Editing Ralph Richardson (section)

===International fame===
{{Hatnote|Details of Richardson's work, 1948–59: [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrS48|Stage]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrR48|Radio]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrF48|Film]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrTV48|Television]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrA48|Accolades]]}}
For Richardson, parting company with the Old Vic brought the advantage of being free, for the first time, to earn substantial pay. The company's highest salary had been £40 a week.<ref>Miller, p. 123</ref> After his final Old Vic season he made two films in quick succession for Korda. The first, ''[[Anna Karenina (1948 film)|Anna Karenina]]'', with [[Vivien Leigh]], was an expensive failure, although Richardson's notices in the role of Karenin were excellent.<ref>Miller, p. 118</ref> The second, ''[[The Fallen Idol (film)|The Fallen Idol]]'', had notable commercial and critical success, and won awards in Europe and America. It remained one of Richardson's favourites of his films.<ref name=m119>Miller, p.&nbsp;119</ref> In Miller's words, "[[Carol Reed]]'s sensitive direction drew faultless performances not just from Ralph as Baines (the butler and mistakenly suspected murderer), but also from [[Michèle Morgan]] as his mistress, [[Sonia Dresdel]] as his cold-hearted wife, and especially from [[Bobby Henrey]] as the distraught boy, Philippe."<ref name=m119/>

Richardson had gained a national reputation as a great actor while at the Old Vic;<ref>Brown, Ivor. "Come Fly With Me" , ''The Observer'', 27 October 1946, p. 2</ref> films gave him the opportunity to reach an international audience. Unlike some of his theatre colleagues, he was never condescending about film work.{{#tag:ref|Olivier, though he later became a Hollywood star, dismissed film in the 1930s as "this anaemic little medium which could not stand great acting".<ref>Croall, p. 192</ref> Gielgud said of a 1933 film role, "[It] appals my soul but appeals to my pocket."<ref>Gielgud (2004), p. 16</ref>|group= n}} He admitted that film could be "a cage for an actor, but a cage in which they sometimes put a little gold", but he did not regard filming as merely a means of subsidising his much less profitable stage work.<ref>Miller, p. 66</ref> He said, "I've never been one of those chaps who scoff at films. I think they're a marvellous medium, and are to the stage what engravings are to painting. The theatre may give you big chances, but the cinema teaches you the details of craftsmanship."<ref>Miller, p. 132</ref> ''The Fallen Idol'' was followed by Richardson's first [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] part. He played Dr Sloper, the overprotective father of [[Olivia de Havilland]] in ''[[The Heiress]]'', based on [[Henry James]]'s novel ''[[Washington Square (novel)|Washington Square]]''. The film did not prosper at the box-office despite good reviews, an [[Academy Award for Best Actress]] for Havilland, and nominations for the director ([[William Wyler]]) and Richardson.<ref>Sinyard, p. 120; and [http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp;jsessionid=4AE3827810C74DBEAAEB76BC51A5997A?curTime=1390259188433 "The Heiress"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201144413/http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp%3Bjsessionid%3D4AE3827810C74DBEAAEB76BC51A5997A?curTime=1390259188433 |date=1 February 2014 }}, Academy Awards, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, retrieved 21 January 2014</ref>

[[File:Peggy Ashcroft 1962c.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=youngish woman in headscarf, smiling towards the camera|[[Peggy Ashcroft]], with whom Richardson frequently co-starred]]
''The Heiress'' had been a Broadway play before it was a film. Richardson so liked his part that he decided to play it in the West End, with Ashcroft as Sloper's daughter Catherine. The piece was to open in February 1949 at Richardson's favourite theatre, the Haymarket. Rehearsals were chaotic. Burrell, whom Richardson had asked to direct, was not up to the task – possibly, Miller speculates, because of nervous exhaustion from the recent traumas at the Old Vic.<ref name=m130>Miller, pp. 130–132</ref> With only a week to go before the first performance, the producer, [[Binkie Beaumont]], asked him to stand down, and Gielgud was recruited in his place.{{#tag:ref|This was the end of Burrell's theatrical career in Britain. He emigrated to the US, where he became an academic, with only occasional directing jobs. His final post was professor of drama at the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign|University of Illinois]].<ref>
[[Alex Jennings|Jennings, Alex]], [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/61046 "Burrell, John Percy (1910–1972)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, retrieved 21 January 2014 {{ODNBsub}}</ref>|group= n}} Matters improved astonishingly;<ref name=m130/> the production was a complete success and ran in London for 644 performances.<ref>Gaye, p. 1526</ref>{{#tag:ref|Richardson and Ashcroft left the cast in January 1950, and were replaced for the rest of the run by [[Godfrey Tearle]] and [[Wendy Hiller]].<ref>"The Theatres", ''The Times'', 19 December 1949, p. 7, and 18 August 1950, p. 2</ref>
|group= n}}

After one long run in ''The Heiress'', Richardson appeared in another, [[R. C. Sherriff|R.{{space}}C.{{space}}Sherriff]]'s ''[[Home at Seven (play)|Home at Seven]]'', in 1950. He played an amnesiac bank clerk who fears he may have committed murder. He later recreated the part in a radio broadcast, and in [[Home at Seven (film)|a film version]], which was his sole venture into direction for the screen.<ref>Miller, pp. 142–144</ref> Once he had played himself into a role in a long run, Richardson felt able to work during the daytime in films, and made two others in the early 1950s beside the film of the Sherriff piece: ''[[Outcast of the Islands]]'', directed by Carol Reed, and [[David Lean]]'s ''[[The Sound Barrier]]'', released in 1951 and 1952 respectively.<ref name=bfi/> For the latter he won the [[BAFTA Award for Best Actor]]. With his characteristic liking for switching between modern roles and the classics, his next stage part was Colonel Vershinin in ''[[Three Sisters (play)|Three Sisters]]'' in 1951. He headed a strong cast, with [[Renée Asherson]], Margaret Leighton and [[Celia Johnson]] as the sisters, but reviewers found the production weakly directed, and some felt that Richardson failed to disguise his positive personality when playing the ineffectual Vershinin.<ref>Miller, p. 147</ref> He did not attempt Chekhov again for more than a quarter of a century.<ref name=roles/>

{{Quote box |bgcolor=#DCD|salign=right| quote =Richardson's playing of Macbeth suggests a fatal disparity between his temperament and the part|source=''The Times'', June 1952<ref>"Stratford Festival", ''The Times'', 11 June 1952, p. 8</ref>|align=left| width=170px}}
In 1952 Richardson appeared at the [[Stratford-upon-Avon]] Festival at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (forerunner of the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]]). His return to Shakespeare for the first time since his Old Vic days was keenly anticipated, but turned out to be a serious disappointment. He had poor reviews for his Prospero in ''The Tempest'', judged too prosaic.<ref>[[Philip Hope-Wallace|Hope-Wallace, Philip]]. "The Tempest at Stratford", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 26 March 1952, p. 5; and "The Tempest", ''The Times'', 26 March 1952, p. 8</ref> In the second production of the festival his Macbeth, directed by Gielgud, was generally considered a failure. He was thought unconvincingly villainous; the influential young critic [[Kenneth Tynan]] professed himself "unmoved to the point of paralysis", though blaming the director more than the star.<ref name=tynan107>Tynan, p. 107</ref> Richardson's third and final role in the Stratford season, [[Volpone]] in [[Ben Jonson]]'s play, received much better, but not ecstatic, notices.<ref>"Stratford Festival", ''The Times'' 16 July 1952, p. 9; and "Jonson on Avon", ''The Observer'', 20 June 1952, p. 6</ref> He did not play at Stratford again.<ref name=roles/>

Back in the West End, Richardson was in another Sherriff play, ''[[The White Carnation]]'', in 1953, and in November of the same year he and Gielgud starred together in [[N. C. Hunter|N.{{space}}C.{{space}}Hunter]]'s ''[[A Day by the Sea]]'', which ran at the Haymarket for 386 performances.<ref>Gaye, p. 1530</ref> During this period, Richardson played [[Dr. Watson|Dr Watson]] in an American/BBC radio co-production of [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories, with Gielgud as Holmes and [[Orson Welles]] as the evil Professor Moriarty. These recordings were later released commercially on disc.<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/title/sherlock-holmes-a-baker-street-dozen/oclc/70044735&referer=brief_results "Sherlock Holmes – A Baker Street Dozen"], WorldCat, retrieved 22 January 2014</ref>

In late 1954 and early 1955 Richardson and his wife toured Australia together with Sybil Thorndike and her husband, [[Lewis Casson]], playing [[Terence Rattigan]]'s plays ''[[The Sleeping Prince (play)|The Sleeping Prince]]'' and ''[[Separate Tables]]''.<ref>"Sir Ralph Richardson's Australian Tour", ''The Times'', 10 November 1954, p. 4</ref> The following year he worked with Olivier again, playing Buckingham to Olivier's Richard in the [[Richard III (1955 film)|1955 film]] of ''Richard III''.<ref name=roles/> Olivier, who directed, was exasperated at his old friend's insistence on playing the role sympathetically.<ref>Miller, p.&nbsp;163</ref>

Richardson turned down the role of Estragon in Peter Hall's premiere of the English language version of [[Samuel Beckett]]'s ''[[Waiting for Godot]]'' in 1955, and later reproached himself for missing the chance to be in "the greatest play of my generation".<ref>Callow, Simon. [https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/jul/25/theatre.beckettat1001 "Godot almighty"], ''The Guardian'', 25 July 2005</ref> He had consulted Gielgud, who dismissed the piece as rubbish, and even after discussing the play with the author, Richardson could not understand the play or the character.<ref>Miller, pp. 162–163</ref> Richardson's ''[[Timon of Athens]]'' in his 1956 return to the Old Vic was well received,<ref>''The Manchester Guardian'', 6 September 1956, p. 5; and ''The Times'', 6 September 1956, p. 5</ref> as was his Broadway appearance in ''[[The Waltz of the Toreadors]]'' for which he was nominated for a [[Tony Award]] in 1957.<ref>[https://www.tonyawards.com/nominees/?q=Ralph%20Richardson "Ralph Richardson"], Tony Awards, retrieved 1 June 2019</ref> He concluded the 1950s with two contrasting West End successes, [[Robert Bolt]]'s ''Flowering Cherry'', and [[Graham Greene]]'s ''The Complaisant Lover''. The former, a sad piece about a failed and deluded insurance manager, ran for 435 performances in 1957–58;<ref>Gaye, p. 1531</ref> Richardson co-starred with three leading ladies in succession: Celia Johnson, Wendy Hiller and his wife.<ref>"Theatres", ''The Times'', 16 November 1957, p. 2, 20 June 1958, p. 2, and 1 November 1958, p. 2</ref> Greene's comedy was a surprise hit, running for 402 performances from June 1959. Throughout rehearsals the cast treated the love-triangle theme as one of despair, and were astonished to find themselves playing to continual laughter.<ref>Miller, p. 173</ref> During the run, Richardson worked by day on another Greene work, the film ''[[Our Man in Havana (film)|Our Man in Havana]]''. Alec Guinness, who played the main role, noted "the object-lesson in upstaging in the last scene between Richardson and [[Noël Coward]]", faithfully captured by the director, Carol Reed.<ref>Miller, p. 179</ref>