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Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907 – 11 July
1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English
actor, director, and producer. Olivier's Academy acknowledgments are
considerable—fourteen Oscar nominations, with two wins for Best Actor and Best
Picture for the 1948 film Hamlet, and two honorary awards including a statuette and
certificate. He was also awarded five Emmy awards from the nine nominations he
received.
Olivier's career as a stage and film actor spanned more than six decades and
included a wide variety of roles, from Shakespeare's Othello and Sir Toby Belch to
the sadistic Nazi dentist Christian Szell in Marathon Man. A High Church
clergyman's son who found fame on the West End stage, Olivier became determined
early on to master Shakespeare, and eventually came to be regarded as one of the
foremost Shakespeare interpreters of the 20th century. He continued to act until
his death in 1989. Olivier played more than 120 stage roles, including: Richard
III, Macbeth, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Uncle Vanya, and Archie Rice in The
Entertainer. He appeared in nearly sixty films, including William Wyler's Wuthering
Heights, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Otto Preminger's
Bunny Lake is Missing, Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War, Joseph L.
Mankiewicz's Sleuth, John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, Daniel Petrie's The Betsy,
Desmond Davis' Clash of the Titans, and his own Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III.
He also preserved his Othello on film, with its stage cast virtually intact. For
television, he starred in The Moon and Sixpence, John Gabriel Borkman, Long Day's
Journey into Night, The Merchant of Venice, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and King Lear,
among others.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Olivier among the Greatest Male Stars of
All Time, at fourteen on the list.
 Early
life
Olivier was born in 1907 in Dorking, Surrey. He was raised in a severe, strict, and
religious household, ruled over by his father, Gerard Kerr Olivier (1869–1939), a
High Anglican priest. Young Laurence took solace in the care of his mother, Agnes
Louise Crookenden (1871–1920), and was grief-stricken when she died (at 48) when he
was only 12. Richard and Sybille were his two older siblings.
In 1918 his father became the new church minister at St. Mary's Church, Letchworth,
Hertfordshire and the family lived at the Old Rectory, now part of St Christopher
School. He performed at the St. Christopher School Theatre, in December 1924 in
Through the Crack (unknown author) as understudy and assistant stage manager, and
in April 1925 he played Lennox in Shakespeare's Macbeth and was assistant stage
manager.
He was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford, and, at 15, played Katherine in his
school's production of The Taming of the Shrew, to rave reviews. After his brother,
Richard, left for India, it was his father who decided that Laurence — or "Kim", as
the family called him — would become an actor.
Early
career
Olivier then attended the Central School of Dramatic Art at the age of 17. In 1926,
he joined The Birmingham Repertory Company. At first he was given only paltry tasks
at the theatre, such as being the bell-ringer; however, his roles eventually became
more significant, and in 1937 he was playing roles such as Hamlet and Macbeth.
Throughout his career he insisted that his acting was pure technique, and he was
contemptuous of contemporaries who adopted the 'Method' popularized by Lee
Strasberg. Olivier met and married Jill Esmond, a rising young actress, on July 25,
1930 and had one son, Tarquin, born in 1936.
Olivier was not happy in his first marriage from the beginning, however. Repressed,
as he came to see it, by his religious upbringing, Olivier recounted in his
autobiography the disappointments of his wedding night, culminating in his failure
to perform sexually. He renounced religion forever and soon came to resent his
wife, though the marriage would last for ten years.
He made his film debut in The Temporary Widow, and played his first leading role on
film in The Yellow Ticket; however, he held film in little regard. His stage
breakthroughs were in Noel Coward's Private Lives in 1930, and in Romeo and Juliet
in 1935, alternating the roles of Romeo and Mercutio with John Gielgud. Olivier did
not agree with Gielgud's style of acting Shakespeare and was irritated by the fact
that Gielgud was getting better reviews than he was. His tension towards Gielgud
came to a head in 1940, when Olivier approached London impresario Binkie Beaumont
about financing him in a repertory of the four great Shakespearean tragedies of
Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear, but Beaumont would only agree to the plan
if Olivier and Gielgud alternated in the roles of Hamlet/Laertes, Othello/Iago,
Macbeth/Macduff, and Lear/Gloucester and that Gielgud direct at least one of the
productions, a proposition Olivier bluntly declined.
The engagement as Romeo resulted in an invitation by Lilian Baylis to be the star
at the Old Vic Theatre in 1937/38. Olivier's tenure had mixed artistic results,
with his performances as Hamlet and Iago drawing a negative response from critics
and his first attempt at Macbeth receiving mixed reviews. But his appearances as
Henry V, Coriolanus, and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night were triumphs, and his
popularity with Old Vic audiences left Olivier as one of the major Shakespearean
actors in England by the season's end.
Olivier continued to hold his scorn for film, and though he constantly worked for
Alexander Korda, he still felt most at home on the stage. He made his first
Shakespeare film, As You Like It, with Paul Czinner, however, Olivier disliked it,
thinking that Shakespeare did not work well on film.
Vivien
Leigh
Olivier with his future second wife, Vivien Leigh, in Fire Over England
(1937)Laurence Olivier saw Vivien Leigh in The Mask of Virtue in 1936, and a
friendship developed after he congratulated her on her performance. While playing
lovers in the film Fire Over England (1937), Olivier and Leigh developed a strong
attraction, and after filming was completed, they began an affair.
Leigh played Ophelia to Olivier's Hamlet in an Old Vic Theatre production, and
Olivier later recalled an incident during which her mood rapidly changed as she was
quietly preparing to go onstage. Without apparent provocation, she began screaming
at him, before suddenly becoming silent and staring into space. She was able to
perform without mishap, and by the following day, she had returned to normal with
no recollection of the event. It was the first time Olivier witnessed such
behaviour from her.
Olivier travelled to Hollywood to begin filming Wuthering Heights as Heathcliff.
Leigh followed soon after, partly to be with him, but also to pursue her dream of
playing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Olivier found the filming of
Wuthering Heights to be difficult but it proved to be a turning point for him, both
in his success in the United States, which had eluded him until then, but also in
his attitude to film, which he had regarded as an inferior medium to theatre. The
film's producer, Samuel Goldwyn was highly dissatisfied with Olivier's overstated
performance after several weeks of filming and threatened to dismiss him. Olivier
had grown to regard the film's female lead, Merle Oberon, as an amateur; however,
when he stated his opinion to Goldwyn, he was reminded that Oberon was the star of
the film and already a well-known name in American cinema. Olivier was told that he
was dispensible and that he was required to be more tolerant of Oberon. Olivier
recalled that he took Goldwyn's words to heart, but after some consideration
realized that he was correct; he began to moderate his performance to fit the more
intimate film medium and began to appreciate the possibilities it offered. He later
acknowledged that he was influenced by the director William Wyler, with whom he had
frequently clashed during the early days of filming.
The film was a hit and Olivier was praised for his performance, and was nominated
for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Leigh won the Academy Award for Best Actress
for Gone with the Wind, and the couple suddenly found themselves to be major
celebrities throughout the world. They wanted to marry, but both Leigh's husband
and Olivier's wife at the time, Jill Esmond, at first, refused to divorce them.
Finally divorced, they were married on 31 August 1940.
Olivier's American film career flourished with highly regarded performances in
Rebecca (1940) and Pride and Prejudice (1941).
Olivier and Leigh starred in a theater production of Romeo and Juliet in New York
City. It was an extravagant production, but a commercial failure. Brooks Atkinson
for The New York Times wrote, "Although Miss Leigh and Mr Olivier are handsome
young people they hardly act their parts at all." The couple had invested almost
their entire savings into the project, and its failure was a financial disaster for
them.
They filmed That Hamilton Woman (1941) with Olivier as Horatio Nelson and Leigh as
Emma Hamilton. With Britain engaged in World War II, the Oliviers returned to
England, and in 1944 Leigh was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in her left lung,
but after spending several weeks in hospital, she appeared to be cured. In spring
she was filming Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) when she discovered she was pregnant,
but suffered a miscarriage. She fell into a deep depression which reached its nadir
when she turned on Olivier, verbally and physically attacking him until she fell to
the floor sobbing. This was the first of many major breakdowns related to
manic-depression, or bipolar mood disorder. Olivier came to recognise the symptoms
of an impending episode – several days of hyperactivity followed by a period of
depression and an explosive breakdown, after which Leigh would have no memory of
the event, but would be acutely embarrassed and remorseful.
In 1947 Olivier was knighted and by 1948 he was on the Board of Directors for the
Old Vic Theatre, and he and Leigh embarked on a tour of Australia and New Zealand
to raise funds for the theatre. During their six-month tour, Olivier performed
Richard III and also performed with Leigh in The School for Scandal and The Skin of
Our Teeth. The tour was an outstanding success, and although Leigh was plagued with
insomnia and allowed her understudy to replace her for a week while she was ill,
she generally withstood the demands placed upon her, with Olivier noting her
ability to "charm the press". Members of the company later recalled several
quarrels between the couple, with the most dramatic of these occurring in
Christchurch when Leigh refused to go on stage. Olivier slapped her face, and Leigh
slapped him in return and swore at him before she made her way to the stage. By the
end of the tour, both were exhausted and ill, and Olivier 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.
The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first West End
appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, Antigone,
included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a tragedy.
Leigh next sought the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of
Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and was cast after Williams and the
play's producer Irene Mayer Selznick saw her in the The School for Scandal and
Antigone, and Olivier was contracted to direct.
In 1951, Leigh and Olivier performed two plays about Cleopatra, William
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra,
alternating the play each night and winning good reviews. They took the productions
to New York, where they performed a season at the Ziegfeld Theatre into 1952. The
reviews there were also mostly positive, but the critic Kenneth Tynan angered them
when he suggested that Leigh's was a mediocre talent which forced Olivier to
compromise his own. Tynan's diatribe almost precipitated another collapse; Leigh,
terrified of failure and intent on achieving greatness, dwelt on his comments,
while ignoring the positive reviews of other critics.
In January 1953 Leigh travelled to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk with Peter Finch.
Shortly after filming commenced, she suffered a breakdown, and Paramount Studios
replaced her with Elizabeth Taylor. Olivier returned her to their home in England,
where between periods of incoherence, Leigh told him 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 this episode, many of the Oliviers'
friends learnt of her problems. David Niven said she had been "quite, quite mad",
and in his diary Noël Coward expressed surprise that "things had been bad and
getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts."
Leigh recovered sufficiently to play The Sleeping Prince with Olivier in 1953, and
in 1955 they performed a season at Stratford-upon-Avon in Shakespeare's Twelfth
Night, Macbeth and Titus Andronicus. They played to capacity houses and attracted
generally good reviews, Leigh's health seemingly stable. Noël Coward was enjoying
success with the play South Sea Bubble, with Leigh in the lead role, but she became
pregnant and withdrew from the production. Several weeks later, she miscarried and
entered a period of depression that lasted for months. She joined Olivier for a
European tour with Titus Andronicus, but the tour was marred by Leigh's frequent
outbursts against Olivier and other members of the company. After their return to
London, her former husband Leigh Holman, who continued to exert a strong influence
over her, stayed with the Oliviers and helped calm her.
In 1958, considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with the
actor Jack Merivale, who knew of Leigh's medical condition and assured Olivier he
would care for her. She achieved a success in 1959 with the Noël Coward comedy Look
After Lulu, with The Times critic describing her as "beautiful, delectably cool and
matter of fact, she is mistress of every situation."
In December 1960 she and Olivier divorced, and Olivier married the actress Joan
Plowright. In his autobiography he discussed the years of problems they 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."
War
When World War II broke out, Olivier intended to join the Royal Air Force, but was
still contractually obliged to other parties. He apparently disliked actors such as
Charles Laughton and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, who would hold charity cricket matches
to help the war effort. Olivier took flying lessons, and racked up over 200 hours.
After two years of service, he rose to the rank Lieutenant Olivier RNVR, as a pilot
in the Fleet Air Arm but was never called to see action.
In 1944 he and fellow actor Ralph Richardson were released from their naval
commitments to form a new Old Vic Theatre Company at the New Theatre (later the
Albery, now the Noel Coward Theatre) with a nightly repertory of three plays,
initially Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man and
Shakespeare's Richard III (which would become Olivier's signature role), rehearsed
over 10 weeks to the accompaniment of German V1 ‘doodlebugs’. The enterprise, with
John Burrell as manager, eventually extended to five acclaimed seasons ending in
1949, after a prestigious 1948 tour of Australia and New Zealand, which included
Vivien Leigh in productions of Richard III, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's School for
Scandal, and Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth.
The second New Theatre season opened with Olivier playing both Harry Hotspur and
Justice Shallow to Richardson’s Falstaff in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, in what is now
seen as a high point of English classical theatre. The magic continued with one of
Olivier's most famous endeavours, the double bill of Sophocles' Oedipus and
Sheridan's The Critic, with Olivier's transition from Greek tragedy to high comedy
in a single evening becoming a thing of legend. He followed this triumph with one
of his favorite roles, Astrov in Uncle Vanya. Kenneth Tynan was to write (in He Who
Plays the King, 1950): ‘The Old Vic was now at its height: the watershed had been
reached and one of those rare moments in the theatre had arrived when drama paused,
took stock of all that it had learnt since Irving, and then produced a monument in
celebration. It is surprising when one considers it, that English acting should
have reached up and seized a laurel crown in the middle of a war.’
In 1945 Olivier and Richardson were made honorary Lieutenants with ENSA, and did a
six-week tour of Europe for the army, performing Arms and the Man, Peer Gynt and
Richard III for the troops, followed by a visit to the Comédie-Française in Paris,
the first time a foreign company had been invited to play on its famous stage. When
Olivier returned to London the populace noticed a change in him. Olivier's only
explanation was: "Maybe it's just that I've got older."
SOE
A new biography of Olivier written by Michael Munn (titled Lord Larry) claims that
in 1940, while still in America Olivier was recruited by Special Operations
Executive as a agent to build support in the United States for Britian's war with
Nazi Germany. According to the book Olivier was recruited by film producer and MI5
operative Alexander Korda on the instructions of Winston Churchill.
According to an article in The Telegraph, David Niven a good friend of Olivier's is
said to have told Michael Munn, "What was dangerous for his country was that
(Olivier) could have been accused of being an agent. This sounds ludicrous now in
the light of history, but before America was brought into the war it didn't
tolerate foreign agents.
"So this was a danger for Larry because he could have been arrested. And what was
worse, if German agents had realised what Larry was doing, they would, I am sure,
have gone after him."
Prof M R D Foot, a leading authority on the Special Operations Executive and a
former World War II intelligence officer, described Mr Munn's claims as "perfectly
plausible".
Shakespeare
trilogy
After gaining widespread popularity in the film medium, Olivier was approached by
several investors (namely Filippo Del Giudice, Alexander Korda and J. Arthur Rank),
to create several Shakespearean films, based on stage productions of each
respective play. Olivier tried his hand at directing, and as a result, created
three highly successful films: Henry V, Hamlet and Richard III.
Henry
V
Olivier made his directorial debut with a film of Shakespeare's Henry V. At first,
he did not believe he was up to the task, instead trying to offer it to William
Wyler, Carol Reed, and Terence Young. The film was shot in Ireland (due to the fact
that it was neutral), with the Irish plains having to double for the fields of
Agincourt. During the shooting of one of the battle scenes, a horse collided with a
camera that Olivier was attending. Olivier had had his eye to the viewfinder, and
when the horse crashed into his position, the camera smashed into him, cutting his
lip, and leaving a scar that would be prominent in later roles.
The film opened to rave reviews, despite Olivier's initial reluctance. It was the
first widely successful Shakespeare film, and was considered a work of art by many.
The film received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor, but the
Academy, in Olivier's opinion, did not feel comfortable in giving out all of their
major awards to a foreigner, so they gave him a special Honorary Award. Olivier
disregarded the award as a "fob-off".
Hamlet
Olivier followed up on his success with an adaptation of Hamlet. He had played this
role more often than he had Henry, and was more familiar with the melancholy Dane.
However, Olivier was not particularly comfortable with the introverted role of
Hamlet, as opposed to the extroverts that he was famous for portraying. The running
time of Hamlet (1948) was not allowed to exceed 153 minutes, and as a result
Olivier cut almost half of Shakespeare's text. He was severely criticized for doing
so by purists, most notably Ethel Barrymore; Barrymore stated that the adaptation
was not nearly as faithful to the original text as her brother John's stage
production from 1922. Ironically, Ethel presented the Best Picture Oscar that
year--and was visibly shaken when she read,"Hamlet".
The film became another resounding critical and commercial success in Britain and
abroad, winning Olivier Best Picture and Best Actor at the 1948 Academy Awards. It
was the first British film to win Best Picture, and Olivier's only Best Actor win,
a category he would be nominated for five more times before his death. Olivier also
became the first person to direct himself in an Oscar-winning performance, a feat
not repeated until Roberto Benigni directed himself to Best Actor in 1999 for Life
Is Beautiful. Also, Olivier remains the only actor to receive an Oscar for
Shakespeare. Olivier, however, did not win the Best Director Oscar that year,
preventing what would have almost been a clean sweep of all the major awards for
which the film was nominated.
Richard
III
Olivier's third major Shakespeare project as director and star was Richard III.
Alexander Korda initially approached Olivier to reprise on film the role he had
played to acclaim at the Old Vic in the 1940s. This role had been lauded as
Olivier's greatest (rivaled only by his 1955 stage production of Macbeth and his
performance as the broken down Music Hall performer Archie Rice in The
Entertainer), and is arguably considered to be his greatest screen performance.
During the filming of the battle scenes in Spain, one of the archers actually shot
Olivier in the ankle, causing him to limp. Fortunately, the limp was required for
the part, so Olivier had already been limping for the parts of the film already
shot.
Although the film was critically well received, it was a financial failure. Korda
sold the rights to the American television network NBC, and the film became the
first to be aired on television and released in theatres simultaneously. Many
deduce that from the enormous ratings that the NBC transmissions received, more
people saw Richard III in that single showing than all the people who had seen it
on stage in the play's history.
Macbeth
Macbeth was supposed to have been Olivier's next Shakespeare film. However, due to
Richard III's dismal box-office performance, along with the deaths of Alexander
Korda and Mike Todd, the film would never be made. Olivier cited this as his
biggest disappointment, as his 1955 performance as Macbeth at the Shakespeare
Memorial Theatre had been praised as one of the all-time great performances. He had
originally planned to film it in 1948 instead of Hamlet, but Orson Welles was
making his own film of Macbeth at the time which would reach theatres first, so
Olivier chose to film Hamlet instead.
The
Entertainer
Since the end of World War II, apart from his Shakespeare trilogy, Olivier had made
only sporadic film appearances.
In the second half of the 1950s, British theatre was changing with the rise of the
"Angry Young Men". John Osborne, author of Look Back in Anger wrote a play for
Olivier entitled The Entertainer, centred on a washed-up stage comedian called
Archie Rice, which opened at the Royal Court on 10 April 1957. As Olivier later
stated, "I am Archie Rice. I am not Hamlet."
During rehearsals of The Entertainer, Olivier met Joan Plowright who took over the
role of Jean Rice from Dorothy Tutin when Tony Richardson's Royal Court production
transferred to the Palace Theatre in September 1957. Later, in 1960, Tony
Richardson also directed the screen version with Olivier and Plowright repeating
their stage roles.
He left Vivien Leigh for Plowright, a decision that apparently gave him a sense of
guilt for the rest of his life. Olivier married Plowright on St. Patrick's Day,
1961, finally providing him with domestic stability and happiness. Leigh died in
1967.
National
Theatre
Olivier was one of the founders of the National Theatre. He became first NT
Director at the Old Vic before the South Bank building was constructed with his
opening production of Hamlet in October 1963.
During his directorship he appeared in twelve plays (taking over roles in three)
and directed nine. However, his career at the National ended, in his view, in
betrayal and tragedy.
Later
career
Famous throughout his career for his commitment to his art, Olivier immersed
himself even more completely in his work during his later years, reportedly as a
way of distracting himself from the guilt he felt at having left his second wife
Vivien Leigh. He began appearing more frequently in films, usually in character
parts rather than the leading romantic roles of his early career, and received
Academy Award nominations for Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976) and The Boys from
Brazil (1978). Having been recently forced out of his role as director of the Royal
National Theatre, he worried that his family would not be sufficiently provided for
in the event of his death, and consequently chose to do many of his later TV
special and film appearances on a "pay cheque" basis. He later freely admitted that
he was not proud of most of these credits, and noted that he particularly despised
the 1982 film Inchon, in which he played the role of General Douglas McArthur.
In 1967 Olivier underwent radiation treatment for prostate cancer, and was also
hospitalised with pneumonia. For the remainder of his life, he would suffer from
many different health problems, including bronchitis, amnesia and pleurisy. In 1974
he was diagnosed with a degenerative muscle disorder, and nearly died the following
year, but he battled through the next decade, earning money in case of financial
disaster. This explains why Olivier took all the work he could get, so his family
would be financially secure after his death. It also explains his appearance in the
1982 film Inchon, widely considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.
One of Olivier's enduring achievements involved neither stage nor screentime. In
1974, UK Thames Television released The World at War, an exhaustive 26-part
documentary on the Second World War to which Olivier, with some reluctance, lent
his voice. His narration serves as the so-called "voice of God", surveying with
deep lament the devastation as it unfolds. Olivier does however make an appearance
just before the episode "Genocide" to warn the viewer of the episode contains
disturbing scenes and warns that this must not happen again.
When presenting the Best Picture Oscar in 1985, he absent-mindedly presented it by
simply stepping up to the microphone and saying "Amadeus". He had grown forgetful,
and had forgotten to read out the nominees first.
In 1986, Olivier appeared as the pre-filmed holographic narrator of the West End
production of the multi-media Dave Clark rock musical Time.
He died of cancer in Steyning, West Sussex, England, in 1989 at the age of 82. He
left his son from his first marriage, as well as his wife and their three children.
Lord Olivier's body was cremated, his ashes interred in Poets' Corner in
Westminster Abbey, London. Only two actors have been accorded this honour, with
David Garrick being the first in 1779.
Fifteen years after his death, Olivier once again received star billing in a movie.
Through the use of computer graphics, footage of him as a young man was integrated
into the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in which Olivier "played"
the villain.
Since Olivier's death, multiple biographers have produced books about him, several
of which include the claim that Olivier was bisexual.
Joan Plowright has said, "I have always resented the comments that it was I who was
the homewrecker of Larry's marriage to Vivien Leigh. Danny Kaye was attached to
Larry far earlier than I.," in reference to biographer Donald Spoto's claim that
Kaye and Olivier were lovers. According to Sir Noel Coward, sexually speaking,
Olivier had "a puppy-like acquiescence to all experiences", as quoted by friend the
late Michael Thornton. Terry Coleman's authorised biography of Olivier suggests a
relationship between Olivier and an older actor, Henry Ainley, based on
correspondence from Ainley to Olivier although the book disputes that there is any
evidence linking Olivier sexually to Kaye. Olivier's son Tarquin disputed this as
'unforgivable garbage'. and sought to suppress them, leading Dame Joan Plowright to
privately state that "a man who had been to Eton and in the Guards might be
expected to be a little more broad-minded". In August 2006, on the radio program
Desert Island Discs, Plowright responded to the question of Oliver's alleged
bisexuality by stating: "If a man is touched by genius, he is not an ordinary
person. He doesn't lead an ordinary life. He has extremes of behaviour which you
understand and you just find a way not to be swept overboard by his demons. You
kind of stand apart. You continue your own work and your absorption in the family.
And those other things finally don't matter."
Honours
Olivier was the founding director of the Chichester Festival Theatre (1962–1966)
and of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain (1962–1973) for which he
received his life peerage. He was knighted in 1947, and created a life peer in 1970
as Baron Olivier, of Brighton in the County of Sussex, the first actor to be
accorded this distinction. He was admitted to the Order of Merit in 1981. The
Laurence Olivier Awards, organised by The Society of London Theatre, were renamed
in his honour in 1984. Though he was a Life Peer and one of the most respected
personalities in the industry, Olivier insisted that one should address him as
"Larry", and he simply would not listen to anyone addressing him with honorifics
such as "Lord", and "Sir".
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Laurence Olivier
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