Young people know him for Star Wars, not for the legendary The Bridge on the River Kwai: Who is Alec Guinness?

When casting Obi-Wan Kenobi for "Star Wars," I was looking for someone who brought a certain authority to the role. "He's strong but elegant, and that came across as Alec."

―George Lucas

In 1973, he played Adolf Hitler in the movie Hitler: The Last Ten Days, which also featured Star Wars actors Julian Glover and Kenneth Colley, and had a major role as Faisal in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. Other notable films he appeared in included Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Doctor Zhivago.

Sir Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe; 2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, Guinness was featured in several of the Ealing comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), in which he played eight different characters, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination, and The Ladykillers (1955). 

Alec Guinness was born on April 2, 1914. During the casting process for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, director George Lucas was looking for an actor who could bring a certain authority to the role and be strong and kind. Lucas found these qualities in Guinness.

Guinness joined the cast because of the film's sense of moral goodness and because the studio doubled his initial salary offer. Lucas wanted Kenobi dead, but Guinness objected to his character's death. Lucas later explained that Kenobi would have little to do after the Millennium Falcon escaped from the Death Star, which convinced Guinness to allow him to die.

He collaborated six times with director David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won both the Academy Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), General Yevgraf Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984). In 1970, he played Jacob Marley's ghost in Ronald Neame's Scrooge. He also portrayed Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy; for the original 1977 film, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 50th Academy Awards.

Guinness was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film. He reprised the role in Star Wars: Episode V: The Return of the Emperor and Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

Guinness died of liver cancer on 5 August 2000 at King Edward VII Hospital in England. When Ewan McGregor portrayed Kenobi in the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, his hair and beard were slightly bleached to bridge the gap between the two actors and approximate Guinness' portrayal.