[27] In June 1931 Burgess designed the stage sets for a student production of Bernard Shaw's play Captain Brassbound's Conversion, with Michael Redgrave in the leading role. In 1960 and 1961 he was treated in hospital for arteriosclerosis and ulcers, on the latter occasion being close to death. Guy Burgess was his usual slovenly mess as he staggered into the Foreign Office in London after another night out on the booze. [4] Later generations created a military tradition; Guy Burgess's grandfather, Henry Miles Burgess, was an officer in the Royal Artillery whose main service was in the Middle East. An actress, Coral Browne, visits Moscow in 1958 as part of a Shakespearean troupe and meets a mysterious Englishman who turns out to be former spy Guy Burgess now an alcoholic and living under extremely shabby conditions all but forgotten not only by his own country but also by the Russians to whom he sold secrets before defecting. [71], Late in 1935 Burgess accepted a temporary post as personal assistant to John Macnamara, the recently elected Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelmsford. After leaving Cambridge, Burgess worked for the BBC as a producer, briefly interrupted by a short period as a full-time MI6 intelligence officer, before joining the Foreign Office in 1944. https://historyofspies.com/donald-maclean-and-guy-burgess-escape [26] After a term, he was elected to the Trinity Historical Society whose membership was formed from the brightest of Trinity College undergraduates and postgraduates. During his examinations he fell ill and was unable to complete his papers; this may have been the consequence of belated cramming, or of taking amphetamines. Burgess had no interest in the available alternatives – the engineering or paymaster branches – and in July 1927 he left Dartmouth and returned to Eton. [85][86][87] According to the account provided in Tom Driberg's biography, the conversation ranged over a series of issues, with Burgess urging the statesman to "offer his eloquence" to help resolve the current crisis. [127], As a press officer in the Foreign Office News Department, Burgess's role involved explaining government policy to foreign editors and diplomatic correspondents. [186] There were numerous false sightings in the months that followed. [210] When the British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, visited Moscow in 1959, Burgess offered his expertise to the visiting party (he had once spent an evening with Macmillan at the Reform Club). Although aware on legal advice that a successful prosecution against Burgess would be problematic, the Foreign Office issued statements implying he would face instant arrest in Britain. He was cremated five days later; Nigel Burgess represented the family, and Maclean delivered a eulogy describing his co-defector as "a gifted and courageous man who devoted his life to the cause of a better world". [218] Burgess's ashes were returned to England, and on 5 October 1963 were interred in the family plot at St John the Evangelist Churchyard in West Meon. It can be good escapism to sample life at the top in mid-century, with Guy Burgess as the most shameless enjoyer of the fleshpots, while claiming to be a good, plain Marxist man of the people. I'm surprised there are no other comments about this TV movie even though it was made 30 years ago. Some press reports speculated that Burgess and Maclean were being held in Moscow's Lubyanka prison. [232] Noel Annan, in his account of British intellectual life between the world wars, states that Burgess "was a true Stalinist who hated liberals more than imperialists" and "simply believed that Britain's future lay with Russia not America". No transcript of Henri's talk survives, but listeners remembered it as pure Soviet propaganda. [5] In 1907 he married Evelyn Gillman, the daughter of a wealthy Portsmouth banker. With interviews with key people who knew Burgess. Another influence was a fellow student, David Guest, a leading light in the Cambridge University Socialist Society (CUSS), within which he formed the university's first active communist cell. [222] According to Holzman, "Burgess and Maclean ensured that hardly anything done by the British Foreign Office was not known to the Soviet foreign intelligence services". (27) 1 h 25 min 1985 13+. Whether you're ready for the return of your favorite show or need to catch up, May is packed with an array of returning series. [156], Increasingly, Burgess was dissatisfied with his job. An early (1954) novel, The Troubled Midnight by Rodney Garland, was followed by, among others, Nicholas Monsarrat's Smith and Jones (1963), and Michael Dobbs's Winston's War (2003),[244] which builds on the pre-war meeting between Burgess and Churchill. He had abandoned his research after discovering that the same ground was covered in a new book by Basil Willey. Use the HTML below. [83], Among those Burgess invited to broadcast were Blunt, several times, the well-connected writer-politician Harold Nicolson (a fruitful source of high-level gossip), the poet John Betjeman, and Kim Philby's father, the Arabist and explorer St John Philby. [112] Burgess sought to maintain a political balance; his fellow Etonian Quintin Hogg, a future Conservative Lord Chancellor, was a regular broadcaster,[113] as, from the opposite social and political spectrum, was Hector McNeil, a former journalist who became a Labour MP in 1941 and served as a parliamentary private secretary in the Churchill war ministry. Need some help finding the best things to watch on Netflix? He brought with him papers indicating that Burgess and Maclean had been Soviet agents since their Cambridge days, that the MGB had masterminded their escape,[190] and that they were alive and well in the Soviet Union. When Burgess showed the finished work to party guests, Libby burst into tears. [31] Blunt was a member of the intellectual society known as the "Apostles", to which in 1932 he secured Burgess's election. She stayed a month, mainly in the holiday resort of Sochi. "A bad, unpleasant book about a bad, unpleasant man. Despite the aegrotat, some future commentators maintained that Burgess had graduated with first-class honours; Purvis and Hulbert contend that the Cambridge ring may have involved as many as eleven members. [115] From Easter 1941 he shared a house with Blunt and others at No. [221] He sent quantities of information to Moscow – thousands of documents including policy papers, Cabinet minutes and notes of Imperial General Staff meetings. [12] Despite this traumatic event, Guy's education proceeded as planned, and in January 1925 he began at Dartmouth. Modin considered Burgess the leader of the Cambridge spies: "He held the group together, infused it with his energy and led it into battle". [177][178] Aware that his own position was now precarious, Philby recovered various spying paraphernalia from Burgess's former Washington quarters, and buried them in a nearby wood. [173] Burgess also hired a saloon car, and that evening drove to Maclean's house at Tatsfield in Surrey, where he introduced himself to Maclean's wife Melinda as "Roger Styles". About this list: Films featuring the infamous Cambridge Spy Ring (Burgess, Philby, Maclean and Blunt) either as biographical figures or characters inspired by them. [189], In April 1954 a senior MGB officer, Vladmir Petrov, defected in Australia. Here he encountered Harold (“Kim”) Philby and also Jim Lees, a former miner studying under a trade union scholarship, whose working-class perspective Burgess found stimulating. Burgess was also responsible for revealing to the Soviets the existence of the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret wing of the Foreign Office which dealt with Cold War and pro-colonial propaganda, though Burgess was quickly fired from the IRD after being accused of coming into work drunk. [169] Burgess had previously promised Philby that he would not go with Maclean, since a double defection would put Philby's own position in serious jeopardy. [48][47][49], When not occupied in Cambridge, Burgess made frequent visits to Oxford, to confer with kindred spirits there; according to an Oxford student's later reminiscences, at that time "it was impossible to be in the intellectual swim ... without coming across Guy Burgess". This FAQ is empty. [204], In July 1956 the Soviet authorities allowed Burgess's mother to visit her son. Kuybyshev has been known as Samara until 1935, and reverted to that name in 1991. [153] His frequent behavioural lapses did not prevent his being chosen to act as escort to Anthony Eden, when the future British prime minister visited Washington in November 1950. Redgrave came with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company in February 1959; this visit led to Burgess's meeting with the actress Coral Browne, a friendship later the subject of Alan Bennett's play An Englishman Abroad. This is a poorly done, highly inaccurate movie about Anthony Blunt, one of the infamous Cambridge 5 spies for the Soviet Union. Outraged, Bill Harvey took a wild swing at Burgess, missed, and then … At the Foreign Office, Burgess acted as a confidential secretary to Hector McNeil, the deputy to Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary. [236], Of the other Cambridge spies, Maclean and Philby lived out their lives in Moscow, dying in 1983 and 1988 respectively. Author Lownie has put together an incredibly detailed and annotated biography of Guy Burgess, one of the Cambridge spies who gave precious information to the Russians in the '40s and '50s.. Burgess was a strange but gifted man -- one of a kind. [94], Section D was established by MI6 in March 1938, as a secret organisation charged with investigating how enemies might be attacked other than through military operations. [151][n 10] Burgess soon reverted to his erratic and intemperate habits, causing regular embarrassment in British diplomatic circles. [99], After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Burgess, with Philby who had been brought into Section D on his recommendation,[100] ran a training course for would-be saboteurs, at Brickendonbury Manor in Hertfordshire. Stewart Purvis and Jeff Hulbert, who obtained the first recording of He led a wild life and became infamous for his reckless and passionate behavior. Another Country is a 1984 British romantic historical drama written by Julian Mitchell, adapted from his play of the same name. Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie – review Burgess – charming and often drunk – was a much more dangerous and effective spy than has been assumed. [205] During August the journalist and Labour Party politician Tom Driberg flew to Moscow to interview Burgess – the two had first met through The Week in Westminster. Another Country Theatrical release poster Directed byMarek Kanievska Produced byAlan Marshall Robert Fox Written byJulian Mitchell Based onAnother Country by Julian Mitchell … Hewit, a would-be dancer seeking work in London's musical theatres, would be Burgess's friend, manservant and intermittent lover for the next fourteen years,[76] generally sharing Burgess's various London homes: Chester Square from 1936 to 1941, Bentinck Street from 1941 to 1947, and New Bond Street from 1947 until 1951. He did well there; his grades were consistently good and he played for the school's association football team. [16] He was marked by the college authorities as "excellent officer material",[17] but an eye test in 1927 exposed a deficiency that precluded a career in the navy's executive branch. In 1950 he was appointed second secretary to the British Embassy in Washington, a post from which he was sent home after repeated misbehaviour. [45][46] Alongside Burgess was Donald Maclean, a languages student from Trinity Hall and an active CUSS member. [28][29] Redgrave considered Burgess "one of the bright stars of the university scene, with a reputation for being able to turn to anything". [165][166] On 11 May he was summoned to the Foreign Office to answer for his misconduct in Washington and, according to Boyle, was dismissed. Add the first question. An Englishman Abroad (John Schlesinger, 1983) 9/10. [91], At the BBC, Burgess thought his choices of speaker were being undermined by the BBC's subservience to the government – he attributed Churchill's non-appearance to this – and in November 1938, after another of his speakers was withdrawn at the request of the prime minister's office, he resigned. A book review in The Guardian included this conclusion: "[leaving] us all the more astonished that such a smelly, scruffy, lying, gabby, promiscuous, drunken slob could penetrate the heart of the establishment without anyone apparently noticing that he was also a Soviet masterspy. [158][n 11] Meanwhile, the U.S. Army's Venona counterintelligence project, investigating the identity of a Soviet spy codenamed "Homer" who had been active in Washington a few years earlier, had unearthed strong evidence that pointed to Donald Maclean. [61] Burgess then persuaded Blunt that he could best fight fascism by working for the Soviets. A list of 23 films compiled on Letterboxd, including Cambridge Spies (2003), Philby, Burgess and Maclean (1977), An Englishman Abroad (1983), A Question of Attribution (1991) and Blunt (1987). He was well provided for materially, but as a result of his lifestyle his health deteriorated, and he died in 1963. In the event, Burgess chose not to put the issue to the test. [165][168], Burgess's diplomatic career was over, although he was not at this stage under any suspicion of treachery. This post gave Burgess access to secret information on all aspects of Britain's foreign policy during the critical post-1945 period, and it is estimated that he passed thousands of documents to his Soviet controllers. [160] Burgess was thus given the task, on reaching London, of organising Maclean's defection to the Soviet Union. [142], In February 1949, a fracas at a West End Club – possibly the RAC – resulted in a fall downstairs that left Burgess with severe head injuries, following which he was hospitalised for several weeks. Guy Burgess, Self: Toffs, Queers and Traitors: The Extraordinary Life of Guy Burgess. [183] A cautious Foreign Office statement then confirmed that Maclean and Burgess were missing and were being treated as absent without leave. Philby notified Burgess who, on Friday 25 May, bought two tickets for a weekend channel cruise on the steamship Falaise. On his return, Burgess had little to report, beyond commenting on the "appalling" housing conditions while praising the country's lack of unemployment. [40][n 4], Despite his disappointing degree result, Burgess returned to Cambridge in October 1933 as a postgraduate student and teaching assistant. [38], Amid these political distractions, in 1932 Burgess obtained first-class honours in Part I of the history Tripos, and was expected to graduate with similar honours in Part II the following year. It amazed me, much later in life, to learn that he had been irresistibly attractive to most people he met". Since Burgess never went away without telling his mother, his absence caused some anxiety in his circle. [215] He and Burgess kept apart, though they may have met briefly, when the latter was on his deathbed in August 1963. [60] Burgess was given the codename "Mädchen", meaning "Girl", later changed to "Hicks". [233] Burgess insisted there was no viable case against him in England (a view secretly shared by the British authorities),[211] but would not visit there, since he might be prevented from returning to Moscow where he wished to live "because I am a socialist and this is a socialist country". Released papers by the Foreign Intelligence Services of the Russian Federation record that "of particular value was the information [he] obtained about the positions of Western countries on the postwar settlement in Europe, Britain's military strategy, NATO [and] the activities of British and American intelligence agencies". [153][154][155] Despite this, he was given work of top secret sensitivity. [66] He sought a teaching job at Eton, but was rejected when a request for information from his former Cambridge tutor received the reply: "I would very much prefer not to answer your letter". Guy Burgess is an actor, known for Looking for Langston (1989), Holby City (1999) and Doctors (2000). His youngest son, Malcolm Kingsford de Moncy Burgess, was born in Aden in 1881,[4] the third forename being a nod to his Huguenot ancestry. He later defected to Russia. [192] He also found the Soviets intolerant of homosexuality, although eventually he was allowed to retain a Russian lover, Tolya Chisekov. [119], Burgess's casual work for MI5 and MI6 deflected official suspicion as to his true loyalties,[120] but he lived in constant fear of exposure, particularly as he had revealed the truth to Rees, when trying to recruit the latter in 1937. [198] In Britain, reaction to their reappearance was strongly condemnatory, epitomised in a series of articles in The People, purportedly written by Burgess's former friend Rees. [134] Burgess quickly made himself indispensable to McNeil,[135] and in one six-month period transmitted to Moscow the contents of 693 files, a total of over 2,000 photographed pages, for which he received a further cash reward of £200. Cambridge Spies, 2003 BBC drama with Toby Stephens as Kim Philby, Tom Hollander as Guy Burgess, Rupert Penry-Jones as Donald Maclean, Samuel West as … [206] On his return, Driberg wrote a book in which Burgess was portrayed relatively sympathetically. [179] Summoned to London in June 1951, he was interrogated for several days by MI6. Guy Burgess 4 episodes, 2003 Toby Stephens ... Kim Philby 4 episodes, 2003 Rupert Penry-Jones ... Donald Maclean 4 episodes, 2003 Samuel West ... Anthony Blunt 4 … [74] These stories, according to the historian Michael Holzman, may have been invented or exaggerated to draw attention away from Burgess's true motives. [5] Malcolm had a generally unremarkable career in the Royal Navy,[6] eventually reaching the rank of Commander. [145] Later in 1949 a holiday in Gibraltar and North Africa became a catalogue of drunkenness, promiscuous sex, and arguments with diplomatic and MI6 staff, exacerbated by the frankly homophobic attitudes towards Burgess by some local officials. The story, considerably expanded and updated, appeared in the mini-series "Cambridge Spies" in 2003, but this version was a powerful piece of television with plenty of drama and fine performances from Derek Jacobi as the flamboyant Guy Burgess, Anthony Bate as the close-mouthed … In 1969, Browne appeared in the original production of Joe Orton's controversial farce What the Butler Saw in the West End at the Qu… Some assumed that the content had been vetted by the KGB as a propaganda exercise; others thought its purpose was to trap Burgess into revealing information that could lead to his prosecution, should he ever return to Britain. [173], On Saturday 26 May, Hewit informed a friend that Burgess had not come home the previous night. 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