As one of my best friends said wisely, he was one of the most beautiful voices in movie history. Irish bred, London schooled, Shakespearian trained. He was the man with delicate features and mesmeric blue eyes that turned Lean’s T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, shooting him into the land of stardom. Praised and worshipped by many yet never to retrieve that ultimate statue apart from the Honorary One as a veneer over the awkward reminder of eight nominations.

Although that did seem to bother his admirers more than himself, there was always a presence of affliction in his characters, of sexual capriciousness that would never rise to the surface but just bubble underneath, something his personas would never fully disclose.