In the spotlight…..

1907-  1987       Laurence Olivier

                                                          
                                
“I don’t know who I am. I have played two hundred
characters in my life and I know them all better
than I know myself.”

He played Brutus in “Julius Caesar” at age 9 to the utter amazement of prominent British actress Dame Sybil Thorndike who was in the audience. At 14, he turned the tables on Shakespeare by taking the role of Katharina in “Taming of the Shrew” at a festival in Stratford-on-Avon. Regarded as the greatest classical actor of all time, he literally made Shakespeare’s characters come alive on both stage and screen. But Laurence Olivier, who was knighted in 1947 and made Baron of Brighton in 1970, refused to talk to anyone who wouldn’t call him “Larry”!

Gerald Kerr Olivier

Agnes Crookenden Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England on May 22, 1907, the youngest of three children. His father, Gerald Kerr Olivier, was a High Anglican priest and ran the household according to strict religious rules leaving the little boy they called Kim to seek love and nurturing from his mother. But dark haired, vivacious Agnes Crookenden Olivier died from a cancerous tumor (glioblastoma) at 48 when Larry was only 12. He had only her dying words for comfort “Darling Larry, no matter what your father says, be an actor. Be a great actor. For me.”

Olivier as Katharina

The facility with which Olivier became his character was most apparent when he took the role of Katharina in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” at St. Edwards School, Oxford. He later recalled that he simply remembered his mother but the transformation was so exact that it brought his sister to tears and his father had to leave the theater. It seems that the man Olivier believed to be a “man of ice…who had forgotten all about the days of (his) youth when (his ) blood was warm” had just been humbled by his son’s talent. When Larry’s brother left for India. Gerald Kerr Olivier gave his youngest son permission to attend the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art.   
                            

Larry joined the Birmingham Repertory Theater in 1926 doing walk-ons. He quickly graduated to leading roles by the year’s end. His Broadway debut came in 1929 and his British screen debut in 1930 in a film titled Too Many Crooks. But Larry never gave films the same respect he gave to the stage. He also met and married actress Jill Esmond. When their wedding night didn’t go as planned and he found himself unable to perform, Larry blamed it on his rigid upbringing and the guilt his religion attached to sex. He kept the wife and dumped the religion. The marriage lasted 10 years and gave him his first son, Simon Tarquin Olivier born August 21, 1936.

Olivier and Leigh in "Fire Over England"

Larry was doing Romeo and Juliet on stage playing both Romeo and Mercurio in tandem with John Gielgud during the 1935 autumn season. Vivien Leigh attended the first night and then many nights after wishing she was in Peggy Ashcroft’s slippers as Juliet to Larry’s Romeo. She soon found a way to visit him backstage and soon things were smoldering. Their love affair began in earnest in April, 1936 even though both were already married to others and Jill Esmond Olivier was expecting a child in August. In 1937 they co-starred together in Fire Over England and created enough heat on the set that tongues were wagging all over town.

With Merle Oberon in "Wuthering Heights"

 When Larry left for Hollywood to do Wuthering Heights and Vivien followed to be near him and pursue the role of Scarlett O’Hara in GWTW, the gossip mavens were in heaven. When they moved in together, the studio saw box office poison looming for both stars and their new films. But back at home their respective mates were not eager to break the bonds of matrimony. But finally on January 5, 1940 Leigh Holman petitioned the court for a divorce from Vivian Hartley Holman, naming Olivier as co-respondent. Two weeks later Jill Esmond Olivier was also granted a decree naming Vivien. Finally on August 21, 1940 Larry and Vivien made it legal at a secret midnight wedding with only Garson Kanin and Katharine Hepburn attending. I wonder if anyone remembered that Larry’s little boy Simon was celebrating his 4th birthday?

As "Richard III"

Olivier volunteered for the Royal Air Force when World War II broke out but he was contractually tied to 3 unfinished pictures. Not happy with just lending his name to charitable events, Larry set out on his own to pile up 200 flight hours. In 1941 he joined the Fleet Air arm of the Royal Navy where he gained the rank of Lieutenant. When they were discharged both Larry and another Navy man, Ralph Richardson, joined together in the restoration of the Old Vic Theater to its prewar glory.
                        

The Oliviers in Australia

In 1944 Larry also began his first film directorial venture with Henry IV, a huge critical success (he was given a special Oscar for outstanding achievement as an actor, director and producer in bringing Henry IV to the screen). On July 8th, 1947 Olivier received his knighthood at Buckingham Palace. Larry and Vivien took off immediately on a tour of Australia and New Zealand to raise funds for Old Vic.

 By January,1953 there were already cracks in the Oliviers’ wedded bliss. In Ceylon, India to film Elephant Walk with Peter Finch, Vivien suffered a breakdown and was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. Larry took her home to a hospital in England amid rumors that she was having an affair with Finch. It was during this time that Leigh had the first of her ECTs(electro-shock treatments). When she came home she was not the same and Larry found a stranger in his bed. Most of those close to the couple acknowledge that it was now a marriage in name only. Vivien later claimed that it was Larry’s relationship with Danny Kaye that caused their problems. (Ed. Note: It was widely accepted that Olivier had intimate relationships with both Noel Coward and Danny Kaye and two of his wives referred to it at least once. However, I have found no reliable documentation in this since neither of the parties involved ever spoke of it.)

Both Larry and Vivien continued to appear on the stage together over the next few years always to packed houses. They were divorced in 1960 with Vivien naming Larry’s new leading lady, Joan Plowright in her suit. Larry married Plowright in 1961 and she gave him 3 children.

Larry continued to spend equal time on stage and film roles and, in 1960, successfully took John Osborne’s play The Entertainer from the stage to the screen. In 1963 he became director of England’s National Theater Company dividing his time between acting, directing and producing. It was the next year that Olivier was strangely overcome by a severe case of stage fright during the run of The Merchant of Venice. In his book “On Acting” Larry describes it as “the bogeyman (that) comes along and tries to rob you of your living. He can come at anytime, in any form, the dark shadow of fear….Now I can say I have been there, I have looked over the edge and I have returned.”
                          

In "The Merchant" with Joan Plowright

In 1970 Olivier was made a peer of the realm with the title Baron Olivier of Brighton and the next year he took his seat in the House of Lords (like his uncle Sydney before him). But, in 1974, Olivier played his last role on stage. It was the year he was stricken with dermato-poly-myositis, a rare degenerative muscle disease that would eventually take his life. Of all the diseases that plagued Larry, including leg thrombosis and prostate cancer, this was the only one that prevented him from being on the stage. He did continue to do films and television but it was the stage he loved most.  

In "Brideshead Revisited" with Diana Quick

Lord Laurence Olivier, Baron of Brighton, died at his home in West Sussex, England on July 11, 1989 at the age of 82. His body was cremated and his ashes interred in Westminster Abbey, only the fourth actor to be so honored (the others are Ben Jonson, David Garrick and Henry Irving).
                                 

“The Man Who Was Born To Play Kings” now rests among them.

For more on Laurence Olvier see Arabella's Notes

Filmography

Artist....Maureen  LLOL