Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He wo ...
and
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...
, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the
British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles.
His family had no theatrical connections, but Olivier's father, a clergyman, decided that his son should become an actor. After attending a drama school in London, Olivier learned his craft in a succession of acting jobs during the late 1920s. In 1930 he had his first important
West End success in
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
's ''
Private Lives
''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...
'', and he appeared in his first film. In 1935 he played in a celebrated production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' alongside Gielgud and
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was deter ...
, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and
John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of
the Old Vic
The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, nonprofit organization, not-for-profit producing house, producing theatre in Waterloo, London, Waterloo, London, England. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Th ...
, building it into a highly respected company. There his most celebrated roles included Shakespeare's
Richard III
Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...
and
Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or co ...
's
Oedipus
Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby ...
. In the 1950s Olivier was an independent actor-manager, but his stage career was in the doldrums until he joined the ''avant-garde''
English Stage Company
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...
in 1957 to play the title role in ''
The Entertainer'', a part he later played
on film
On, on, or ON may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
* On (band), a solo project of Ken Andrews
* On (EP), ''On'' (EP), a 1993 EP by Aphex Twin
* On (Echobelly album), ''On'' (Echobelly album), 1995
* On (Gary Glitter album), ''On'' (Gary Glit ...
. From 1963 to 1973 he was the founding director of Britain's
National Theatre, running a resident company that fostered many future stars. His own parts there included the title role in ''
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
'' (1965) and
Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c. 1600). A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal antagonist. His defeat and conversion to Christianity form the climax of the ...
in ''
The Merchant of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.
Although classified as ...
'' (1970).
Among Olivier's films are ''
Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'' (1939), ''
Rebecca
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
'' (1940), and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor/director: ''
Henry V Henry V may refer to:
People
* Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026)
* Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125)
* Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161)
* Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227)
* Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...
'' (1944), ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' (1948), and ''
Richard III
Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...
'' (1955). His later films included ''
Spartacus
Spartacus ( el, Σπάρτακος '; la, Spartacus; c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising ...
'' (1960), ''
The Shoes of the Fisherman The Shoes of the Fisherman may refer to:
* ''The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (novel), a 1963 novel by the writer Morris West
* ''The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (film), a 1968 film based on the novel
{{disambiguation ...
'' (1968), ''
Sleuth
Sleuth may refer to:
* Detective
*Sleuth, collective noun for a group of bears
Computing
* The Sleuth Kit, a collection of forensic analysis software
*SLEUTH assembler language for the UNIVAC 1107
Entertainment and media
*Cloo
Cloo (stylized ...
'' (1972), ''
Marathon Man'' (1976), and ''
The Boys from Brazil'' (1978). His television appearances included an adaptation of ''
The Moon and Sixpence
''The Moon and Sixpence'' is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, first published on 15 April 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator providing a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Stric ...
'' (1960), ''
Long Day's Journey into Night'' (1973), ''
Love Among the Ruins Love Among the Ruins may refer to:
Literature
* "Love Among the Ruins" (poem), a poem by Robert Browning
* ''Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future'', a novel by Evelyn Waugh
* ''Love Among the Ruins'', a novel by Warwick Deeping
* ''L ...
'' (1975), ''
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. An adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", the play was written by him between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his p ...
'' (1976), ''
Brideshead Revisited
''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles ...
'' (1981) and ''
King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...
'' (1983).
Olivier's honours included a
knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
(1947), a
life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...
age (1970), and the
Order of Merit
The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by K ...
(1981). For his on-screen work he received four
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
, two
British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cere ...
, five
Emmy Awards
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
, and three
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
s. The National Theatre's largest auditorium is named in his honour, and he is commemorated in the
Laurence Olivier Awards
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known as ...
, given annually by the
Society of London Theatre
The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) is an umbrella organisation for West End theatre in London. Founded in 1908, as Society of West End Theatre Managers, then Society of West End Theatre in 1975, changing to its current name in 1994, the (SOLT) ...
. He was married three times, to the actresses
Jill Esmond
Jill Esmond (born Jill Esmond Moore; 26 January 1908 – 28 July 1990) was an English stage and screen actress. She was the first wife of Laurence Olivier.
Early life
Esmond was born in London, the daughter of stage actors Henry V. Esmond and ...
from 1930 to 1940,
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gon ...
from 1940 to 1960, and
Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier, (née Plowright; born 28 October 1929), professionally known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English retired actress whose career has spanned over seven decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Ton ...
from 1961 until his death.
Life and career
Family background and early life (1907–1924)
![Birthplace of Actor Sir Laurence Olivier, Wathen Road, Dorking - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Birthplace_of_Actor_Sir_Laurence_Olivier%2C_Wathen_Road%2C_Dorking_-_geograph.org.uk_-_110689.jpg)
Olivier was born in
Dorking
Dorking () is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp Br ...
, Surrey, the youngest of the three children of the Reverend Gerard Kerr Olivier (1869–1939) and his wife Agnes Louise, ''née'' Crookenden (1871–1920). Their elder children were Sybille (1901–1989) and Gerard Dacres "Dickie" (1904–1958). His great-great-grandfather was of French
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
descent, and Olivier came from a long line of Protestant clergymen. Gerard Olivier had begun a career as a schoolmaster, but in his thirties he discovered a strong religious vocation and was ordained as a priest of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
. He practised extremely
high church
The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
,
ritualist
Ritualism, in the history of Christianity, refers to an emphasis on the rituals and liturgical ceremonies of the church. Specifically, the Christian ritual of Holy Communion.
In the Anglican church in the 19th century, the role of ritual became ...
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
and liked to be addressed as "Father Olivier". This made him unacceptable to most Anglican congregations, and the only church posts he was offered were temporary, usually deputising for regular
incumbents
The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position, usually in relation to an election. In an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seeking re-ele ...
in their absence. This meant a nomadic existence, and for Laurence's first few years, he never lived in one place long enough to make friends.
In 1912, when Olivier was five, his father secured a permanent appointment as assistant
rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
at
St Saviour's, Pimlico
St Saviour's is an Anglo-Catholic church in Pimlico, City of Westminster, London, England, located at the north end of St George's Square. It was constructed in the 1860s as part of Thomas Cubitt's development of the area on behalf of the Marqu ...
. He held the post for six years and a stable family life was at last possible. Olivier was devoted to his mother, but not to his father, whom he found a cold and remote parent. Nevertheless, he learned a great deal of the art of performing from him. As a young man Gerard Olivier had considered a stage career and was a dramatic and effective preacher. Olivier wrote that his father knew "when to drop the voice, when to bellow about the perils of hellfire, when to slip in a gag, when suddenly to wax sentimental ... The quick changes of mood and manner absorbed me, and I have never forgotten them."
![All Saints, Margaret Street Church, London, UK - Diliff](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/All_Saints%2C_Margaret_Street_Church%2C_London%2C_UK_-_Diliff.jpg)
In 1916, after attending a series of preparatory schools, Olivier passed the singing examination for admission to the choir school of
All Saints, Margaret Street
All Saints, Margaret Street, is a Grade I listed Anglo-Catholic church in London. The church was designed by the architect William Butterfield and built between 1850 and 1859. It has been hailed as Butterfield's masterpiece and a pioneering buil ...
, in central London. His elder brother was already a pupil and Olivier gradually settled in, though he felt himself to be something of an outsider. The church's style of worship was (and remains)
Anglo-Catholic
Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches.
The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglican ...
, with emphasis on ritual, vestments and incense. The theatricality of the services appealed to Olivier, and the vicar encouraged the students to develop a taste for secular as well as religious drama.
In a school production of ''
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
'' in 1917, the ten-year-old Olivier's performance as Brutus impressed an audience that included
Lady Tree
Helen Maud Holt (5 October 1863 – 7 August 1937), professionally known as Mrs Beerbohm Tree and later Lady Tree, was an English actress. She was the wife of the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and the mother of Viola Tree, Felicity Tree and Ir ...
, the young
Sybil Thorndike
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson (24 October 18829 June 1976) was an English actress whose stage career lasted from 1904 to 1969.
Trained in her youth as a concert pianist, Thorndike turned to the stage when a medical problem with her ...
, and
Ellen Terry
Dame Alice Ellen Terry, (27 February 184721 July 1928), was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and tour ...
, who wrote in her diary, "The small boy who played Brutus is already a great actor." He later won praise in other schoolboy productions, as Maria in ''
Twelfth Night
''Twelfth Night'', or ''What You Will'' is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Vio ...
'' (1918) and Katherine in ''
The Taming of the Shrew
''The Taming of the Shrew'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken ...
'' (1922).
From All Saints, Olivier went on to
St Edward's School, Oxford
St Edward's School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in Oxford, England. It is known informally as 'Teddies'.
Approximately sixty pupils live in each of its thirteen houses. The school is a member of the Rugby G ...
, from 1921 to 1924. He made little mark until his final year, when he played
Puck in the school's production of ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...
''; his performance was a tour de force that won him popularity among his fellow pupils. In January 1924, his brother left England to work in India as a rubber planter. Olivier missed him greatly and asked his father how soon he could follow. He recalled in his memoirs that his father replied, "Don't be such a fool, you're not going to India, you're going on the stage."
Early acting career (1924–1929)
In 1924 Gerard Olivier, a habitually frugal man, told his son that he must gain not only admission to the
Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art
The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama was founded by Elsie Fogerty in 1906, as The Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students. It became a ...
, but also a scholarship with a bursary to cover his tuition fees and living expenses. Olivier's sister had been a student there and was a favourite of
Elsie Fogerty
Anne Elizabeth "Elsie" Fogerty (16 December 1865 – 4 July 1945) was a British teacher who departed from the customary practice of “voice and diction” also called elocution. At that time “Voice and Diction” focused entirely on the mou ...
, the founder and principal of the school. Olivier later speculated that it was on the strength of this that Fogerty agreed to award him the bursary.
![Peggy-Ashcroft-1936-2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Peggy-Ashcroft-1936-2.jpg)
One of Olivier's contemporaries at the school was
Peggy Ashcroft
Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years.
Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was deter ...
, who observed he was "rather uncouth in that his sleeves were too short and his hair stood on end but he was intensely lively and great fun". By his own admission, he was not a very conscientious student, but Fogerty liked him and later said that he and Ashcroft stood out among her many pupils.
After leaving the Central School in 1925, Olivier worked for small theatrical companies. At his first stage appearance, in a sketch called ''The Unfailing Instinct'' at the
Brighton Hippodrome
Brighton Hippodrome is an entertainment venue in the ancient centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It has been empty and out of use since 2007, when its use as a Bingo (Commonwealth), bingo hall ceased.
From its const ...
in August 1925, he tripped on his entrance and fell flat on his face. Later that year, he was taken on by Sybil Thorndike (the daughter of a friend of Olivier's father) and her husband
Lewis Casson
Sir Lewis Thomas Casson MC (26 October 187516 May 1969) was an English actor and theatre director, and the husband of actress Dame Sybil Thorndike.Devlin, DianaCasson, Sir Lewis Thomas (1875–1969) ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biograph ...
as a bit-part player, understudy, and assistant stage manager for their London company. Olivier modelled his performing style on that of
Gerald du Maurier
Sir Gerald Hubert Edward Busson du Maurier (26 March 1873 – 11 April 1934) was an English actor and manager. He was the son of author George du Maurier and his wife, Emma Wightwick, and the brother of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. In 1903, he m ...
, of whom he said, "He seemed to mutter on stage but had such perfect technique. When I started I was so busy doing a du Maurier that no one ever heard a word I said. The Shakespearean actors one saw were terrible hams like
Frank Benson." Olivier's concern with speaking naturally and avoiding what he called "singing" Shakespeare's verse was the cause of much frustration in his early career, as critics regularly decried his delivery.
In 1926, on Thorndike's recommendation, Olivier joined the
Birmingham Repertory Company
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Barry Jackson, it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre c ...
. His biographer
Michael Billington describes the Birmingham company as "Olivier's university", where in his second year he was given the chance to play a wide range of important roles, including Tony Lumpkin in ''
She Stoops to Conquer
''She Stoops to Conquer'' is a comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in the English-speaking world. It is one of the few plays from the 18th ...
'', the title role in ''
Uncle Vanya
''Uncle Vanya'' ( rus, Дя́дя Ва́ня, r=Dyádya Ványa, p=ˈdʲædʲə ˈvanʲə) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898, and was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre under the direct ...
'', and Parolles in ''
All's Well That Ends Well
''All's Well That Ends Well'' is a play by William Shakespeare, published in the ''First Folio'' in 1623, where it is listed among the comedies. There is a debate regarding the dating of the composition of the play, with possible dates rangin ...
''. Billington adds that the engagement led to "a lifelong friendship with his fellow actor
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity of male actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He wo ...
that was to have a decisive effect on the British theatre."
While playing the juvenile lead in ''Bird in Hand'' at the
Royalty Theatre
The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho. Established by the actress Frances Maria Kelly in 1840, it opened as Miss Kelly's Theatre and Dramatic School and finally closed to the public in 1938. in June 1928, Olivier began a relationship with
Jill Esmond
Jill Esmond (born Jill Esmond Moore; 26 January 1908 – 28 July 1990) was an English stage and screen actress. She was the first wife of Laurence Olivier.
Early life
Esmond was born in London, the daughter of stage actors Henry V. Esmond and ...
, the daughter of the actors
Henry V. Esmond
Henry Vernon Esmond (30 November 1869 – 17 April 1922) was a British actor and playwright.
Esmond was born Harry Esmond Jack in Hampton Court, Middlesex, the son of Richard George Jack, a physician and surgeon and his wife Mary Rynd. He ...
and
Eva Moore
Eva Moore (9 February 1868 – 27 April 1955) was an English actress. Her career on stage and in film spanned six decades, and she was active in the women's suffrage movement. In her 1923 book of reminiscences, ''Exits and Entrances'', she des ...
. Olivier later recounted that he thought "she would most certainly do excellent well for a wife ... I wasn't likely to do any better at my age and with my undistinguished track-record, so I promptly fell in love with her."
In 1928 Olivier created the role of Stanhope in
R. C. Sherriff's ''
Journey's End
''Journey's End'' is a 1928 dramatic play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff, set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War. The story plays out in the officers' dugout of a British Army infantry comp ...
'', in which he scored a great success at its single Sunday night premiere. He was offered the part in the
West End production the following year, but turned it down in favour of the more glamorous role of
Beau Geste
''Beau Geste'' is an adventure novel by British writer P. C. Wren, which details the adventures of three English brothers who enlist separately in the French Foreign Legion following the theft of a valuable jewel from the country house of a rel ...
in a stage adaptation of
P. C. Wren
Percival Christopher Wren (1 November 187522 November 1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for ''Beau Geste'', a much-filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. This was ...
's 1929 novel of the same name. ''Journey's End'' became a long-running success; ''Beau Geste'' failed. ''
The Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' commented, "Mr. Laurence Olivier did his best as Beau, but he deserves and will get better parts. Mr. Olivier is going to make a big name for himself".
For the rest of 1929 Olivier appeared in seven plays, all of which were short-lived. Billington ascribes this failure rate to poor choices by Olivier rather than mere bad luck.
Rising star (1930–1935)
In 1930, with his impending marriage in mind, Olivier earned some extra money with small roles in two films. In April he travelled to Berlin to film the English-language version of ''
The Temporary Widow
''The Temporary Widow'' is a 1930 British-German comedy film, an English-language ''parallel version'' directed by Gustav Ucicky and starring Anglo-German actress and singer Lilian Harvey, Laurence Olivier in his first film role, and Athole St ...
'', a crime comedy with
Lilian Harvey
Lilian Harvey (born Helene Lilian Muriel Pape; 19 January 1906 – 27 July 1968) was an Anglo-German actress and singer, long based in Germany, where she is best known for her role as Christel Weinzinger in Erik Charell's 1931 film ''Der Kongr ...
, and in May he spent four nights working on another comedy, ''
Too Many Crooks
''Too Many Crooks'' is a 1959 British comedy film directed by Mario Zampi. The plot concerns a bunch of inept crooks who kidnap the wife of a shady businessman, only for him to decide he doesn’t want her back. It stars George Cole, Sidney Ja ...
''. During work on the latter film, for which he was paid £60, he met Laurence Evans, who became his personal manager. Olivier did not enjoy working in film, which he dismissed as "this anaemic little medium which could not stand great acting", but financially it was much more rewarding than his theatre work.
Olivier and Esmond married on 25 July 1930 at All Saints, Margaret Street, although within weeks both realised they had erred. Olivier later recorded that the marriage was "a pretty crass mistake. I insisted on getting married from a pathetic mixture of religious and animal promptings. ... She had admitted to me that she was in love elsewhere and could never love me as completely as I would wish". Olivier later recounted that following the wedding he did not keep a diary for ten years and never followed religious practices again, although he considered those facts to be "mere coincidence", unconnected to the nuptials.
In 1930
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
cast Olivier as Victor Prynne in his new play ''
Private Lives
''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...
'', which opened at the new
Phoenix Theatre in London in September. Coward and
Gertrude Lawrence
Gertrude Lawrence (4 July 1898 – 6 September 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York.
Early life
Lawrence was born Gertr ...
played the lead roles, Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne. Victor is a secondary character, along with Sybil Chase; the author called them "extra puppets, lightly wooden ninepins, only to be repeatedly knocked down and stood up again". To make them credible spouses for Amanda and Elyot, Coward was determined that two outstandingly attractive performers should play the parts. Olivier played Victor in the West End and then on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
;
Adrianne Allen
Adrianne Allen (7 February 1907 – 14 September 1993) was an English stage actress.
Most often seen in light comedy, Allen played Sybil Chase in the original West End production of ''Private Lives'' and Elizabeth Bennet in the 1935 Broadw ...
was Sybil in London, but could not go to New York, where the part was taken by Esmond. In addition to giving the 23-year-old Olivier his first successful West End role, Coward became something of a mentor. In the late 1960s Olivier told
Sheridan Morley
Sheridan Morley (5 December 1941 − 16 February 2007) was an English author, biographer, critic and broadcaster. He was the official biographer of Sir John Gielgud and wrote biographies of many other theatrical figures he had known, including ...
:
![Jill Esmond and Laurence Olivier 1932](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Jill_Esmond_and_Laurence_Olivier_1932.jpg)
In 1931
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...
offered Olivier a two-film contract at $1,000 a week; he discussed the possibility with Coward, who, irked, told Olivier "You've no artistic integrity, that's your trouble; this is how you cheapen yourself." He accepted and moved to Hollywood, despite some misgivings. His first film was the drama ''
Friends and Lovers'', in a supporting role, before RKO loaned him to
Fox Studios
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
for his first film lead, a British journalist in a Russia under
martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
in ''
The Yellow Ticket
''The Yellow Ticket'' is a 1931 pre-Code American drama film based on the 1914 play of the same name by Michael Morton, produced by the Fox Film Corporation, directed by Raoul Walsh, and starring Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore and Laurence Oli ...
'', alongside
Elissa Landi
Elissa Landi (born Elisabeth Marie Christine Kühnelt; December 6, 1904 – October 21, 1948) was an Austrian-American actress born in Venice, who was popular as a performer in Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s. She was noted for her a ...
and
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore (born Lionel Herbert Blythe; April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954) was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''A Free Soul'' (1931) ...
. The cultural historian
Jeffrey Richards
Jeffrey Richards (born c.1945)Chris Arno"Fast Forward: Jeffrey Richards" ''The Guardian'', 11 January 2005 is a British historian.
Educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, he is Professor of Cultural History at Lancaster University. A leading cul ...
describes Olivier's look as an attempt by Fox Studios to produce a likeness of
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then immigrating to the United States and having a successful Hollywood film career. He wa ...
, and Colman's moustache, voice and manner are "perfectly reproduced". Olivier returned to RKO to complete his contract with the 1932 drama ''
Westward Passage
''Westward Passage'' is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Robert Milton and starring Ann Harding, Laurence Olivier, ZaSu Pitts and Irving Pichel. The screenplay concerns a woman who falls in love and marries, but soon discovers ho ...
'', which was a commercial failure. Olivier's initial foray into American films had not provided the breakthrough he hoped for; disillusioned with Hollywood, he returned to London, where he appeared in two British films, ''
Perfect Understanding'' with
Gloria Swanson
Gloria May Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress and producer. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most f ...
and ''
No Funny Business
''No Funny Business'' is a 1933 British comedy film directed by Victor Hanbury and starring Laurence Olivier, Gertrude Lawrence, Jill Esmond and Edmund Breon. The film is a comedy of errors set in a divorce case. It was made at Ealing Studios. ...
''—in which Esmond also appeared. He was tempted back to Hollywood in 1933 to appear opposite
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...
in ''
Queen Christina'', but was replaced after two weeks of filming because of a lack of chemistry between the two.
Olivier's stage roles in 1934 included Bothwell in
Gordon Daviot
Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth MacKintosh (25 July 1896 – 13 February 1952), a Scottish author. Her novel ''The Daughter of Time'' was a detective work investigating the role of Richard III of England in the death of the Princ ...
's ''Queen of Scots'', which was only a moderate success for him and for the play, but led to an important engagement for the same management (
Bronson Albery
Sir Bronson James Albery (6 March 1881 – 21 July 1971) was an English theatre director and impresario. Second son of James Albery and Mary Moore, and brother to Irving Albery and Wyndham Albery, he was knighted in 1949 for his services to the t ...
) shortly afterwards. In the interim he had a great success playing a thinly disguised version of the American actor
John Barrymore
John Barrymore (born John Sidney Blyth; February 14 or 15, 1882 – May 29, 1942) was an American actor on stage, screen and radio. A member of the Drew and Barrymore theatrical families, he initially tried to avoid the stage, and briefly att ...
in
George S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman (November 16, 1889June 2, 1961) was an American playwright, theater director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals for the Marx Brothers and others. ...
and
Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning '' So Big'' (1924), ''Show Boat'' (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), '' Cim ...
's ''
Theatre Royal''. His success was vitiated by his breaking an ankle two months into the run, in one of the athletic, acrobatic stunts with which he liked to enliven his performances.
In 1935, under Albery's management,
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, (; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Briti ...
staged ''Romeo and Juliet'' at the
New Theatre, co-starring with Peggy Ashcroft,
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, (8 February 1888 – 14 October 1976) was an English actress. She was best known for her work on the stage, but also appeared in films at the beginning and towards the end of her career. Between 1964 and 1968, she was no ...
, and Olivier. Gielgud had seen Olivier in ''Queen of Scots'', spotted his potential, and gave him a major step up in his career. For the first weeks of the run Gielgud played
Mercutio
Mercutio ( , ) is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's 1597 tragedy, ''Romeo and Juliet''. He is a close friend to Romeo and a blood relative to Prince Escalus and Count Paris. As such, Mercutio is one of the named characters in the p ...
and Olivier played
Romeo
Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest ...
, after which they exchanged roles. The production broke all box-office records for the play, running for 189 performances. Olivier was enraged at the notices after the first night, which praised the virility of his performance but fiercely criticised his speaking of Shakespeare's verse, contrasting it with his co-star's mastery of the poetry. The friendship between the two men was prickly, on Olivier's side, for the rest of his life.
Old Vic and Vivien Leigh (1936–1938)
In May 1936 Olivier and Richardson jointly directed and starred in a new piece by
J. B. Priestley, ''
Bees on the Boatdeck''. Both actors won excellent notices, but the play, an allegory of Britain's decay, did not attract the public and closed after four weeks. Later in the same year Olivier accepted an invitation to join
the Old Vic
The Old Vic is a 1,000-seat, nonprofit organization, not-for-profit producing house, producing theatre in Waterloo, London, Waterloo, London, England. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, and renamed in 1833 the Royal Victoria Th ...
company. The theatre, in an unfashionable location south of the
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
, had offered inexpensive tickets for opera and drama under its proprietor
Lilian Baylis
Lilian Mary Baylis
CH (9 May 187425 November 1937) was an English theatrical producer and manager. She managed the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells theatres in London and ran an opera company, which became the English National Opera (ENO); a theatre ...
since 1912. Her drama company specialised in the plays of Shakespeare and many leading actors had taken very large cuts in their pay to develop their Shakespearean techniques there. Gielgud had been in the company from 1929 to 1931 and Richardson from 1930 to 1932. Among the actors whom Olivier joined in late 1936 were
Edith Evans
Dame Edith Mary Evans, (8 February 1888 – 14 October 1976) was an English actress. She was best known for her work on the stage, but also appeared in films at the beginning and towards the end of her career. Between 1964 and 1968, she was no ...
,
Ruth Gordon
Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985) was an American actress, screenwriter, and playwright. She began her career performing on Broadway at age 19. Known for her nasal voice and distinctive personality, Gordon gained internati ...
,
Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness (born Alec Guinness de Cuffe; 2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) was an English actor. After an early career on the stage, Guinness was featured in several of the Ealing comedies, including ''Kind Hearts and Coronets'' (194 ...
and
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Mourning Becomes Elect ...
. In January 1937 Olivier took the title role in an uncut version of ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'', in which once again his delivery of the verse was unfavourably compared with that of Gielgud, who had played the role on the same stage seven years previously to enormous acclaim. ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
''s
Ivor Brown
Ivor John Carnegie Brown CBE (25 April 1891 – 22 April 1974) was a British journalist and man of letters.
Biography
Born in Penang, Malaya, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases, ...
praised Olivier's "magnetism and muscularity" but missed "the kind of pathos so richly established by Mr Gielgud".
The reviewer in ''The Times'' found the performance "full of vitality", but at times "too light ... the character slips from Mr Olivier's grasp".
![Old Vic0185](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Old_Vic0185.JPG)
After ''Hamlet'', the company presented ''Twelfth Night'' in what the director,
Tyrone Guthrie
Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 – 15 May 1971) was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at his ...
, summed up as "a baddish, immature production of mine, with Olivier outrageously amusing as
Sir Toby and a very young Alec Guinness outrageous and more amusing as
Sir Andrew". ''
Henry V Henry V may refer to:
People
* Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026)
* Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125)
* Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161)
* Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227)
* Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...
'' was the next play, presented in May to mark the
Coronation of George VI
The coronation of George VI and his wife, Elizabeth, as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and as Emperor and Empress of India took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on Wednesday 12 May 1937. ...
. A pacifist, as he then was, Olivier was as reluctant to play the warrior king as Guthrie was to direct the piece, but the production was a success and Baylis had to extend the run from four to eight weeks.
Following Olivier's success in Shakespearean stage productions, he made his first foray into Shakespeare on film in 1936, as
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
in ''
As You Like It
''As You Like It'' is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has b ...
'', directed by
Paul Czinner
Paul Czinner (30 May 1890 – 22 June 1972) was a Hungarian-born British writer, film director, and producer.
Biography
Czinner was born to a Jewish family in Budapest, Austria-Hungary.
After studying literature and philosophy at the Universi ...
, "a charming if lightweight production", according to Michael Brooke of the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
's (BFI's)
Screenonline
Screenonline is a website about the history of British film, television and social history as documented by film and television. The project has been developed by the British Film Institute and funded by a £1.2 million grant from the National Lot ...
.
The following year Olivier appeared alongside
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gon ...
in the historical drama ''
Fire Over England
''Fire Over England'' is a 1937 London Film Productions film drama, notable for providing the first pairing of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. It was directed by William K. Howard and written by Clemence Dane from the 1936 novel ''Fire Over ...
''. He had first met Leigh briefly at the
Savoy Grill and then again when she visited him during the run of ''Romeo and Juliet'', probably early in 1936, and the two had begun an affair sometime that year. Of the relationship, Olivier later said that "I couldn't help myself with Vivien. No man could. I hated myself for cheating on Jill, but then I had cheated before, but this was something different. This wasn't just out of lust. This was love that I really didn't ask for but was drawn into." While his relationship with Leigh continued he conducted an affair with the actress
Ann Todd
Dorothy Ann Todd (24 January 1907 – 6 May 1993) was an English film, television and stage actress who achieved international fame when she starred in 1945's ''The Seventh Veil''. From 1949 to 1957 she was married to David Lean who directed he ...
, and possibly had a brief affair with the actor
Henry Ainley
Henry Hinchliffe Ainley (21 August 1879 – 31 October 1945) was an English actor.
Life and career
Early years
Ainley was born in Morley, near Leeds, on 21 August 1879, the only son and eldest child of Richard Ainley (1851–1919), a textile ...
, according to the biographer Michael Munn.
In June 1937 the Old Vic company took up an invitation to perform ''Hamlet'' in the courtyard of the castle at
Elsinore, where Shakespeare located the play. Olivier secured the casting of Leigh to replace Cherry Cottrell as
Ophelia
Ophelia () is a character in William Shakespeare's drama ''Hamlet'' (1599–1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends up in ...
. Because of torrential rain the performance had to be moved from the castle courtyard to the ballroom of a local hotel, but the tradition of playing Hamlet at Elsinore was established, and Olivier was followed by, among others, Gielgud (1939), Redgrave (1950),
Richard Burton
Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable pe ...
(1954),
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer (December 13, 1929 – February 5, 2021) was a Canadian actor. His career spanned seven decades, gaining him recognition for his performances in film, stage, and television. He received multiple accolades, inc ...
(1964),
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi (; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor. He has appeared in various stage productions of William Shakespeare such as ''Hamlet'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'', ''Macbeth'', ''Twelfth Night'', ''The Tempest'', ''King ...
(1979),
Kenneth Branagh
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (; born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has served as its president since 2015. He has won an Academy Award, four BAFTAs (plus t ...
(1988) and
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law (born 29 December 1972) is an English actor. He received a British Academy Film Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, two Tony Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. In 2007, he received an Honorary Césa ...
(2009).
[ Back in London, the company staged '']Macbeth
''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...
'', with Olivier in the title role. The stylised production by Michel Saint-Denis
Michel Jacques Saint-Denis (13 September 1897 – 31 July 1971), ''dit'' Jacques Duchesne, was a French actor, theatre director, and drama theorist whose ideas on actor training have had a profound influence on the development of European the ...
was not well liked, but Olivier had some good notices among the bad. On returning from Denmark, Olivier and Leigh told their respective spouses about the affair and that their marriages were over; Esmond moved out of the marital house and in with her mother. After Olivier and Leigh made a tour of Europe in mid-1937 they returned to separate film projects—''A Yank at Oxford
''A Yank at Oxford'' is a 1938 comedy-drama film directed by Jack Conway and starring Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh and Edmund Gwenn. The screenplay was written by John Monk Saunders and Leon Gordon. The ...
'' for her and ''The Divorce of Lady X
''The Divorce of Lady X'' is a 1938 British Technicolor romantic comedy film produced by London Films; it stars Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Binnie Barnes. It was film director, directed by Tim Whelan and produced by Alex ...
'' for him—and moved into a property together in Iver
Iver is a large civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England. In addition to the central clustered village, the parish includes the residential neighbourhoods of Iver Heath and Richings Park.
Geography, transport and economy
Part of the 43-square- ...
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
.
Olivier returned to the Old Vic for a second season in 1938. For ''Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
'' he played Iago
Iago () is a fictional character in Shakespeare's ''Othello'' (c. 1601–1604). Iago is the play's main antagonist, and Othello's standard-bearer. He is the husband of Emilia, who is in turn the attendant of Othello's wife Desdemona. Iago hates ...
, with Richardson in the title role. Guthrie wanted to experiment with the theory that Iago's villainy is driven by a suppressed love for Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cypru ...
. Olivier was willing to co-operate, but Richardson was not; audiences and most critics failed to spot the supposed motivation of Olivier's Iago, and Richardson's Othello seemed underpowered. After that comparative failure, the company had a success with ''Coriolanus
''Coriolanus'' ( or ) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. Shakespeare worked on it during the same ye ...
'' starring Olivier in the title role. The notices were laudatory, mentioning him alongside great predecessors such as Edmund Kean
Edmund Kean (4 November 178715 May 1833) was a celebrated British Shakespearean stage actor born in England, who performed, among other places, in London, Belfast, New York, Quebec, and Paris. He was known for his short stature, tumultuo ...
, William Macready
William Charles Macready (3 March 179327 April 1873) was an English actor.
Life
He was born in London the son of William Macready the elder, and actress Christina Ann Birch. Educated at Rugby School where he became headboy, and where now the ...
, and Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility ( ...
. The actor Robert Speaight
Robert William Speaight (; 1904 – 1976) was a British actor and writer, and the brother of George Speaight, the puppeteer.
Speaight studied under Elsie Fogerty at the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based in the Royal Albert Hal ...
described it as "Olivier's first incontestably great performance". This was Olivier's last appearance on a London stage for six years.
Hollywood and the Second World War (1938–1944)
In 1938 Olivier joined Richardson to film the spy thriller ''Q Planes
''Q Planes'' (known as ''Clouds Over Europe'' in the United States) is a 1939 British comedy spy film starring Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier and Valerie Hobson. Olivier and Richardson were a decade into their fifty-year friendship and were ...
'', released the following year. Frank Nugent
Frank Stanley Nugent (May 27, 1908 – December 29, 1965) was an American screenwriter, journalist, and film reviewer, who wrote 21 film scripts, 11 for director John Ford. He wrote almost a thousand reviews for ''The New York Times'' before lea ...
, the critic for ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', thought Olivier was "not quite so good" as Richardson, but was "quite acceptable". In late 1938, lured by a salary of $50,000, the actor travelled to Hollywood to take the part of Heathcliff in the 1939 film ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'', alongside Merle Oberon
Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson; 19 February 191123 November 1979) was a British actress who began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933). After her success in ''The Scarle ...
and David Niven
James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in ''Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...
. In less than a month Leigh had joined him, explaining that her trip was "partially because Larry's there and partially because I intend to get the part of Scarlett O'Hara
Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler is a fictional character and the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel ''Gone with the Wind'' and in the 1939 film of the same name, where she is portrayed by Vivien Leigh. She also is the m ...
"—the role in ''Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind most often refers to:
* Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
* Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel
Gone with the Win ...
'' in which she was eventually cast. Olivier did not enjoy making ''Wuthering Heights'', and his approach to film acting, combined with a dislike for Oberon, led to tensions on set. The director, William Wyler
William Wyler (; born Willi Wyler (); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a Swiss-German-American film director and producer who won the Academy Award for Best Director three times, those being for ''Mrs. Miniver'' (1942), ''The Best Years of O ...
, was a hard taskmaster, and Olivier learned to remove what Billington described as "the carapace of theatricality" to which he was prone, replacing it with "a palpable reality". The resulting film was a commercial and critical success that earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor
The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...
and created his screen reputation. Caroline Lejeune, writing for ''The Observer'', considered that "Olivier's dark, moody face, abrupt style, and a certain fine arrogance towards the world in his playing are just right" in the role, while the reviewer for ''The Times'' wrote that Olivier "is a good embodiment of Heathcliff ... impressive enough on a more human plane, speaking his lines with real distinction, and always both romantic and alive."
After returning to London briefly in mid-1939, the couple returned to America, Leigh to film the final takes for ''Gone with the Wind'', and Olivier to prepare for filming of Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
's ''Rebecca
Rebecca, ; Syriac: , ) from the Hebrew (lit., 'connection'), from Semitic root , 'to tie, couple or join', 'to secure', or 'to snare') () appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical ...
''—although the couple had hoped to appear in it together. Instead, Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". Fontaine appeared ...
was selected for the role of Mrs de Winter, as the producer David O. Selznick thought that not only was she more suitable for the role, but that it was best to keep Olivier and Leigh apart until their divorces came through. Olivier followed ''Rebecca'' with ''Pride and Prejudice
''Pride and Prejudice'' is an 1813 novel of manners by Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreci ...
'', in the role of Mr. Darcy
Fitzwilliam Darcy Esquire, generally referred to as Mr. Darcy, is one of the two central characters in Jane Austen's 1813 novel '' Pride and Prejudice''. He is an archetype of the aloof romantic hero, and a romantic interest of Elizabeth Benn ...
. To his disappointment Elizabeth Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet is the protagonist in the 1813 novel '' Pride and Prejudice'' by Jane Austen. She is often referred to as Eliza or Lizzy by her friends and family. Elizabeth is the second child in a family of five daughters. Though the ci ...
was played by Greer Garson
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996) was an English-American actress and singer. She was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who became popular during the Second World War for her portrayal of strong women on the hom ...
rather than Leigh. He received good reviews for both films and showed a more confident screen presence than he had in his early work. In January 1940 Olivier and Esmond were granted their divorce. In February, following another request from Leigh, her husband also applied for their marriage to be terminated.
On stage, Olivier and Leigh starred in ''Romeo and Juliet'' on Broadway. It was an extravagant production, but a commercial failure. In ''The New York Times'' Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theatre critic. He worked for ''The New York Times'' from 1922 to 1960. In his obituary, the ''Times'' called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his ...
praised the scenery but not the acting: "Although Miss Leigh and Mr Olivier are handsome young people they hardly act their parts at all." The couple had invested almost all their savings in the project, and its failure was a grave financial blow. They were married in August 1940, at the San Ysidro Ranch
The San Ysidro Ranch is a luxury resort located in the Montecito foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Ynez Mountains. Originally deeded with the Presidio by Charles III of Spain, the San Ysidro Ranch exchanged hands, changing from a Mis ...
in Santa Barbara.
The war in Europe had been under way for a year and was going badly for Britain. After his wedding Olivier wanted to help the war effort. He telephoned Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
First elected to Parliament in 192 ...
, the Minister of Information
An information minister (also called minister of information) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with information matters; it is often linked with censorship and propaganda. Sometimes the position is given to ...
under Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
, hoping to get a position in Cooper's department. Cooper advised him to remain where he was and speak to the film director Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)[That Hamilton Woman
''That Hamilton Woman'', also known as ''Lady Hamilton'', is a 1941 black-and-white historical film drama produced and directed by Alexander Korda for his British company during his exile in the United States. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, th ...](_blank)
'', with Olivier as Horatio Nelson
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought abo ...
and Leigh in the title role
The title character in a Narrative, narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The ...
. Korda saw that the relationship between the couple was strained. Olivier was tiring of Leigh's suffocating adulation, and she was drinking to excess. The film, in which the threat of Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
paralleled that of Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
, was seen by critics as "bad history but good British propaganda", according to the BFI.
Olivier's life was under threat from the Nazis and pro-German sympathisers. The studio owners were concerned enough that Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor a ...
and Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cine ...
both provided support and security to ensure his safety. On the completion of filming, Olivier and Leigh returned to Britain. He had spent the previous year learning to fly and had completed nearly 250 hours by the time he left America. He intended to join the Royal Air Force but instead made another propaganda film, '' 49th Parallel'', narrated short pieces for the Ministry of Information, and joined the Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...
because Richardson was already in the service. Richardson had gained a reputation for crashing aircraft, which Olivier rapidly eclipsed. Olivier and Leigh settled in a cottage just outside RNAS Worthy Down
RAF Worthy Down was a Royal Air Force station built in 1918, north of Winchester, Hampshire, England. After it was transferred to Royal Navy control in 1939 as RNAS Worthy Down (HMS Kestrel), the airfield remained in use throughout the Second Wo ...
, where he was stationed with a training squadron; Noël Coward visited the couple and thought Olivier looked unhappy. Olivier spent much of his time taking part in broadcasts and making speeches to build morale, and in 1942 he was invited to make another propaganda film, ''The Demi-Paradise
''The Demi-Paradise'' (also known as ''Adventure for Two'') is a 1943 British comedy film made by Two Cities Films. It stars Laurence Olivier as a Soviet Russian inventor who travels to England to have his revolutionary propeller manufactured, an ...
'', in which he played a Soviet engineer who helps improve British-Russian relationships.
In 1943, at the behest of the Ministry of Information, Olivier began working on ''Henry V Henry V may refer to:
People
* Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026)
* Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125)
* Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161)
* Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227)
* Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...
''. Originally he had no intention of taking the directorial duties, but ended up directing and producing, in addition to taking the title role. He was assisted by an Italian internee, Filippo Del Giudice
Filippo Del Giudice, (26 March 1892 – 1 January 1963), born in Trani, Apulia, Trani, Italy, was an Italian film producer. Giudice was a lawyer, legal advisor and film producer. He worked with people that were already well known in their field ...
, who had been released to produce propaganda for the Allied cause. The decision was made to film the battle scenes in neutral Ireland, where it was easier to find the 650 extras. John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, ...
, the press attaché at the British embassy in Dublin, played a key liaison role with the Irish government in making suitable arrangements. The film was released in November 1944. Brooke, writing for the BFI, considers that it "came too late in the Second World War to be a call to arms as such, but formed a powerful reminder of what Britain was defending." The music for the film was written by William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantat ...
, "a score that ranks with the best in film music", according to the music critic Michael Kennedy. Walton also provided the music for Olivier's next two Shakespearean adaptations, ''Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' (1948) and ''Richard III
Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...
'' (1955). ''Henry V'' was warmly received by critics. The reviewer for ''The Manchester Guardian'' wrote that the film combined "new art hand-in-hand with old genius, and both superbly of one mind", in a film that worked "triumphantly". The critic for ''The Times'' considered that Olivier "plays Henry on a high, heroic note and never is there danger of a crack", in a film described as "a triumph of film craft". There were Oscar nominations for the film, including Best Picture and Best Actor, but it won none and Olivier was instead presented with a "Special Award". He was unimpressed, and later commented that "this was my first absolute fob-off, and I regarded it as such."
Co-directing the Old Vic (1944–1948)
Throughout the war Tyrone Guthrie had striven to keep the Old Vic company going, even after German bombing in 1942 left the theatre a near-ruin. A small troupe toured the provinces, with Sybil Thorndike at its head. By 1944, with the tide of the war turning, Guthrie felt it time to re-establish the company in a London base and invited Richardson to head it. Richardson made it a condition of accepting that he should share the acting and management in a triumvirate. Initially he proposed Gielgud and Olivier as his colleagues, but the former declined, saying, "It would be a disaster, you would have to spend your whole time as referee between Larry and me." It was finally agreed that the third member would be the stage director John Burrell. The Old Vic governors approached the Royal Navy to secure the release of Richardson and Olivier; the Sea Lords
This is a list of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty (incomplete before the Restoration, 1660).
The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty were the members of The Board of Admiralty, which exercised the office of Lord High Admiral when it was n ...
consented, with, as Olivier put it, "a speediness and lack of reluctance which was positively hurtful."
The triumvirate secured the New Theatre for their first season and recruited a company. Thorndike was joined by, among others, Harcourt Williams
Ernest George Harcourt Williams (30 March 1880 – 13 December 1957) was an English actor and director. After early experience in touring companies he established himself as a character actor and director in the West End. From 1929 to 1934 he ...
, Joyce Redman
Joyce Olivia Redman (7 December 1915Jonathan Croall, "Redman, Joyce Olivia (1915–2012)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Jan 201available online Retrieved 1 April 2020. – 9 May 2012) was an Anglo-Irish a ...
and Margaret Leighton
Margaret Leighton, CBE (26 February 1922 – 13 January 1976) was an English actress, active on stage and television, and in film. Her film appearances included (her first credited debut feature) in Anatole de Grunwald's ''The Winslow Boy'' (1 ...
. It was agreed to open with a repertory of four plays: ''Peer Gynt
''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five- act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen published in 1876. Written in Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed ''Per Gynt'', the Norwegian fairy tale on wh ...
'', ''Arms and the Man
''Arms and the Man'' is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw, whose title comes from the opening words of Virgil's ''Aeneid'', in Latin:
''Arma virumque cano'' ("Of arms and the man I sing").
The play was first produced on 21 April 1894 at the Aven ...
'', ''Richard III
Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...
'' and ''Uncle Vanya''. Olivier's roles were the Button Moulder, Sergius, Richard and Astrov; Richardson played Peer, Bluntschli, Richmond and Vanya. The first three productions met with acclaim from reviewers and audiences; ''Uncle Vanya'' had a mixed reception, although ''The Times'' thought Olivier's Astrov "a most distinguished portrait" and Richardson's Vanya "the perfect compound of absurdity and pathos". In ''Richard III'', according to Billington, Olivier's triumph was absolute: "so much so that it became his most frequently imitated performance and one whose supremacy went unchallenged until Antony Sher
Sir Antony Sher (14 June 1949 – 2 December 2021) was a British actor, writer and theatre director of South African origin. A two-time Laurence Olivier Award winner and a four-time nominee, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982 and ...
played the role forty years later". In 1945 the company toured Germany, where they were seen by many thousands of Allied servicemen; they also appeared at the Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state ...
theatre in Paris, the first foreign company to be given that honour. The critic Harold Hobson
Sir Harold Hobson CBE, (4 August 1904 – 12 March 1992) was an English drama critic and author.
Early life and education
Hobson was born in Thorpe Hesley near Rotherham then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He attended Sheffield Gramm ...
wrote that Richardson and Olivier quickly "made the Old Vic the most famous theatre in the Anglo-Saxon world."
The second season, in 1945, featured two double bills. The first consisted of ''Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2''. Olivier played the warrior Hotspur in the first and the doddering Justice Shallow in the second. He received good notices, but by general consent the production belonged to Richardson as Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', w ...
. In the second double bill it was Olivier who dominated, in the title roles of ''Oedipus Rex
''Oedipus Rex'', also known by its Greek title, ''Oedipus Tyrannus'' ( grc, Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, ), or ''Oedipus the King'', is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed around 429 BC. Originally, to the ancient Gr ...
'' and ''The Critic
''The Critic'' was an American primetime adult animated sitcom revolving around the life of New York film critic Jay Sherman, voiced by Jon Lovitz. It was created by writing partners Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who had previously worked as writers a ...
''. In the two one-act plays his switch from searing tragedy and horror in the first half to farcical comedy in the second impressed most critics and audience members, though a minority felt that the transformation from Sophocles
Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or co ...
's bloodily blinded hero to Sheridan's vain and ludicrous Mr Puff "smacked of a quick-change turn in a music hall". After the London season the company played both the double bills and ''Uncle Vanya'' in a six-week run on Broadway.
The third, and final, London season under the triumvirate was in 1946–47. Olivier played King Lear, and Richardson took the title role in ''Cyrano de Bergerac
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist.
A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...
''. Olivier would have preferred the roles to be reversed, but Richardson did not wish to attempt Lear. Olivier's Lear received good but not outstanding reviews. In his scenes of decline and madness towards the end of the play some critics found him less moving than his finest predecessors in the role. The influential critic James Agate
James Evershed Agate (9 September 1877 – 6 June 1947) was an English diarist and theatre critic between the two world wars. He took up journalism in his late twenties and was on the staff of ''The Manchester Guardian'' in 1907–1914. He later ...
suggested that Olivier used his dazzling stage technique to disguise a lack of feeling, a charge that the actor strongly rejected, but which was often made throughout his later career. During the run of ''Cyrano'', Richardson was knighted
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
, to Olivier's undisguised envy. The younger man received the accolade six months later, by which time the days of the triumvirate were numbered. The high profile of the two star actors did not endear them to the new chairman of the Old Vic governors, Lord Esher
Viscount Esher, of Esher in the County of Surrey, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 11 November 1897 for the prominent lawyer and judge William Brett, 1st Baron Esher, upon his retirement as Master of the Rolls ...
. He had ambitions to be the first head of the National Theatre and had no intention of letting actors run it. He was encouraged by Guthrie, who, having instigated the appointment of Richardson and Olivier, had come to resent their knighthoods and international fame.
In January 1947 Olivier began working on his second film as a director, ''Hamlet'' (1948), in which he also took the lead role. The original play was heavily cut to focus on the relationships, rather than the political intrigue. The film became a critical and commercial success in Britain and abroad, although Lejeune, in ''The Observer'', considered it "less effective than livier'sstage work. ... He speaks the lines nobly, and with the caress of one who loves them, but he nullifies his own thesis by never, for a moment, leaving the impression of a man who cannot make up his own mind; here, you feel rather, is an actor-producer-director who, in every circumstance, knows exactly what he wants, and gets it". Campbell Dixon, the critic for ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' thought the film "brilliant ... one of the masterpieces of the stage has been made into one of the greatest of films." ''Hamlet'' became the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category ...
, while Olivier won the Award for Best Actor.
In 1948 Olivier led the Old Vic company on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand. He played Richard III, Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan's'' The School for Scandal
''The School for Scandal'' is a comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on 8 May 1777.
Plot
Act I
Scene I: Lady Sneerwell, a wealthy young widow, and her hireling Sna ...
'' and Antrobus in Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' — a ...
's ''The Skin of Our Teeth
''The Skin of Our Teeth'' is a play by Thornton Wilder that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It opened on October 15, 1942, at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on November 18, 194 ...
'', appearing alongside Leigh in the latter two plays. While Olivier was on the Australian tour and Richardson was in Hollywood, Esher terminated the contracts of the three directors, who were said to have "resigned". Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, (born 6 October 1939), is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is best known for his work with ITV as editor and presenter of ''The South Bank Show'' (1978–2010), and for the BBC Radio 4 documenta ...
in a 1984 study of Olivier, and John Miller in the authorised biography of Richardson, both comment that Esher's action put back the establishment of a National Theatre for at least a decade. Looking back in 1971, Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin (19 August 1928 – 7 August 2004) was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by ''The Times'' as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship t ...
wrote that the Old Vic company of 1944 to 1948 "was probably the most illustrious that has ever been assembled in this country". ''The Times'' said that the triumvirate's years were the greatest in the Old Vic's history; as ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' put it, "the governors summarily sacked them in the interests of a more mediocre company spirit".
Post-war (1948–1951)
By the end of the Australian tour, both Leigh and Olivier were exhausted and ill, and he told a journalist, "You may not know it, but you are talking to a couple of walking corpses." Later he would comment that he "lost Vivien" in Australia, a reference to Leigh's affair with the Australian actor Peter Finch
Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch (28 September 191614 January 1977) was an English-Australian actor of theatre, film and radio.
Born in London, he emigrated to Australia as a teenager and was raised in Sydney, where he worked in vaudeville ...
, whom the couple met during the tour. Shortly afterwards Finch moved to London, where Olivier auditioned him and put him under a long-term contract with Laurence Olivier Productions
Laurence Olivier Productions was a stage production company created by Laurence Olivier in the 1950s that also helped finance two films: ''Richard III (1955 film), Richard III'' and ''The Prince and the Showgirl''.
In 1948, while on tour in Austra ...
. Finch and Leigh's affair continued on and off for several years.
Although it was common knowledge that the Old Vic triumvirate had been dismissed, they refused to be drawn on the matter in public, and Olivier even arranged to play a final London season with the company in 1949, as Richard III, Sir Peter Teazle, and Chorus in his own production of Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh (; 23 June 1910 – 3 October 1987) was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1944 play ''Antigone'', an ad ...
's ''Antigone
In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & Roma ...
'' with Leigh in the title role. After that, he was free to embark on a new career as an actor-manager. In partnership with Binkie Beaumont
Hugh "Binkie" Beaumont (27 March 190822 March 1973) was a British theatre manager and producer, sometimes referred to as the "éminence grise" of the West End theatre. Though he shunned the spotlight so that his name was not known widely among ...
he staged the English premiere of Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...
's ''A Streetcar Named Desire
''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of person ...
'', with Leigh in the central role of Blanche DuBois. The play was condemned by most critics, but the production was a considerable commercial success, and led to Leigh's casting as Blanche in the 1951 film version. Gielgud, who was a devoted friend of Leigh's, doubted whether Olivier was wise to let her play the demanding role of the mentally unstable heroine: " lanchewas so very like her, in a way. It must have been a most dreadful strain to do it night after night. She would be shaking and white and quite distraught at the end of it."
The production company set up by Olivier took a lease on the St James's Theatre
The St James's Theatre was in King Street, St James's, London. It opened in 1835 and was demolished in 1957. The theatre was conceived by and built for a popular singer, John Braham; it lost money and after three seasons he retired. A succ ...
. In January 1950 he produced, directed and starred in Christopher Fry
Christopher Fry (18 December 1907 – 30 June 2005) was an English poet and playwright. He is best known for his verse dramas, especially ''The Lady's Not for Burning'', which made him a major force in theatre in the 1940s and 1950s.
Biograph ...
's verse play ''Venus Observed
''Venus Observed'' is a play in blank verse by the English dramatist and poet Christopher Fry. The play concerns a Duke who decides to remarry for a third time. He gets his son Edgar to pick the bride. The Duke likes Perpetua but Edgar wants her ...
''. The production was popular, despite poor reviews, but the expensive production did little to help the finances of Laurence Olivier Productions. After a series of box-office failures, the company balanced its books in 1951 with productions of Shaw
Shaw may refer to:
Places Australia
*Shaw, Queensland
Canada
*Shaw Street, a street in Toronto
England
*Shaw, Berkshire, a village
*Shaw, Greater Manchester, a location in the parish of Shaw and Crompton
*Shaw, Swindon, a List of United Kingdom ...
's '' Caesar and Cleopatra'' and Shakespeare's ''Antony and Cleopatra
''Antony and Cleopatra'' (First Folio title: ''The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The play was first performed, by the King's Men, at either the Blackfriars Theatre or the Globe Theatre in around ...
'' which the Oliviers played in London and then took to Broadway. Olivier was thought by some critics to be under par in both his roles, and some suspected him of playing deliberately below his usual strength so that Leigh might appear his equal. Olivier dismissed the suggestion, regarding it as an insult to his integrity as an actor. In the view of the critic and biographer W. A. Darlington, he was simply miscast both as Caesar and Antony, finding the former boring and the latter weak. Darlington comments, "Olivier, in his middle forties when he should have been displaying his powers at their very peak, seemed to have lost interest in his own acting". Over the next four years Olivier spent much of his time working as a producer, presenting plays rather than directing or acting in them. His presentations at the St James's included seasons by Ruggero Ruggeri
Ruggero Ruggeri (14 November 1871 – 20 July 1953) was an Italian stage and film actor. Ruggeri was a celebrated theatre actor, appearing alongside Lyda Borelli on stage in 1909.Dalle Vacche p.260 From 1914 onward he sporadically made films in ...
's company giving two Pirandello plays in Italian, followed by a visit from the Comédie-Française playing works by Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
, Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...
, Marivaux
Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (4 February 1688 – 12 February 1763), commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French playwright and novelist.
He is considered one of the most important French playwrights of the 18th century, writing nume ...
and Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay (; 11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.His names are often reversed "Louis Charles Alfred de Musset": see "(Louis Charles) Alfred de Musset" (bio), Biography.com, 2007 ...
in French. Darlington considers a 1951 production of ''Othello'' starring Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
as the pick of Olivier's productions at the theatre.
Independent actor-manager (1951–1954)
While Leigh made ''Streetcar'' in 1951, Olivier joined her in Hollywood to film ''Carrie
Carrie may refer to:
People
* Carrie (name), a female given name and occasionally a surname
Places in the United States
* Carrie, Kentucky, an unincorporated community
* Carrie, Virginia, an unincorporated community
* Carrie Glacier, Olympic Nati ...
'', based on the controversial novel ''Sister Carrie
''Sister Carrie'' (1900) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) about a young woman who moves to the big city where she starts realizing her own American Dream. She first becomes a mistress to men that she perceives as superior, but later ...
''; although the film was plagued by troubles, Olivier received warm reviews and a BAFTA nomination. Olivier began to notice a change in Leigh's behaviour, and he later recounted that "I would find Vivien sitting on the corner of the bed, wringing her hands and sobbing, in a state of grave distress; I would naturally try desperately to give her some comfort, but for some time she would be inconsolable." After a holiday with Coward in Jamaica, she seemed to have recovered, but Olivier later recorded, "I am sure that ... he doctorsmust have taken some pains to tell me what was wrong with my wife; that her disease was called manic depression and what that meant—a possibly permanent cyclical to-and-fro between the depths of depression and wild, uncontrollable mania. He also recounted the years of problems he had experienced because of Leigh's illness, writing, "throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness—an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."
In January 1953 Leigh travelled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to film ''Elephant Walk
''Elephant Walk'' is a 1954 American drama film produced by Paramount Pictures, directed by William Dieterle, and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Andrews, Peter Finch and Abraham Sofaer.It is based upon the 1948 novel ''Elephant Walk'' by "Robe ...
'' with Peter Finch. Shortly after filming started she suffered a breakdown, and returned to Britain where, between periods of incoherence, she told Olivier that she was in love with Finch, and had been having an affair with him; she gradually recovered over a period of several months. As a result of the breakdown, many of the Oliviers' friends learned of her problems. Niven said she had been "quite, quite mad", and in his diary, Coward expressed the view that "things had been bad and getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts."
For the Coronation
A coronation is the act of placement or bestowal of a coronation crown, crown upon a monarch's head. The term also generally refers not only to the physical crowning but to the whole ceremony wherein the act of crowning occurs, along with the ...
season of 1953, Olivier and Leigh starred in the West End in Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...
's Ruritania
Ruritania is a fictional country, originally located in central Europe as a setting for novels by Anthony Hope, such as ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1894). Nowadays the term connotes a quaint minor European country, or is used as a placeholder name f ...
n comedy, '' The Sleeping Prince''. It ran for eight months but was widely regarded as a minor contribution to the season, in which other productions included Gielgud in ''Venice Preserv'd
''Venice Preserv'd'' is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. It was first staged in 1682, with Thomas Betterton as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera. The ...
'', Coward in ''The Apple Cart
''The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza'' is a 1928 play by George Bernard Shaw. It is a satirical comedy about several political philosophies which are expounded by the characters, often in lengthy monologues. The plot follows the fictional ...
'' and Ashcroft and Redgrave in ''Antony and Cleopatra''.
Olivier directed his third Shakespeare film in September 1954, ''Richard III'' (1955), which he co-produced with Korda. The presence of four theatrical knights in the one film—Olivier was joined by Cedric Hardwicke
Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (19 February 1893 – 6 August 1964) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly 50 years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and ...
, Gielgud and Richardson—led an American reviewer to dub it "An-All-Sir-Cast". The critic for ''The Manchester Guardian'' described the film as a "bold and successful achievement", but it was not a box-office success, which accounted for Olivier's subsequent failure to raise the funds for a planned film of ''Macbeth''. He won a BAFTA award for the role and was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award, which Yul Brynner
Yuliy Borisovich Briner (russian: link=no, Юлий Борисович Бринер; July 11, 1920 – October 10, 1985), known professionally as Yul Brynner, was a Russian-born actor. He was best known for his portrayal of King Mongkut in the ...
won.[
]
Last productions with Leigh (1955–1956)
In 1955 Olivier and Leigh were invited to play leading roles in three plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) (originally called the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre) is a grade II* listed 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the English playwright and poet William Shakespea ...
, Stratford. They began with ''Twelfth Night'', directed by Gielgud, with Olivier as Malvolio and Leigh as Viola. Rehearsals were difficult, with Olivier determined to play his conception of the role despite the director's view that it was vulgar. Gielgud later commented:
The next production was ''Macbeth''. Reviewers were lukewarm about the direction by Glen Byam Shaw
Glencairn Alexander "Glen" Byam Shaw, CBE (13 December 1904 – 29 April 1986) was an English actor and theatre director, known for his dramatic productions in the 1950s and his operatic productions in the 1960s and later.
In the 1920s and 1930s ...
and the designs by Roger Furse
Roger Kemble Furse (11 September 1903 – 19 August 1972) was an English painter who worked as a costume designer and production designer for both stage and film.
Career
Roger Furse was the son of Lieutenant General Sir William Furse and Je ...
, but Olivier's performance in the title role attracted superlatives. To J. C. Trewin
John Courtenay Trewin (4 December 1908 – 16 February 1990) was a British journalist, writer and drama critic.
Trewin was born in Plymouth, Devon, although both his parents were Cornish. He was educated at Plymouth College and in 1926 joi ...
, Olivier's was "the finest Macbeth
''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...
of our day"; to Darlington it was "the best Macbeth of our time". Leigh's Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy '' Macbeth'' (). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes quee ...
received mixed but generally polite notices, although to the end of his life Olivier believed it to have been the best Lady Macbeth he ever saw.
In their third production of the 1955 Stratford season, Olivier played the title role in ''Titus Andronicus
''Titus Andronicus'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1588 and 1593, probably in collaboration with George Peele. It is thought to be Shakespeare's first tragedy and is often seen ...
'', with Leigh as Lavinia. Her notices in the part were damning, but the production by Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...
and Olivier's performance as Titus received the greatest ovation in Stratford history from the first-night audience, and the critics hailed the production as a landmark in post-war British theatre. Olivier and Brook revived the production for a continental tour in June 1957; its final performance, which closed the old Stoll Theatre Stoll is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Barbara J. Stoll, American pediatrician and professor
* Cal Stoll, American football coach
* Caspar Stoll, entomologist
* Clifford Stoll, American astronomer
* David Stoll, American an ...
in London, was the last time Leigh and Olivier acted together.
Leigh became pregnant in 1956 and withdrew from the production of Coward's comedy ''South Sea Bubble
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...
''. The day after her final performance in the play she miscarried and entered a period of depression that lasted for months. In the same year Olivier directed and co-starred with Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...
in a film version of ''The Sleeping Prince'', retitled ''The Prince and the Showgirl
''The Prince and the Showgirl'' (originally titled '' The Sleeping Prince'') is a 1957 British romantic comedy film starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier, who also served as director and producer. The screenplay written by Terence Rattig ...
''. Although the filming was challenging because of Monroe's behaviour, the film was appreciated by the critics.
Royal Court and Chichester (1957–1963)
During the production of ''The Prince and the Showgirl'', Olivier, Monroe and her husband, the American playwright Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' ( ...
, went to see the English Stage Company's production of John Osborne
John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his prose that criticized established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play ''Look Back in Anger'' tra ...
's ''Look Back in Anger
''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) is a realist play written by John Osborne. It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet i ...
'' at the Royal Court
A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word "court" may also be appl ...
. Olivier had seen the play earlier in the run and disliked it, but Miller was convinced that Osborne had talent, and Olivier reconsidered. He was ready for a change of direction; in 1981 he wrote:
Osborne was already at work on a new play, '' The Entertainer'', an allegory of Britain's post-colonial decline, centred on a seedy variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
comedian, Archie Rice. Having read the first act—all that was completed by then—Olivier asked to be cast in the part. He had for years maintained that he might easily have been a third-rate comedian called "Larry Oliver", and would sometimes play the character at parties. Behind Archie's brazen façade there is a deep desolation, and Olivier caught both aspects, switching, in the words of the biographer Anthony Holden
Anthony Holden (born 22 May 1947) is an English writer, broadcaster and critic, particularly known as a biographer of artists including Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky, the essayist Leigh Hunt, the opera librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte and the actor Laurenc ...
, "from a gleefully tacky comic routine to moments of the most wrenching pathos". Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones (1963 film ...
's production for the English Stage Company transferred from the Royal Court to the Palace Theatre Palace Theatre, or Palace Theater, is the name of many theatres in different countries, including:
Australia
*Palace Theatre, Melbourne, Victoria
*Palace Theatre, Sydney, New South Wales
Canada
*Palace Theatre, housed in the Robillard Block, Mo ...
in September 1957; after that it toured and returned to the Palace. The role of Archie's daughter Jean was taken by three actresses during the various runs. The second of them was Joan Plowright
Joan Ann Olivier, Baroness Olivier, (née Plowright; born 28 October 1929), professionally known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English retired actress whose career has spanned over seven decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Ton ...
, with whom Olivier began a relationship that endured for the rest of his life. Olivier said that playing Archie "made me feel like a modern actor again". In finding an ''avant-garde'' play that suited him, he was, as Osborne remarked, far ahead of Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, who did not successfully follow his lead for more than a decade. Their first substantial successes in works by any of Osborne's generation were Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and tw ...
's '' Forty Years On'' (Gielgud in 1968) and David Storey
David Malcolm Storey (13 July 1933 – 27 March 2017) was an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a professional rugby league player. He won the Booker Prize in 1976 for his novel ''Saville''. He also won the MacMillan ...
's ''Home
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...
'' (Richardson and Gielgud in 1970).
Olivier received another BAFTA nomination for his supporting role in 1959's '' The Devil's Disciple''.[ The same year, after a gap of two decades, Olivier returned to the role of Coriolanus, in a Stratford production directed by the 28-year-old Peter Hall. Olivier's performance received strong praise from the critics for its fierce athleticism combined with an emotional vulnerability. In 1960 he made his second appearance for the Royal Court company in Ionesco's absurdist play '']Rhinoceros
A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...
''. The production was chiefly remarkable for the star's quarrels with the director, Orson Welles, who according to the biographer Francis Beckett
Francis Beckett (born 12 May 1945) is an English author, journalist, biographer, and contemporary historian. He has written biographies of Aneurin Bevan, Clement Attlee, Harold Macmillan, Gordon BrownMichael Whit"Gordon the saint – mee ...
suffered the "appalling treatment" that Olivier had inflicted on Gielgud at Stratford five years earlier. Olivier again ignored his director and undermined his authority. In 1960 and 1961 Olivier appeared in Anouilh's ''Becket
''Becket or The Honour of God'' (french: Becket ou l'honneur de Dieu) is a 1959 play written in French by Jean Anouilh. It is a depiction of the conflict between Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England leading to Becket's assassination in 117 ...
'' on Broadway, first in the title role, with Anthony Quinn
Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001), known professionally as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican-American actor. He was known for his portrayal of earthy, passionate characters "marked by a brutal and elemental v ...
as the king, and later exchanging roles with his co-star.
Two films featuring Olivier were released in 1960. The first—filmed in 1959—was ''Spartacus
Spartacus ( el, Σπάρτακος '; la, Spartacus; c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising ...
'', in which he portrayed the Roman general, Marcus Licinius Crassus
Marcus Licinius Crassus (; 115 – 53 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. He is often called "the richest man in Rome." Wallechinsky, David & Wallace, I ...
. His second was '' The Entertainer'', shot while he was appearing in ''Coriolanus''; the film was well received by the critics, but not as warmly as the stage show had been. The reviewer for ''The Guardian'' thought the performances were good, and wrote that Olivier "on the screen as on the stage, achieves the tour de force of bringing Archie Rice ... to life". For his performance, Olivier was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also made an adaptation of ''The Moon and Sixpence
''The Moon and Sixpence'' is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, first published on 15 April 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator providing a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Stric ...
'' in 1960, winning an Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
.
The Oliviers' marriage was disintegrating during the late 1950s. While directing Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923April 5, 2008) was an American actor and political activist.
As a Hollywood star, he appeared in almost 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film ''The Ten C ...
in the 1960 play ''The Tumbler'', Olivier divulged that "Vivien is several thousand miles away, trembling on the edge of a cliff, even when she's sitting quietly in her own drawing room", at a time when she was threatening suicide. In May 1960 divorce proceedings started; Leigh reported the fact to the press and informed reporters of Olivier's relationship with Plowright. The decree nisi, decree ''nisi'' was issued in December 1960, which enabled him to marry Plowright in March 1961. A son, Richard, was born in December 1961; two daughters followed, Tamsin Agnes Margaret—born in January 1963—and actress Julie-Kate, born in July 1966.
In 1961 Olivier accepted the directorship of a new theatrical venture, the Chichester Festival. For the opening season in 1962 he directed two neglected 17th-century English plays, John Fletcher (playwright), John Fletcher's 1638 comedy ''The Chances'' and John Ford (dramatist), John Ford's 1633 tragedy ''The Broken Heart'', followed by ''Uncle Vanya''. The company he recruited was forty strong and included Thorndike, Casson, Redgrave, Athene Seyler, John Neville (actor), John Neville and Plowright. The first two plays were politely received; the Chekhov production attracted rapturous notices. ''The Times'' commented, "It is doubtful if the Moscow Arts Theatre itself could improve on this production." The second Chichester season the following year consisted of a revival of ''Uncle Vanya'' and two new productions—Shaw's ''Saint Joan (play), Saint Joan'' and John Arden's ''The Workhouse Donkey''. In 1963 Olivier received another BAFTA nomination for his leading role as a schoolteacher accused of sexually molesting a student in the film ''Term of Trial''.[
]
National Theatre
1963–1968
At around the time the Chichester Festival opened, plans for the creation of the National Theatre were coming to fruition. The British government agreed to release funds for a new building on the South Bank of the Thames. Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos, Lord Chandos was appointed chairman of the National Theatre Board in 1962, and in August Olivier accepted its invitation to be the company's first director. As his assistants, he recruited the directors John Dexter and William Gaskill, with Kenneth Tynan as literary adviser or "dramaturge". Pending the construction of the new theatre, the company was based at the Old Vic. With the agreement of both organisations, Olivier remained in overall charge of the Chichester Festival during the first three seasons of the National; he used the festivals of 1964 and 1965 to give preliminary runs to plays he hoped to stage at the Old Vic.
The opening production of the National Theatre was ''Hamlet'' in October 1963, starring Peter O'Toole and directed by Olivier. O'Toole was a guest star, one of occasional exceptions to Olivier's policy of casting productions from a regular company. Among those who made a mark during Olivier's directorship were Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi and Anthony Hopkins. It was widely remarked that Olivier seemed reluctant to recruit his peers to perform with his company. Evans, Gielgud and Paul Scofield guested only briefly, and Ashcroft and Richardson never appeared at the National during Olivier's time. Robert Stephens, a member of the company, observed, "Olivier's one great fault was a paranoid jealousy of anyone who he thought was a rival".
In his decade in charge of the National, Olivier acted in thirteen plays and directed eight. Several of the roles he played were minor characters, including a crazed butler in Georges Feydeau, Feydeau's ''A Flea in Her Ear'' and a pompous solicitor in Somerset Maugham, Maugham's ''Home and Beauty''; the vulgar soldier Captain Brazen in George Farquhar, Farquhar's 1706 comedy ''The Recruiting Officer'' was a larger role but not the leading one.
Apart from his Astrov in the ''Uncle Vanya'', familiar from Chichester, his first leading role for the National was Othello, directed by Dexter in 1964. The production was a box-office success and was revived regularly over the next five seasons. His performance divided opinion. Most of the reviewers and theatrical colleagues praised it highly; Franco Zeffirelli called it "an anthology of everything that has been discovered about acting in the past three centuries." Dissenting voices included ''The Sunday Telegraph'', which called it "the kind of bad acting of which only a great actor is capable ... near the frontiers of self-parody"; the director Jonathan Miller thought it "a condescending view of an Afro Caribbean person".[ The burden of playing this demanding part at the same time as managing the new company and planning for the move to the new theatre took its toll on Olivier. To add to his load, he felt obliged to take over as Solness in ''The Master Builder'' when the ailing Redgrave withdrew from the role in November 1964. For the first time Olivier began to suffer from stage fright, which plagued him for several years. The National Theatre production of ''Othello'' was released Othello (1965 British film), as a film in 1965, which earned four Academy Award nominations, including another for Best Actor for Olivier.]
During the following year Olivier concentrated on management, directing one production (''The Crucible''), taking the comic role of the foppish Tattle in William Congreve, Congreve's ''Love for Love'', and making one film, ''Bunny Lake is Missing'', in which he and Coward were on the same bill for the first time since ''Private Lives''. In 1966, his one play as director was ''Juno and the Paycock''. ''The Times'' commented that the production "restores one's faith in the work as a masterpiece". In the same year Olivier portrayed the Mahdi, opposite Heston as Charles George Gordon, General Gordon, in the film ''Khartoum (film), Khartoum''.
In 1967 Olivier was caught in the middle of a confrontation between Chandos and Tynan over the latter's proposal to stage Rolf Hochhuth's ''Rolf Hochhuth#Soldiers, Soldiers''. As the play speculatively depicted Churchill as complicit in the assassination of the Polish prime minister Władysław Sikorski, Chandos regarded it as indefensible. At his urging the board unanimously vetoed the production. Tynan considered resigning over this interference with the management's artistic freedom, but Olivier himself stayed firmly in place, and Tynan also remained. At about this time Olivier began a long struggle against a succession of illnesses. He was treated for prostate cancer and, during rehearsals for his production of Chekhov's ''Three Sisters (play), Three Sisters'' he was hospitalised with pneumonia. He recovered enough to take the heavy role of Edgar in August Strindberg, Strindberg's ''The Dance of Death (Strindberg), The Dance of Death'', the finest of all his performances other than in Shakespeare, in Gielgud's view.
1968–1974
Olivier had intended to step down from the directorship of the National Theatre at the end of his first five-year contract, having, he hoped, led the company into its new building. By 1968 because of bureaucratic delays construction work had not even begun, and he agreed to serve for a second five-year term. His next major role, and his last appearance in a Shakespeare play, was as Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' (c. 1600). A Venetian Jewish moneylender, Shylock is the play's principal antagonist. His defeat and conversion to Christianity form the climax of the ...
in ''The Merchant of Venice'', his first appearance in the work. He had intended Guinness or Scofield to play Shylock, but stepped in when neither was available. The production by Jonathan Miller, and Olivier's performance, attracted a wide range of responses. Two different critics reviewed it for ''The Guardian'': one wrote "this is not a role which stretches him, or for which he will be particularly remembered"; the other commented that the performance "ranks as one of his greatest achievements, involving his whole range".
In 1969 Olivier appeared in two war films, portraying military leaders. He played Field Marshal John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, French in the First World War film ''Oh! What a Lovely War'', for which he won another BAFTA award,[ followed by Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding, Hugh Dowding in ''Battle of Britain (film), Battle of Britain''. In June 1970 he became the first actor to be created a peer for services to the theatre.] Although he initially declined the honour, Harold Wilson, the incumbent prime minister, wrote to him, then invited him and Plowright to dinner, and persuaded him to accept.
After this Olivier played three more stage roles: James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's ''Long Day's Journey into Night'' (1971–72), Antonio in Eduardo de Filippo's ''Saturday, Sunday, Monday'' and John Tagg in Trevor Griffiths's ''The Party'' (both 1973–74). Among the roles he hoped to play, but could not because of ill-health, was Nathan Detroit in the musical ''Guys and Dolls''. In 1972 he took leave of absence from the National to star opposite Michael Caine in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's film of Anthony Shaffer (writer), Anthony Shaffer's ''Sleuth
Sleuth may refer to:
* Detective
*Sleuth, collective noun for a group of bears
Computing
* The Sleuth Kit, a collection of forensic analysis software
*SLEUTH assembler language for the UNIVAC 1107
Entertainment and media
*Cloo
Cloo (stylized ...
'', which ''The Illustrated London News'' considered to be "Olivier at his twinkling, eye-rolling best"; both he and Caine were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, losing to Marlon Brando in ''The Godfather''.
The last two stage plays Olivier directed were Jean Giradoux's ''Amphitryon 38, Amphitryon'' (1971) and Priestley's ''Eden End'' (1974). By the time of ''Eden End'', he was no longer director of the National Theatre; Peter Hall took over on 1 November 1973. The succession was tactlessly handled by the board, and Olivier felt that he had been eased out—although he had declared his intention to go—and that he had not been properly consulted about the choice of successor. The largest of the three theatres within the National's new building was named in his honour, but his only appearance on the stage of the Olivier Theatre was at its official opening by the Queen in October 1976, when he made a speech of welcome, which Hall privately described as the most successful part of the evening.
Later years (1975–1989)
Olivier spent the last 15 years of his life securing his finances and dealing with deteriorating health, which included thrombosis and dermatomyositis, a degenerative muscle disorder. Professionally, and to provide financial security, he made a series of advertisements for Polaroid Corporation, Polaroid cameras in 1972, although he stipulated that they must never be shown in Britain; he also took a number of cameo film roles, which were in "often undistinguished films", according to Billington. Olivier's move from leading parts to supporting and cameo roles came about because his poor health meant he could not get the necessary long insurance for larger parts, with only short engagements in films available.
Olivier's dermatomyositis meant he spent the last three months of 1974 in hospital, and he spent early 1975 slowly recovering and regaining his strength. When strong enough, he was contacted by the director John Schlesinger, who offered him the role of a Nazi torturer in the 1976 film '' Marathon Man''. Olivier shaved his pate and wore oversized glasses to enlarge the look of his eyes, in a role that the critic David Robinson (film critic), David Robinson, writing for ''The Times'', thought was "strongly played", adding that Olivier was "always at his best in roles that call for him to be seedy or nasty or both". Olivier was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and won the Golden Globe of the same category.
In the mid-1970s Olivier became increasingly involved in television work, a medium of which he was initially dismissive. In 1973 he provided the narration for a 26-episode documentary, ''The World at War'', which chronicled the events of the Second World War, and won a second Emmy Award for '' Long Day's Journey into Night'' (1973). In 1975 he won another Emmy for ''Love Among the Ruins Love Among the Ruins may refer to:
Literature
* "Love Among the Ruins" (poem), a poem by Robert Browning
* ''Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future'', a novel by Evelyn Waugh
* ''Love Among the Ruins'', a novel by Warwick Deeping
* ''L ...
''. The following year he appeared in adaptations of Tennessee Williams's ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. An adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", the play was written by him between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his p ...
'' and Harold Pinter's ''The Collection (play), The Collection''. Olivier portrayed the Pharisee Nicodemus in Franco Zeffirelli's 1977 miniseries ''Jesus of Nazareth (miniseries), Jesus of Nazareth''. In 1978 he appeared in the film '' The Boys from Brazil'', playing the role of Ezra Lieberman, an ageing Nazi hunter; he received his eleventh Academy Award nomination. Although he did not win the Oscar, he was presented with an Honorary Award for his lifetime achievement.
Olivier continued working in film into the 1980s, with roles in ''The Jazz Singer (1980 film), The Jazz Singer'' (1980), ''Inchon (film), Inchon'' (1981), ''The Bounty (1984 film), The Bounty'' (1984) and ''Wild Geese II'' (1985). He continued to work in television; in 1981 he appeared as Lord Marchmain in ''Brideshead Revisited
''Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder'' is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. It follows, from the 1920s to the early 1940s, the life and romances of the protagonist Charles ...
'', winning another Emmy, and the following year he received his tenth and last BAFTA nomination in the television adaptation of John Mortimer's stage play ''A Voyage Round My Father''.[ In 1983 he played his last Shakespearean role as Lear in '']King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare.
It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...
'', for Granada Television, earning his fifth Emmy. He thought the role of Lear much less demanding than other tragic Shakespearean heroes: "No, Lear is easy. He's like all of us, really: he's just a stupid old fart." When the production was first shown on American television, the critic Steve Vineberg wrote:
The same year he also appeared in a cameo alongside Gielgud and Richardson in ''Wagner (film), Wagner'', with Burton in the title role; his final screen appearance was as an elderly wheelchair-using soldier in Derek Jarman's 1989 film ''War Requiem (film), War Requiem''.
After being ill for the last 22 years of his life, Olivier died of kidney failure on 11 July 1989 aged 82 at his home near Steyning, West Sussex. His cremation was held three days later; his ashes were buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey during a memorial service in October that year.
Honours
Olivier was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1947 Birthday Honours for services to the stage and to films. A life peerage as Baron Olivier, of Brighton in the County of Sussex followed in the 1970 Birthday Honours for services to the theatre. Olivier was later appointed to the Order of Merit
The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by K ...
in 1981. He also received honours from foreign governments. In 1949 he was made Commander of the Danish Order of the Dannebrog; the French appointed him , Legion of Honour, in 1953; the Italian government created him , Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, in 1953; and in 1971 he was granted the Order of Yugoslav Flag with Golden Wreath.
Awards and memorials
From academic and other institutions, Olivier received honorary doctorates from Tufts University in Massachusetts (1946), University of Oxford, Oxford (1957) and University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (1964). He was also awarded the Danish Sonning Prize in 1966, the Gold Medallion of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities in 1968; and the Albert Medal (Royal Society of Arts), Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts in 1976.
For his work in films, Olivier received four Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
: an honorary award for ''Henry V'' (1947), a Best Actor award and one as producer for ''Hamlet'' (1948), and a second honorary award in 1979 to recognise his lifetime of contribution to the art of film. He was nominated for nine other acting Oscars and one each for production and direction. He also won two British Academy Film Awards
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cere ...
out of ten nominations, five Emmy Awards out of nine nominations, and three Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
s out of six nominations. He was nominated once for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, Tony Award (for best actor, as Archie Rice) but did not win.
In February 1960, for his contribution to the film industry, Olivier was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with a star at 6319 Hollywood Boulevard; he is included in the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 1977 Olivier was awarded a British Film Institute Fellowship.
In addition to the naming of the National Theatre's largest auditorium in Olivier's honour, he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known as ...
, bestowed annually since 1984 by the Society of London Theatre
The Society of London Theatre (SOLT) is an umbrella organisation for West End theatre in London. Founded in 1908, as Society of West End Theatre Managers, then Society of West End Theatre in 1975, changing to its current name in 1994, the (SOLT) ...
. In 1991 Gielgud unveiled a memorial stone commemorating Olivier in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. In 2007, the centenary of Olivier's birth, a life-sized statue of him was unveiled on the South Bank, outside the National Theatre; the same year the BFI held a retrospective season of his film work.
Technique and reputation
Olivier's acting technique was minutely crafted, and he was known for changing his appearance considerably from role to role. By his own admission, he was addicted to extravagant make-up, and unlike Richardson and Gielgud, he excelled at different voices and accents. His own description of his technique was "working from the outside in"; he said, "I can never act as myself, I have to have a pillow up my jumper, a false nose or a moustache or wig... I cannot come on looking like me and be someone else." Rattigan described how at rehearsals Olivier "built his performance slowly and with immense application from a mass of tiny details". This attention to detail had its critics: Agate remarked, "When I look at a watch it is to see the time and not to admire the mechanism. I want an actor to tell me Lear's time of day and Olivier doesn't. He bids me watch the wheels go round."
Tynan remarked to Olivier, "you aren't really a contemplative or philosophical actor"; Olivier was known for the strenuous physicality of his performances in some roles. He told Tynan this was because he was influenced as a young man by Douglas Fairbanks, Ramon Navarro and John Barrymore in films, and Barrymore on stage as Hamlet: "tremendously athletic. I admired that greatly, all of us did. ... One thought of oneself, idiotically, skinny as I was, as a sort of Tarzan." According to Morley, Gielgud was widely considered "the best actor in the world from the neck up and Olivier from the neck down." Olivier described the contrast thus: "I've always thought that we were the reverses of the same coin... the top half John, all spirituality, all beauty, all abstract things; and myself as all earth, blood, humanity."
Together with Richardson and Gielgud, Olivier was internationally recognised as one of the "great trinity of theatrical knights" who dominated the British stage during the middle and later decades of the 20th century. In an obituary tribute in ''The Times'', Bernard Levin wrote, "What we have lost with Laurence Olivier is ''glory''. He reflected it in his greatest roles; indeed he walked clad in it—you could practically see it glowing around him like a nimbus.... no one will ever play the roles he played as he played them; no one will replace the splendour that he gave his native land with his genius." Billington commented:
After Olivier's death, Gielgud reflected, "He followed in the theatrical tradition of Kean and Irving. He respected tradition in the theatre, but he also took great delight in breaking tradition, which is what made him so unique. He was gifted, brilliant, and one of the great controversial figures of our time in theatre, which is a virtue and not a vice at all."
Olivier said in 1963 that he believed he was born to be an actor, but his colleague Peter Ustinov disagreed; he commented that although Olivier's great contemporaries were clearly predestined for the stage, "Larry could have been a notable ambassador, a considerable minister, a redoubtable cleric. At his worst, he would have acted the parts more ably than they are usually lived." The director David Ayliff agreed that acting did not come instinctively to Olivier as it did to his great rivals. He observed, "Ralph was a natural actor, he couldn't stop being a perfect actor; Olivier did it through sheer hard work and determination." The American actor William Redfield (actor), William Redfield had a similar view:
In comparing Olivier and the other leading actors of his generation, Ustinov wrote, "It is of course vain to talk of who is and who is not the greatest actor. There is simply no such thing as a greatest actor, or painter or composer". Nonetheless, some colleagues, particularly film actors such as Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, came to regard Olivier as the finest of his peers. Peter Hall, though acknowledging Olivier as the head of the theatrical profession, thought Richardson the greater actor. Olivier's claim to theatrical greatness lay not only in his acting, but as, in Hall's words, "the supreme man of the theatre of our time", pioneering Britain's National Theatre. As Bragg identified, "no one doubts that the National is perhaps his most enduring monument".
Stage roles and filmography
See also
*Laurence Olivier Awards
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known as ...
*List of British Academy Award nominees and winners
*List of actors with Academy Award nominations
*List of actors with two or more Academy Award nominations in acting categories
*List of actors with two or more Academy Awards in acting categories
Notes and references
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Laurence Olivier Archive
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Olivier, Laurence
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