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Try as they might, however, some actors will forever be linked to one career-defining role.

None more than Sir Alec Guinness, whose legendary triumphs on stage and screen were completely overshadowed by his involvement in Star Wars.

"I shrivel up every time someone mentions it," he once said.

Indeed, on one occasion he brought a small boy to tears by requesting he never see Star Wars again.

In an interview published a year before his death, the actor revealed how he had persuaded director George Lucas to kill off Obi-Wan Kenobi by saying his character would be more effective as a ghost.

"What I didn't tell him was I just couldn't go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines. I'd had enough of the mumbo jumbo."