Flashback, June 1954: ‘Father Brown’ Role Triggers Guinness Conversion

Featuring a sterling British cast and one of the most unusual sleuths in the history of detective fiction, Father Brown premiered this month in the U.K.

For many mystery fans, it was a chance to see, on something other than the printed page, the adventures of the owlish, unassuming Roman Catholic prelate created by G.K. Chesterton. For the movie’s star, Alec Guinness, the role represented far more: the catalyst for his conversion to Roman Catholicism.

In childhood, the Father Brown stories became my avenue into the marvelously versatile Chesterton, who tried his literary talents not only in detective fiction but also the novel, poetry, essays, biographies, and Christian apologetic literature. Though not a Catholic when he invented his clerical sleuth, the author became one halfway through producing these 53 stories, in 1922. Something of the same conversion process took place with Guinness.

Seeing the 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets a couple of weeks ago reminded me of Guinness’ amazing versatility and ability to disappear completely into a role. (In this case, eight: the number of eight heirs—including one woman—to an aristocrat’s fortune, all of whom fell victim to a poor relation.) 

The Bridge on the River Kwai won Guinness his Oscar and Star Wars brought him last financial security. But Father Brown (retitled The Detective for its American release) brought the actor something else entirely: a different path in his spiritual life.

Like another inveterate actor-diarist, Richard Burton, Guinness was tormented by self-loathing. The Welshman considered acting a misuse of his talents, but Guinness struggled with a variety of issues.

The full extent of Guinness’ malaise did not become generally known to the public until after his death in 2000: catty comments confided to his diary over fellow actors; shame over his illegitimacy; anger toward his alcoholic, thieving mother; a difficult relationship with his wife and son; and questions about his sexual orientation.

In the case of the latter, nobody has ever come forward to claim a homosexual relationship. But several aspects of his life suggest inclinations that others detected or that he himself wrote about, including:

*his father-in-law’s joking nickname for him, that of a gay male ballet dancer;

*diary references to other males making passes at him, or to attractive young men;

*visits to Turkish baths;

*stopping sleeping with his wife after age 40;

*visible discomfort with romantic scenes he had to play.

If Guinness was gay, he did not have to look far to see what it might cost him. Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean’s involvement in the Cambridge spy ring of the early 1950s fed suspicions that homosexuals in the intelligence service and armed forces represented inherent security threats. Just the day before the premiere of Father Brown, Alan Turing—the mathematician who cracked the Nazis “Enigma” code during WWII—allegedly committed suicide after accepting chemical castration in lieu of prison for violating laws against “gross indecency.” Guinness’ contemporary among London’s elite actors, John Gielgud, had been arrested just the year before in a public restroom in Chelsea for “'persistently importuning men for immoral purposes.” 

In a 2003 interview with the UK paper The Daily Telegraph, Guinness’ friend and biographer, novelist Piers Paul Read, explained that by the early 1950s, the actor "was suffering from tremendous bouts of depression, because of his homosexuality and the contradiction between that and his love of [his wife] Merula and his family, and looking for a faith that would give him something to hold it all together.”

Guinness had returned to the Anglican faith of his childhood during World War II, but now he began edging closer toward Catholicism. When his son had been stricken with polio at age 11, Guinness began stopping in a nearby Catholic church to pray for his recovery (which did, in fact, come to pass). 

Then, another incident, during the filming of Father Brown, drew him even closer to the Church. A young boy, finding him still in costume for his role, took his hand and accompanied the “priest” off the set. 

The youngster made a profound impression on the actor. "Continuing my walk," he later noted, "I reflected that a Church that could inspire such confidence in a child, making priests, even when unknown, so easily approachable, could not be as scheming or as creepy as so often made out. I began to shake off my long-taught, long-absorbed prejudices."

Guinness formally entered the Church two years later. Becoming a Catholic did not make his securities or anxieties disappear. But like another English convert, Evelyn Waugh, he saw the Church as a bulwark against moral relativism and looked askance at a number of post-Vatican II changes. 

On the 40^th anniversary of his entrance into the Church, Guinness wrote in his diary: “I rejoice in that and wish it had come decades earlier.”

A year or two ago, while channel-surfing, I came across the current BBC version of Father Brown. Despite its notching seven seasons on the air, I could not mount the kind of enthusiasm for it that I did for the Guinness film. The plot was pedestrian and the directors could not match the smooth handling demonstrated by Hamer, who was working yet again with Guinness and co-star Greenwood (and, playing the thief that the priest rescues from crime and sin, Peter Finch).