On the evening of 20 October 1953, Gielgud, usually highly discreet about casual sex, was arrested in Chelsea for cruising in a public lavatory. Until the 1960s sexual activity of any kind between men was illegal in Britain. The Home Secretary of the day, David Maxwell Fyfe, was fervently homophobic, urging the police to arrest anyone who contravened the Victorian laws against homosexuality. Gielgud was fined; when the press reported the story, he thought his disgrace would end his career. When the news broke he was in Liverpool on the pre-London tour of a new play, "A Day by the Sea". According to the biographer Richard Huggett, Gielgud was so paralysed by nerves that the prospect of going onstage as usual seemed impossible, but his fellow players, led by Sybil Thorndike, encouraged him: