ABSTRACT
Speaight (1904–76), actor and writer, appeared as Becket in the first production of ‘Murder in the Cathedral’. In his autobiography, ‘The Property Basket’ (1970), he shows how important Eliot was for him in the 1920s: ‘[Eliot’s] broad acceptance of orthodoxy had shown that it was more than a refuge and a “rock of ages” – for it was from this rock that the life-giving waters would flow.’ It is clear that Speaight’s conversion to Roman Catholicism (he was received in 1930 by Father D’Arcy) was heavily influenced by Eliot’s thought and example.
