loved that film) and, more recently, The Crucible and Quiz Show. But then Scofield didn't do many films - he chose not to - the stage was where he wanted to be.
He turned down most interviews and public honours and opportunities for controversy. On the subject of a knighthood, which he is thought to have refused several times, he said: "If you want a title, what's wrong with Mr? If you have always been that, then why lose your title? But it's not political. I have a CBE, which I accepted most gratefully."
We can be sure that Scofield was an excellent actor because Richard Burton said this about him: "Of the 10 greatest moments in the theatre, eight are Scofield's." We don't know if Burton was sober when he said this - quite possibly not - but it is remarkable praise all the same.
Scofield was the Hamlet of his generation, and then its Lear and then decided that he had done enough Shakespeare.
He played Salieri in the original production of Amadeus, but refused to continue the role in the film of the play.
In fact, the most extraordinary thing about Paul Scofield was not his talent, or even his velvet voice, but his determination on privacy and his ability to turn jobs down.
Last week, looking at the obituaries and the appreciations of him, one could not help wondering whether, if he was starting out now, with the same attitude to fame and to stardom and to publicity, a young Paul Scofield, with an equal amount of talent, could make a career for himself at all.
It is the same feeling one gets when watching tributes to the old heroes of GAA, and discovering that Christy Ring used to take time out from driving his truck round rural Munster in order to practise on his own in deserted fields.
It's like hearing that a former taoiseach, John Costello, used to go home each day for his lunch; it's not just that the idea seems distant, it seems scarcely possible.
Now powerful men's secretaries sob in the limelight, and the contract that actors, sportsmen, politicians and writers strike with the press is very different. For actors, sportsmen etc publicity is not just part of the job - it is the job.
Everyone gets a bit tired of it - including, I believe, the readers and the viewers - but the endless interviews and television appearances are regarded as being as unavoidable as night and day.
At one point weary reporters were booted out of their offices muttering "Not Stephen King again".
Then, if things go well for the actor, sportsman, politician or writer concerned, they reach the point where they are important enough to get picky and start playing hard to get. It is then that the interviews start with "Mr King, thank you so much for seeing me".
I have chosen Stephen King here because I reckon he is successful and foreign enough not to object. Actually Stephen King seems a decent bloke who has a robust attitude to publicity.
Yet the publicity machine was well in place in Scofield's youth, 60 years ago. He had his first offers from Hollywood in 1946, after playing Henry V at Stratford, but he would not go. And there were always before him the examples of other talented and physically beautiful actors from these islands who made a career, ultimately, out of getting legless and marrying Elizabeth Taylor, bless them.
Scofield bought a house in the Sussex countryside in 1953 and lived there with the same wife, the actress Joy Parker, and their son and daughter. But they never asked any magazine to photograph them in their lovely home.
In a way this comparison is unfair on young actors, as they are struggling to find work and differentiate themselves from the legions of their talented peers who are on the dole.
But it is fascinating that Scofield had not only the determination but the confidence to do this, not for a brief period while he begged for some time with his family, but for decades, in fact for his entire career.
Robert Redford still came looking for him to play a cameo role in Quiz Show, when he could have had, presumably, any actor he wanted.
Wouldn't it be strange if the theatre, that most public of places, proved to be the last arena where workers can be truly private ? Scofield had the respect of the best theatre directors in his native country - he had worked with most of them - and he didn't need anyone else's approval.
Last week Paul Scofield's very private life seemed to illustrate that it's not a matter of being careful what you wish for, so much as of being careful who you work for.