Author delivers first complete bio of George C. Scott

Despite never attending a single acting class in his life and actually majoring in journalism, George C. Scott created a host of unforgettable characters, won an Oscar and often battled with directors and executives over issues of artistic integrity and quality.

Back Stage executive editor and theater critic David Sheward’s comprehensive new volume Rage and Glory — the Volatile Life And Career of George C. Scott (Applause) is the first complete biography that fully examines every aspect of his life and career.

“The main thing about George C. Scott is that he was fiercely independent,” Sheward said. “He didn’t believe in movements, and insisted instead on championing the rights of the individual. For example he wrote an article for Esquire magazine where he supported the war in Vietnam, yet later he campaigned for Sen. Eugene McCarthy. He visited the troops often and was once quoted as saying he would have really fought the war differently, being very aggressive toward North Vietnam. So you couldn’t pigeonhole him politically, and that independent quality extended into his acting.”

Though he had many acclaimed film roles, Sheward maintains Scott was first and foremost a theatrical performer.

“Even after he achieved enormous success and stardom in films, he always went back to the stage,” Sheward said. “I remember seeing him in a Noel Coward comedy and marveling that he could be so funny. A major regret I have as a fan of the stage is that he didn’t do more Shakespeare.”

Sheward considers Scott’s performances in The Hustler, Dr. Strangelove, Patton and The Hospital as his finest film work.

“He had such intensity in The Hustler. He made you believe in the character. Scott got angry at (director Stanley) Kubrick when he was doing Dr. Strangelove, because he had him doing such a farcical, over-the-top performance. But it really worked.

“Patton of course was brilliant, and in The Hospital, he displayed such rage and anger over an administrator who was impotent and unable to do what he was supposed to do, help the sick.”

Scott wasn’t quite as fortunate with his television roles, though he appeared in numerous episodic, mini-series and small screen films. Perhaps his most controversial role came in the mid-1960s series East Side/West Side.

“He was constantly battling over issues with that show,” Sheward recalled. “The executives were always telling him you couldn’t do this and that on television, and here was a show in the early ‘60s that had a scene of a black man dancing with a white woman. It had Cicely Tyson as a regular and she was the first black actor or actress with a regular role in a dramatic show, and there were Southern television stations that wouldn’t air the program. It was a show far ahead of its time.”

Sheward’s book details Scott’s complicated personal life that included five marriages (two to Colleen Dewhurst) and six children. The author talked with many of Scott’s colleagues and friends, but only his oldest daughter, Victoria, consented to do an interview.

“Alex, one of two children he had with Colleen Dewhurst, said he’d consent if all the other siblings were on board,” Sheward said. “But I think ultimately Alex and Campbell, who’d grown up with him as their father and saw him leave their mother twice, just wanted to keep their feelings private. Victoria didn’t even really know or meet him until she was in college, because he divorced her mother when she was very young, so her views on him could be more objective.

“[Scott] could be irascible and difficult, he was capable of violence, yet George C. Scott could also be very kind and generous,” the author concluded. “All the things you’ve heard about him were true at some point. He was a very complicated, talented and unpredictable person, but he was unquestionably one of the greatest American actors of the 20th century.”