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"When you're my age, you just never risk being ill - because then everyone says, 'Oh, he's done for.'" - Sir John Gielgud at 84

Sir John Gielgud, the last of a trio of actor-knights (alongside Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson -- all three sirs!) who dominated the 20th-century British stage, died Sunday at his home west of London. The actor was acclaimed as the finest Hamlet of his generation. As some are saying Ethan Hawke is the finest Hamlet of this generation. He was also known to movie fans for his Academy-Award winning role as the butler in "Arthur." Not Ethan Hawke, but rather, John Gielgud.

In 1930, he acted the first of his many Hamlets, a part he played more than 500 times. Gielgud's matchless range of Shakespearean roles stretched from the octogenarian Lear, performed at the age of 27, to Prospero in his own old age.

Late in life, he took up screen comedy as the quintessential English butler Hobson opposite Dudley Moore in "Arthur," and won an Academy Award for it.

He touched audiences with his tender patience toward his drunken playboy employer -- and with the impishness for which he also was known off screen.

"It brought me fan mail from all over the world. It still does, which is extraordinary, really," said Gielgud, who almost passed up the role.

"I turned it down a couple of times. ... I thought (the script) was rather smutty, rather common," he said.

Gielgud was born April 14, 1904, in London.

In 1991, he played Prospero in the Peter Greenaway movie, "Prospero's Books," calling it, "the best part I've had, ever." Apparently Greenaway got the knight to do his first nude scene (from behind), but sadly, this scene did not appear in the final cut. But hopefully, out there, somewhere is the 80 some odd year old man on a bit of celluloid showing what his ass has come to after all these years.

Gielgud never ceased to take his craft seriously, even when age left him with occasional memory problems.

"I've been able to take no notice of the flattery and praise and concentrate on the things that were wrong," he said. "I'm frightened, now that I'm old, that people will be so respectful."

Gielgud made his Broadway debut in 1928 and returned to the New York stage regularly throughout his life. He acted Hamlet there in 1936, and triumphed with his solo recital, "The Ages of Man," in 1958 and again in 1963. His last New York appearance was in "No Man's Land" in 1977. Gielgud's directing credits started with Shakespeare ("The Merchant of Venice" and "Romeo and Juliet" in 1932) and went on to include Tennessee Williams ("The Glass Menagerie" in 1948) and Edward Albee ("All Over" on Broadway in 1971). He won the best director Tony Award for Hugh Wheeler's "Big Fish Little Fish" in 1961. Gielgud also directed opera in Britain.

Gielgud spoke frankly about the ways in which he and pal Lord Larry Olivier differed: "He was very much more extrovert. He had a tremendous actual physical side of acting, which I'm not good at at all."

Gielgud lived most of his life in London. He moved in 1976 to an elegant 1690s carriage house west of London, where he enjoyed gardening and catching up on his reading between roles.

"One's had the odd horror and mishap, but on the whole I have very, very much to be thankful for," he said when he was 87. "And that I can still go on working at this age is extraordinary really; the only sadness is so many of my contemporaries are gone. Most of the actors that I knew well and worked with have died."

He leaves no immediate survivors. Just these:

With Cate Blanchett: Elizabeth (1998) .... Pope Paul IV
For Kenny B: Hamlet (1996) .... Priam
The Portrait of a Lady (1996) .... Mr. Touchett
The beloved movie about the retarded piano player: Shine (1996) .... Cecil Parkes
Looking for Richard (1996) .... Himself
First Knight (1995) .... Oswald
Shining Through (1992) .... Konrad Friedrichs/Sunflower
The Power of One (1992) .... St. John
Naked Shakespeare: Prospero's Books (1991) .... Prospero
Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988) .... Dead Hobson
The Whistle Blower (1986) .... Sir Adrian Chapple
Plenty (1985) .... Sir Leonard Darwin
Time After Time (1985) .... Jasper Swift
Scandalous (1984) .... Uncle Willie
The Shooting Party (1984) .... Cornelius Cardew
Dull Best Picture: Gandhi (1982) .... Lord Irwin
Arthur (1981) .... Hobson
Sphinx (1981) .... Abdu Hamdi
Dull Best Picture: Chariots of Fire (1981) (as Sir John Gielgud) .... Master of Trinity College
Bob Guccione's trashy, soft-porn Caligula (1980) .... Nerva
Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980) .... Carr Gomm
The Formula (1980) .... Dr. Esau
Murder by Decree (1979) .... Lord Salisbury
Resnais' Providence (1977) .... Clive Langham
Murder on the Orient Express (1974) .... Beddoes
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) .... Count Leopold Von Berchtold
Welles' Chimes at Midnight (1965) .... Henry IV
Cult classic with Jonathan Winters and James Coburn: The Loved One (1965) .... Sir Francis Hinsley
Hamlet (1964) (voice) .... Ghost
Becket (1964) .... King Louis VII
For Preminger, co-starring troubled goddess Jean Seberg: Saint Joan (1957) .... Warwick
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957) .... Edward Moulton-Barrett
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) .... Foster
Romeo and Juliet (1954) .... Chorus
Richard III (1954) .... George, Duke of Clarence
With James Mason and Marlon Brando: Julius Caesar (1953) .... Cassius
Hamlet (1948) (uncredited) .... Voice of the Ghost
For Hitchcock: Secret Agent (1936) .... Edgar Brodie/Richard Ashenden
Debut: Who Is the Man? (1924) .... Daniel