Editing Ralph Richardson (section)

===1960s===
{{Hatnote|Details of Richardson's work, 1960–69: [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrS60|Stage]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrR60|Radio]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrF60|Film]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrTV60|Television]], [[List of roles and awards of Ralph Richardson#rrA60|Accolades]]}}
[[File:Richardson in Long Day's Journey.jpg|thumb|alt=man in late middle age, balding, clean-shaven, looking thoughtful|upright|left|Richardson in ''[[Long Day's Journey into Night (1962 film)|Long Day's Journey into Night]]'' (1962)]]
Richardson began the 1960s with a failure. [[Enid Bagnold]]'s play ''The Last Joke'' was savaged by the critics ("a meaningless jumble of pretentious whimsy" was one description).<ref>Lewis, Frank in ''The Sunday Dispatch'', quoted in Miller, p. 180</ref> His only reason for playing in the piece was the chance of acting with Gielgud, but both men quickly regretted their involvement.<ref>O'Connor, pp. 188–189</ref> Richardson then went to the US to appear in [[Sidney Lumet]]'s [[Long Day's Journey into Night (1962 film)|film adaptation]] of ''[[Long Day's Journey into Night]]'', alongside [[Katharine Hepburn]].<ref name=roles/> Lumet later recalled how little guidance Richardson needed. Once, the director went into lengthy detail about the playing of a scene, and when he had finished, Richardson said, "Ah, I think I know what you want – a little more flute and a little less cello". After that, Lumet was sparing with suggestions.<ref>Miller, p. 181</ref> Richardson was jointly awarded the [[Cannes Film Festival]]'s [[Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)|Best Actor]] prize with his co-stars [[Jason Robards|Jason Robards Jr]] and [[Dean Stockwell]].<ref>"Cannes Top Prize Goes to Brazil – Award to Britons", ''The Guardian'', 24 May 1962, p. 1</ref>

Richardson's next stage role was in a starry revival of ''The School for Scandal'', as Sir Peter Teazle, directed by Gielgud in 1962. The production was taken on a North American tour, in which Gielgud joined the cast as, he said, "the oldest Joseph Surface in the business".<ref>Miller, p. 185</ref> A revival of ''[[Six Characters in Search of an Author]]'' in 1963 was judged by the critic [[Sheridan Morley]] to have been a high-point of the actor's work in the 1960s.<ref name=dnb/> Richardson joined a [[British Council]] tour of South Africa and Europe the following year; he played Bottom again, and [[Shylock]] in ''The Merchant of Venice''.<ref name=roles/>

[[File:The School for Scandal 1963.jpg|thumb|upright|[[John Gielgud]] (left) as Joseph Surface, and Richardson as Sir Peter Teazle, ''[[The School for Scandal]]'', 1962]]
For his next four stage productions, Richardson was at the Haymarket. ''Father Carving a Statue'' (1964) by Graham Greene was short-lived. He had a more reliable vehicle in Shaw's ''[[You Never Can Tell (play)|You Never Can Tell]]'' (1966) in which he played the philosopher-waiter William, and in the same year he had a great success as Sir Anthony Absolute in ''[[The Rivals]]''. The critic [[David Benedictus]] wrote of Richardson's performance, "he is choleric and gouty certainly, the script demands that he shall be, but his most engaging quality, his love for his son in spite of himself, shines through every line."<ref name=m330>Morley, p. 330</ref> In 1967 he again played Shylock; this was the last time he acted in a Shakespeare play on stage.<ref name=roles/> His performance won critical praise, but the rest of the cast were less well received.<ref>Miller, p. 214</ref>

Interspersed with his stage plays, Richardson made thirteen cinema films during the decade. On screen he played historical figures including [[Edward Carson|Sir Edward Carson]] (''[[Oscar Wilde (film)|Oscar Wilde]]'', 1960), [[William Ewart Gladstone|W.{{space}}E.{{space}}Gladstone]] (''[[Khartoum (film)|Khartoum]]'', 1966) and [[Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon|Sir Edward Grey]] (''[[Oh! What a Lovely War]]'', 1969). He was scrupulous about historical accuracy in his portrayals, and researched eras and characters in great detail before filming. Occasionally his precision was greater than directors wished, as when, in ''Khartoum'', he insisted on wearing a small black finger-stall because the real Gladstone had worn one following an injury.<ref>Miller, p. 200</ref> After a role playing a disabled tycoon and [[Sean Connery]]'s uncle in ''[[Woman of Straw]]'', in 1965 he played Alexander Gromeko in Lean's ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]'', an exceptionally successful film at the box office, which, together with ''[[The Wrong Box]]'' and ''Khartoum'', earned him a BAFTA nomination for best leading actor in 1966.<ref name=ww/> Other film roles from this period included Lord Fortnum (''[[The Bed Sitting Room (film)|The Bed Sitting Room]]'', 1969) and Leclerc (''[[The Looking Glass War (film)|The Looking Glass War]]'', 1970).<ref name=roles/> The casts of ''Oh! What a Lovely War'' and ''Khartoum'' included Olivier, but he and Richardson did not appear in the same scenes, and never met during the filming.<ref>"The return of General Gordon", ''The Observer'', 8 May 1966, p. 26</ref> Olivier was by now running the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]], temporarily based at the Old Vic, but showed little desire to recruit his former colleague for any of the company's productions.{{#tag:ref|Accounts vary about how hard Olivier tried to get Richardson to join the National company. Olivier's successor, Peter Hall, believed that the reluctance was more on Richardson's side than Olivier's, and that Olivier was upset when Hall succeeded where he had failed in recruiting Richardson. John Miller comments that the roles Olivier had offered did not appeal to Richardson, so that the invitations were hardly more than token gestures.<ref>Miller, p. 258</ref>|group= n}}

In 1964 Richardson was the voice of [[Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig|General Haig]] in the twenty-six-part BBC documentary series ''[[The Great War (documentary)|The Great War]]''.<ref>Hughes-Wilson, John. "How The Great War was lost – and found", ''The Times'', 9 November 2001, p. 5</ref> In 1967 he played [[Lord Emsworth]] on BBC television in dramatisations of [[P. G. Wodehouse|P{{space}}G{{space}}Wodehouse]]'s Blandings Castle stories, with his wife playing Emsworth's bossy sister Constance, and [[Stanley Holloway]] as the butler, Beach.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140113130525/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b8bc299df "Blandings Castle – Lord Emsworth and the Crime Wave at Blandings"], British Film Institute, retrieved 18 January 2014</ref> He was nervous about acting in a television series: "I'm sixty-four and that's a bit old to be taking on a new medium."<ref name="Quoted in Miller, p. 212">''Quoted'' in Miller, p. 212</ref> The performances divided critical opinion. ''The Times'' thought the stars "a sheer delight{{space}}... situation comedy is joy in their hands".<ref>Cooper, R. W. "Wodehouse's Emsworth on TV", ''The Times'', 25 February 1967, p. 7</ref> The reviewers in ''The Guardian'' and ''[[The Observer]]'' thought the three too theatrical to be effective on the small screen.<ref>Reynolds, Stanley. "Television", ''The Guardian'', 25 February 1967, p. 6; and Richardson, Maurice. "Television", ''The Observer'', 26 February 1967, p. 25</ref> For television he recorded studio versions of two plays in which he had appeared on stage: ''Johnson Over Jordan'' (1965) and ''Twelfth Night'' (1968).<ref name=m369>Miller, p. 369</ref>

During the decade, Richardson made numerous sound recordings. For the [[Caedmon Audio]] label he re-created his role as ''Cyrano de Bergerac'' opposite [[Anna Massey]] as Roxane, and played the title role in a complete recording of ''Julius Caesar'', with a cast that included [[Anthony Quayle]] as Brutus, [[John Mills]] as Cassius and [[Alan Bates]] as Antony. Other Caedmon recordings were ''[[Measure for Measure]]'', ''The School for Scandal'' and ''No Man's Land''. Richardson also recorded some English Romantic poetry, including ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]'' and poems by [[John Keats|Keats]] and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] for the label.<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=ralph+richardson+caedmon&qt=results_page "Ralph Richardson, Caedmon"], WorldCat, retrieved 22 January 2014</ref> For [[Decca Records]] Richardson recorded the narration for [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]]'s ''[[Peter and the Wolf]]'', and for [[RCA Records|RCA]] the superscriptions for [[Ralph Vaughan Williams|Vaughan Williams]]'s ''[[Sinfonia antartica]]'' – both with the [[London Symphony Orchestra]], the Prokofiev conducted by [[Malcolm Sargent|Sir Malcolm Sargent]] and the Vaughan Williams by [[André Previn]].<ref>[http://www.worldcat.org/title/peter-and-the-wolf-op-67-symphony-no-1-in-d-major-op-25-classical/oclc/5852139&referer=brief_results "Peter and the Wolf"] and [http://www.worldcat.org/title/sinfonia-antartica-symphony-no-7/oclc/3625793&referer=brief_results "Sinfonia Antartica"], WorldCat, retrieved 21 January 2014</ref>

Richardson's last stage role of the decade was in 1969, as Dr Rance in ''[[What the Butler Saw (play)|What the Butler Saw]]'' by [[Joe Orton]]. It was a conspicuous failure. The public hated the play and made the fact vociferously clear at the first night.<ref>Hope-Wallace, Philip. "What the Butler Saw", ''The Guardian'', 6 March 1969, p. 10</ref>