During a six-decade career, Scofield achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Academy Award, Emmy, and Tony for his work.

Scofield received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for portraying Sir Thomas More in the Broadway production of A Man for All Seasons (1962).

Scofield garnered acclaim for his roles in films such as The Train (1964), King Lear (1971), A Delicate Balance (1973), Henry V (1989), and Hamlet (1990).

He portrayed Mark Van Doren in the historical drama Quiz Show (1994), for which he earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, Scofield arrived for a physical examination and was ruled unfit for service in the British Army.

"[10] Scofield began his stage career in 1940 with a debut performance in American playwright Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms at the Westminster Theatre, and was soon being compared to Laurence Olivier.

From there he went to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, where he starred in Walter Nugent Monck's 1947 revival of Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

[11] In 1948, Scofield appeared as Hamlet at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford alongside a then unknown Claire Bloom as Ophelia.

"[13] John Harrison, Director of the Leeds Playhouse, later recalled of Scofield's Hamlet, "'Get thee to a nunnery,' so often delivered with rage or scorn, he says so gently.

"[14] In her later book, Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir, Claire Bloom recalls that during the production she had a very serious crush on Scofield.

Brook wrote in his memoir, Threads of Time, "The door at the back of the set opened, and a small man entered.

"[16] One of the highlights of Scofield's career in modern theatre is the role of Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, which opened in July 1960.

"[17] Theatre reviewers published very harsh criticism of Scofield's performance at first, which forced him to "start from scratch and just work on facts, making myself totally faithful to what was on the page".

[18] Austrian-American filmmaker Fred Zinnemann later recalled of seeing the play onstage, "It dealt with the sixteenth-century English statesman Thomas More, beheaded on the orders of his King, Henry VIII, for refusing to sanction his marriage to Anne Boleyn.

'"[19] When Fred Zinnemann was first approached about directing the 1966 film adaptation of A Man For All Seasons by Columbia Pictures executive Mike Frankovich in 1965 and enthusiastically agreed, the studio did not wish to cast Scofield as the lead.

Preferring a more internationally bankable cast, the studio desired either Laurence Olivier or Richard Burton as Thomas More, Alec Guinness as Cardinal Wolsey, and Peter O'Toole as King Henry VIII.

[20] Scofield, who was cast after Columbia grudgingly "fell in with Zinnemann's wishes", later recalled, "I was surprised and honoured to be chosen for the film, being almost unknown in the movie world... My own task was unaltered except that I now focused on my thoughts on to a camera instead of an audience.

The film is set in August 1944 during World War II, it pits French Resistance-member Paul Labiche (Lancaster) against German Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Scofield), who is attempting to move stolen art masterpieces by train to Germany.

Expresso Bongo, Staircase and Amadeus were filmed with other actors, but Scofield starred in the screen version of King Lear (1971).

Other major screen roles include the art-obsessed Wehrmacht Colonel von Waldheim in The Train (1964), Strether in a 1977 TV adaptation of Henry James's novel The Ambassadors, and Tobias in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973).

Scofield was cast in the lead role of Sir Randolph Nettleby in the 1985 film The Shooting Party, but was forced to withdraw due to an injury he suffered on set.

As they turned the first corner, the plank that Mossman was standing on broke in two and he was hurled forward and down, falling between the sets of wheels and taking the reins with him.

He looked across to see Edward Fox stand up, "turn completely green and collapse in a heap", having broken five ribs and his shoulder blade.

The Shooting Party schedule was ultimately changed to allow James Mason to take over the part of Sir Randolph Nettleby six weeks later.

[25] Scofield's broken leg also deprived him of the part of O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which he was replaced by Richard Burton.

"[27] Scofield also portrayed the Ghost in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film adaptation of Hamlet alongside Mel Gibson in the title role.

Despite being an A-list actor at the time, Gibson, who had grown up idolising Scofield, compared the experience of performing Shakespeare alongside him to being, "thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson".

[28] Scofield, on the other hand, never felt similarly intimidated and later recalled about working with Gibson, "Not the actor you'd think would make an ideal Hamlet, but he had enormous integrity and intelligence.

[61] When Scofield was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for A Man for All Seasons, he declined to travel to Los Angeles to attend the ceremony.

Paul Scofield led the cast in several dramas issued by Caedmon Records: Also: (For a more exhaustive list, see this note:[70])