Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier (22 May 1907 in Dorking, Surrey - 11 July 1989 in Steyning, West Sussex) was a British actor and director. Throughout his life, he worked on 120 plays, 60 films and 15 television series. Oscar winner for best actor and best film for Hamlet (1948), he received an honorary Oscar in 1946 for his work in the film Henry V and, in 1978, one more for his entire professional career.

Early Years

1907–1924: Birth and Youth

The house of Wathen Road, Dorking, Surrey, where Olivier was born in 1907

Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, the youngest of three children born to the Reverend Gerard Kerr Olivier (1869–1939) and his wife Agnes Louise (née Crookenden) (1871–1920). His older siblings were Sybille (1901–1989) and Gerard Dacres "Dickie" (1904–1958). His great-great-grandfather was of French Huguenot descent, so Olivier came from a long line of Protestant clergy. Gerard Olivier began a career as a teacher but in his thirties discovered a great religious vocation and was ordained a priest by the Church of England. He was an Anglican ritualist and liked to be addressed as 'Father Olivier'. This made him unacceptable to most Anglican congregations, and the only church positions he was offered were temporary, usually deputy to senior priests. This led him and his family to a nomadic existence, and in Laurence's early years he was unable to live in one place and make friends.

In 1912, when Olivier was five years old, his father secured a permanent position as assistant rector of St Saviour's, Pimlico. This made it possible for the family to have a stable life for six years. Olivier loved his mother, but not his father, whom he found cold and distant. However, he learned a lot about the art of acting from his father. As a young man, Gerard Olivier had considered a theatrical career and was a dramatic and effective preacher. Olivier wrote that his father knew "when to lower her voice, when to bellow about the dangers of hellfire, when to suddenly get sentimental... The rapid changes in mood and manner absorbed me, and I have never forgotten them. & # 3. 4;

Interior of All Saints, Margaret Street

In 1916, after attending preparatory classes, Olivier passed the test to enter the All Saints Choir School, Margaret Street, central London. His older brother had already been a student, and Olivier gradually settled in, although he felt like an outsider. The theatrics of the services drew Olivier's attention, and the vicar encouraged the students to develop a taste for secular and religious drama. In a school stage production of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in 1917, the performance of a ten-year-old Olivier caught the attention of audiences including Lady Tree, a young Sybil Thorndike and Ellen Terry., who would write in his diary, "The little boy who played Brutus is already a great actor." He later won accolades in other school productions, such as Maria in Twelfth Night (1918) and Katherine's in The Taming of the Shrew (1922).

From All Saints, Olivier attended St Edward's School in Oxford, from 1921 to 1924. He made little impression until his final year, when he played Puck in the school production of A Night's Dream summer. His portrayal increased his popularity among his peers.In January 1924, his brother left England to work in India on a rubber plantation. Olivier missed him very much and asked his father when he could follow him. He recalls in his memories that his father replied, "Don't be an idiot, you're not going to India." Your site is the stage."

1924–1929ː Early Acting Years

In 1924 Gerard Olivier, usually a frugal man, said that his son should not only gain admission to the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, but also aspire to a scholarship to cover his tuition and living expenses. Olivier's sister had been a student there and was a favorite of the school's founder, Elsie Fogerty. Olivier speculated years later that this was precisely why Fogerty agreed to award him the scholarship.

Peggy Ashcroft, friend of Olivier at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, photographed in 1936

One of his classmates was Peggy Ashcroft, who said of him that he was "rather sloppy because his sleeves were too short and his hair was on end, but he was intensely animated and a lot of fun". he admitted, he was not a very methodical student, but Fogerty liked him and said that he and Ashcroft stood out among their students.

After leaving Central School in 1925, Olivier began working in small theater companies. His professional stage debut was a skit entitled The Unfailing Instinct at Brighton Racecourse in August 1925, where he tripped in his driveway and fell flat on his face. Later that year, he was taken in by Sybil Thorndike (daughter of a friend of Olivier's father) and her husband Lewis Casson as supporting actor, stand-in and assistant director of scene from his London company. Olivier modeled his style on Gerald du Maurier, who said of him that "he seemed to mutter on stage but he had such perfect technique." When I started, I was so busy making a du Maurier that no one listened to a word I said. The Shakespearean actors you saw were terrible radio hams like Frank Benson." Olivier's concern to speak naturally and avoid what he termed "singing" Shakespeare's verses was the cause of much frustration early in his career, as critics did not approve of his interpretation.

In 1926, on Thorndike's recommendation, Olivier joined the Birmingham Repertory Company. His biographer Michael Billington describes the company as 'Olivier's college'. Already in his second year he was given the charge of important roles, such as that of Tony Lumpkin in She Stoops to Conquer, the main role in Uncle Vanya or that of Parolles in All's Well That Ends Well. Billington adds that the engagement led to 'a lifelong friendship with fellow actor Ralph Richardson that was to have a decisive effect on the british theatre."

While playing the role in Bird in Hand at the Royalty Theater in June 1928, Olivier became romantically involved with Jill Esmond, daughter of actors Henry V. Esmond and Eva Moore. Olivier would later recall that he thought "she would certainly do very well as a wife... I was not likely to fare any better at my age and with my lackluster record, so I quickly fell in love with her."

In 1928 Olivier played the role of Stanhope in R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End, which was very successful at the same premiere. role for the West End the following year, but turned it down in favor of the glamorous role of Beau Geste in the stage adaptation of P. C. Wren's novel of the same name. Journey's End ended up being a great success with many years on the bill; Beau Geste failed. The The Manchester Guardian commented, "Mr. Laurence Olivier did the best Beau, but he deserves and will get better luck. Mr. Olivier is going to make a big name for himself'. In the remainder of 1929 Olivier appeared in seven more plays, all of them short-lived. Billington attributes this failure rate to Olivier's poor decisions rather than mere bad luck.

1930-1935ː The Rising of the Star

Olivier, with his first wife Jill Esmond (left), in 1932

In 1930, with the idea of marriage in mind, Olivier raised some extra money with roles in two films. In April he traveled to Berlin in the English version of The Temporary Widow, a comedy on crimes with Lilian Harvey, and in May spent four nights filming another comedy, Too Many Crooks. For these two films, Olivier would earn £60, and met Laurence Evans, who would become on his personal manager. Olivier did not enjoy film, which he described as "this anemic little outlet that couldn't handle a great performance", but financially it earned him far more than his theater jobs.

Olivier and Esmond were married on 25 July 1930 at All Saints, Margaret Street, although within weeks they both realized they had made a mistake. Olivier would later recall that the marriage was a "big mistake." I insisted on getting married out of a pathetic mix of religious and animal impulse.... She admitted to me that she could never love me as completely as I would like.' they were "mere coincidences", unrelated to the wedding itself.

In 1930 Noël Coward cast Olivier as Victor Prynne in his new play Private Lives, which was the first play at the Phoenix Theater in London in September. Coward and Gertrude Lawrence played the lead roles, Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne. Victor was a supporting role. It was a complete success and he considered Coward as his mentor. In the 1960s, Olivier commented to Sheridan Morley:

He gave me a sense of balance, of the right and wrong. He would make me read. I never used to read anything at all. I remember saying, "Okay, boy, Wuthering Heights, Of Human Bondage and The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett. Read them, they're the best three." I did.... Noël also did something very valuable, taught me not to laugh on stage. Once I was fired for having done it and I was about to be fired from the representative of Birmingham for the same reason. Noël corrected me by trying to make me laugh scandalously, taught me not to yield to her. My great triumph came in New York when one night I managed to break Noël on stage without laughing. "

Elissa Landi and Olivier in a scene The yellow meat of 1931

In 1931 RKO Pictures offered Olivier to make two pictures at $1,000 a week. He spoke to Coward about it, telling Olivier "You have no artistic integrity, that is your problem; that's how you get cheap.” Anyway, and with a few duas, he accepted the proposal and moved to Hollywood. His first film in Hollywood was Friends or Rivals? (Friends and Lovers), in a supporting role and was later loaned to Fox Studios to star in the thriller El carnel amarillo (The Yellow Ticket), opposite Elissa Landi and Lionel Barrymore. Historian Jeffrey Richards describes Olivier's look as an attempt by Fox Studios to reproduce an image of Ronald Colman, and Colman's moustache, voice, and mannerisms are "perfectly reproduced"; Olivier returned to RKO to complete his contract with the 1932 drama Westward Passage, which was a commercial failure. Olivier's initial foray into American films had not provided the The breakthrough he had hoped for, so disillusioned with Hollywood, he returned to London, where he appeared in two British films, Perfect Understanding with Gloria Swanson and No Funny Business—in which Esmond would also appear. He attempted to return to Hollywood in 1933 to appear opposite Greta Garbo in Queen Christina of Sweden (Queen Christina) , but was replaced after two weeks of filming due to a lack of chemistry between the two.

Olivier's roles in 1934 included Bothwell in Gordon Daviot's Queen of Scots, which was moderately successful with audiences. In contrast, he had great success playing a version of American actor John Barrymore in the play The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. His success was cut short by breaking an ankle two months into his career, in one of the athletic and acrobatic stunts with which he liked to liven up his performances.

In 1935, under the direction of Albery, John Gielgud would star in Romeo and Juliet at the New Theatre, alongside Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans and Olivier. Gielgud had seen Olivier in Queen of Scots , appreciated his potential and allowed him to take a higher step in his career. In the first few weeks Gielgud played Mercutio and Olivier played Romeo and they later switched roles. The production was a box office record with 189 performances. Olivier was furious with the critics on the first night, who praised the virility of his performance but criticized fiercely to speak of Shakespeare's verse, contrasting it with his co-star's mastery of poetry. The friendship between the two men was a thorny one, on Olivier's part, for the rest of his life.

1936–1938ː Old Vic and Vivien Leigh

The Old Vic (photographed in 2012), where Olivier honed his skill as a Shakespearean

In May 1936 Olivier and Richardson reunited to conduct and perform J. B. Priestley's new play, Bees on the Boatdeck. Both actors garnered rave reviews, but the play, an allegory of British decadence, failed to attract audiences and closed in four weeks. That same year, Olivier accepted an invitation to join the Old Vic's company. South of the Thames, it had been offering cheap tickets to the opera and theater at the initiative of its owner Lilian Baylis since 1912. The drama company specialized in Shakespearean plays, and many low-income actors had cut their salaries to develop their Shakespearean techniques there. Gielgud had been with the company from 1929 to 1931 and Richardson from 1930 to 1932. Among the actors Olivier met in late 1936 included Edith Evans, Ruth Gordon, Alec Guinness and Michael Redgrave. In 1937, Olivier took center stage in an extended version of Hamlet, in which once again his diction was compared to that of Gielgud, who had performed it seven years earlier with great success. >The Observer's Ivor Brown praised the "magnetism" by Olivier but compared it to "the quality of "pathos" which Mr. Gielgud had used so excellently". The journalist for The Times found the performance "full of vitality", but at the same time;too light... the character slips out of Mr. Olivier's hands".

Following Hamlet, the company presented Twelfth Night, in which director Tyrone Guthrie summed up as "a bad and immature production, with Olivier outrageously funny as Sir Toby and a very young Alec Guinness scandalous and funnier still as Sir Andrew". Henry V was the next play, presented in May at George VI's Coronation festivities. A pacifist like Olivier was averse to playing a warrior king, but the production was a success and Baylis extended the play's run from four weeks to eight weeks.

Following the success of Olivier's Shakespearean plays on stage, he made his first translation of a Shakespearean play to film in 1936, playing Orlando in As You Like It, directed by Paul Czinner, "a charming if slight production," as Michael Brooke commented on the British Film Institute's (BFI's) Screenonline. The following year, Olivier appeared alongside Vivien Leigh in the historical drama England on Fire (Fire Over England). The first meeting between them occurred at the Savoy Grill and the second time when she visited him during the performance of Romeo and Juliet, probably in early 1936. Shortly after the romance between the two began. relationship, Olivier later saidː

"I couldn't help it with Vivien. No man could. I hated myself for cheating on Jill, even though I had done it before. But this was something different. It wasn't just lust. It was the love I didn't really ask, but it attracted me. "

As his relationship with Leigh grew, he had a parallel relationship with actress Ann Todd, and she possibly had an affair with actor Henry Ainley, according to her biographer Michael Munn.

In June 1937 the Old Vic company accepted an invitation to perform Hamlet at Elsinore Castle, where Shakespeare had set the location for the play. Olivier interceded for Leigh to replace Cherry Cottrell as Ophelia. Due to torrential rain, the play had to be moved from the gardens to the hotel ballroom, but the tradition of performing Hamlet at Elsinore was already born, and Olivier was followed by, among others, Gielgud (1939), Redgrave (1950), Richard Burton (1954), Christopher Plummer (1964), Derek Jacobi (1979), Kenneth Branagh (1988) and Jude Law (2009). Back in London, the company staged Macbeth, with Olivier in the title role. Michel Saint-Denis's stylized production was disliked although Olivier garnered good reviews for his portrayal.Back in Denmark, Olivier and Leigh told their respective spouses about their affair and that their marriages had ended. Esmond moved out of the marital home and went to live with his mother.After Olivier and Leigh toured Europe in mid-1937 they returned to their personal projects. —A Yank in Oxford (A Yank at Oxford) on her part and The Divorce of Lady X (The Divorce of Lady X) on his part—and moved to Iver, Buckinghamshire.

Olivier returned to the Old Vic for a second season in 1938. In Othello he played Iago, with Richardson in the title role. Guthrie wanted to experiment with the theory that Iago's evil is driven by a repressed love for Othello. Olivier was willing to help but Richardson was not. Audiences and many critics could not detect the supposed motivation of Olivier's Iago, and Richardson's Othello seemed underpowered. After this failure, the company achieved success with Coriolanus with Olivier in the title role. The critics were praise comparing to Oliver with the previous predecessors of him like Edmund Kean, William Macready and Henry Irving. Actor Robert Speaight described the performance as "Olivier's first indisputably great performance". This was Olivier's last appearance in British theaters for six years.

1938–1944ː Hollywood Era and World War II

Olivier with Merle Oberon in the film Borrascosa Summits of 1939

In 1938 Olivier joined Richardson in the spy film Q Planes, released the following year. Frank Nugent, the critic for The New York Times, wrote that Olivier's performance was "not very good" while Richardson's was 'acceptable'. In late 1938, for a salary of $50,000, the actor traveled to Hollywood to play Heathcliff in the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights. (Wuthering Heights), along with Merle Oberon and David Niven. Before a month had passed, Leigh joined him, claiming their trip was &# 34;partly because Larry is there and partly because I intend to land the role of Scarlett O'Hara". Olivier did not enjoy filming Wuthering Heights, and his approach to film acting, combined with a dislike for Oberon, led to tensions on the set. The director, William Wyler, mediated, and Olivier learned to remove what Billington described as "the shell of theatricality" to which he was prone, replacing it with "a palpable reality." film actor. Caroline Lejeune, wrote for The Observer, considering that "Olivier's dark and moody face, his abrupt style and a certain fine arrogance towards the world in his manner of touch are perfect" on paper, while the review for The Times wrote that Olivier "is a fine incarnation of Heathcliff... impressive and beyond the human side, reciting his lines with real distinction, and always at the same time romantic and alive."

Olivier with Joan Fontaine in the 1940 film Rebeca

After a brief stopover in London in mid-1939, the couple returned to the United Statesː Leigh to take the last shots of Gone with the Wind and Olivier to prepare for the filming of Alfred Hitchcock Rebecca—although the pair wished to work together. Instead, it would be Joan Fontaine who would be cast as Mrs. de Winter, despite producer David O. Selznick thinking she was no more suitable for the role, but it was best to keep Olivier and Leigh apart until they divorced. Olivier continued to work in Hollywood with Louder Than Pride (Pride and Prejudice), in the role of Mr. Darcy. To her chagrin, Elizabeth Bennet would be Greer Garson instead of Leigh. He received good reviews for both films and displayed a more confident screen presence than his earlier works. In January 1940 Olivier and Esmond signed their divorce. In February, following another request from Leigh, her husband also filed for termination of their marriage.

On stage, Olivier and Leigh starred in Romeo and Juliet on Broadway. It was an extravagant production and commercially unsuccessful. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times praised the production but not the acting: "Although Ms. Leigh and Mr. Olivier are attractive young men, they hardly play their part." The couple had invested almost all their savings in the project, and its failure was a severe financial blow. They were married in August 1940, at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara.

While this was happening, the war in Europe had been going on for a year and it was going badly for Britain. After the wedding, Olivier wanted to help in some way. He phoned Duff Cooper, the Ministry of Information, hoping to get a position in Cooper's department. Cooper advised him to stay where he was and talk to film director Alexander Korda, who was based in the US at Churchill's behest, with connections to British intelligence. Korda, with Churchill's support and involved in the filming of Lady Hamilton, with Olivier as Horace Nelson and Leigh in the role of Emma. Korda saw that the couple's relationship was strained. Olivier was tired of Leigh's stifling adulation and she drank to excess. The film, which compared the threat of Napoleon to a parallel to Hitler, was seen by critics as "a bad story but a good act of propaganda". #34;, according to the BFI.

Leigh and Olivier in a picture of the film Lady Hamilton (1941)

Olivier saw his life endangered by threats from both the Nazis and pro-German sympathizers. In fact, studio owners Samuel Goldwyn and Cecil B. DeMille had to provide private security for the actor. Upon completion of filming, Olivier and Leigh returned to Britain. The actor learned to be an airplane pilot and completed 250 hours of flying by the time he left America. He tried to join the Royal Air Force but instead contributed to the propaganda film, 49th Parallel, narrating Ministry and Information shorts, and joined the Fleet Air Arm because Richardson was already enlisted. Richardson had developed a reputation for crashing planes, which Olivier quickly eclipsed. Olivier and Leigh took up residence in a cabin outside RNAS Worthy Down, where the actor was stationed with a training squad. Noël Coward visited the couple and thought Olivier looked unhappy. Olivier spent much of his time participating in broadcasts and making morale-boosting speeches, and in 1942 was invited to make another propaganda film, The Demi- Paradise, in which he plays a Soviet engineer who helps improve relations between the two countries.

Foreign correspondents visiting the set Enrique V in Denham Studios in 1943

In 1943, under the permission of the Ministry of Information, Olivier began filming Henry V. He originally had no intention of directing, but ended up directing, producing and leading the cast of the film. As an assistant director he had the Italian Filippo Del Giudice, who had been recruited for the propaganda films of the Allied cause.The battles were shot in Ireland, where because of its neutrality in the war, it was easier to find 650 extras. John Betjeman, the press attaché at the British embassy in Dublin, played a key liaison role with the Irish government in making the proper arrangements. The film was released in November 1944. Brooke, writing for the BFI, considers & It came too late in World War II to be a call to arms as such, but it formed a powerful reminder of what Britain was standing for. The film's music was written by William Walton, "a score that ranks among the best in film music," according to music critic Michael Kennedy. Walton also scored the next two Shakespearean adaptations of Olivier, Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955). Henry V was well received by critics. The Manchester Guardian wrote that the film combined "new art from the hand of old genius, and both superbly from one mind", in a film that worked "triumphantly" 34;. The Times considered Olivier "plays Henry on a high, heroic note and there is never any danger of a rift", in a film described as "a triumph of cinematographic art". It was nominated for Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor, but it did not win any and, instead, Olivier received a "Special Award". impressed and later commented that "this was my first outright hoax, and I considered it as such."

1944-1948ː Co-directing the Old Vic

During the war Tyrone Guthrie had tried to keep the Old Vic company active. Even after the German bombing raids of 1942 had left the theater in ruins. A small group toured the provinces, with Sybil Thorndike leading the cast. In 1944, as the tide of the war was turning, Guthrie felt the need to re-establish the company again in London with Richardson to head it. Richardson agreed on the condition that the conducting and acting positions be a triumvirate. Initially he thought of Gielgud and Olivier, but the former refused, saying: "It would be a disaster, you would have to spend all your time refereeing between me and Larry". theater director John Burrell.

Co-director and co-star Ralph Richardson in the 40s

The triumvirate secured the New Theater for its first season and recruited a troupe. Thorndike signed, among others, Harcourt Williams, Joyce Redman and Margaret Leighton. It was agreed to open the repository of works with the works Peer Gynt, Arms and the Man, Ricardo III and Tío Vania. Olivier's roles in them were Button Moulder, Sergius, Ricardo and Astrov; Richardson performed those of Peer, Bluntschli, Richmond, and Vania. The first three plays ended with critical and public success; Uncle Vanya met with a lukewarm reception, despite The Times thinking Olivier's Astrov was "a more distinguished portrait" and Richardson's Vanya "the perfect mixture of absurdity and pathos". In Richard III, according to Billington, it was the absolute triumph "so much so that it became in their most imitated performance and whose supremacy was not questioned until Antony Sher played the role forty years later". In 1945, the company toured Germany, where there were a large number of Allied military personnel, and performed at the theater of Comédie-Française de Paris, being the first foreign company to obtain such an honor. Critic Harold Hobson wrote that Richardson and Olivier "made the Old Vic the most important company in the Anglo-Saxon world."

In the second season, in 1945, he presented two double bills. The first consisted of Henry IV, Part 1 and 2. Olivier played the warrior Hotspur in the first part and Robert Shallow in the second. It received good reviews, although by general consent the production belonged to Richardson com Falstaff. The second double feature, which Olivier did direct, contained two roles in Oedipus Rex and The Critic. In the two one-act plays, his turn from the searing tragedy and horror of the first half to the ludicrous comedy of the second impressed most critics and audiences, though a minority felt that the transformation of the blood-blinded hero of Sophocles to Sheridan's vain and ridiculous Mr. Puff "smelled like a quick change from a music hall". After its stint in London, the troupe carried double bills and Uncle Vanya to a six-week tour of Broadway.

In the third and final season of the triumvirate in 1946–47, Olivier played King Lear, and Richardson played Cyrano de Bergerac. Olivier would have preferred the roles to have been reversed, but Richardson did not want to make Lear. Olivier's Lear received good but not excellent reviews. In his scenes of decadence and madness towards the end of the play, some critics found him less moving than his better predecessors in the same role. Critic James Agate noted that Olivier used his dazzling stage technique to disguise a lack of feeling, a an accusation that the actor strongly denied, but one that was repeated often throughout his later career. During the play of Cyrano, Richardson achieved the title of Knight Bachelor and Olivier could not hide his envy at the actor. respect. Richardson received the award six months later, by which time the days of the triumvirate were numbered. The high profile of the two actors did not endear them to the new president of the Old Vic, Oliver Sylvain Baliol Brett. Brett had aspirations to be the first head of the National Theater and feared that the international projection of the two actors would overshadow him.

Costume of film production used by Olivier en Hamlet (1948)

In January 1947 Olivier began work on his second film as a director, Hamlet (1948), in which he also had the leading role. The film version focused more on personal relationships than on political intrigue. The film became a critical and commercial success around the world, although Lejeune, in The Observer, considered it "less effective than Olivier's stage versions."... he recites the verses with nobility and with the caress of one who loves them, but annuls his own thesis by never leaving, not for a moment, the impression of a man who cannot decide for himself. Here, he feels more like an actor-producer-director who, in every circumstance, knows exactly what he wants and gets it'. Campbell Dixon, in The Daily Telegraph thought the film it was "brilliant... one of the masterpieces of theater from which a great film has emerged." Hamlet became the first non-American film to win an Oscar for Best Picture and Olivier won the Oscar for Best Actor.

In 1948 Olivier toured Australia and New Zealand for six months with the Old Vic. He played Richard III, Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal and Antrobus in The Skin of Our Teeth , appearing opposite Leigh in two of them. While Olivier was in Australia and Richardson in Hollywood, Esher canceled the contracts of all three directors, who were said to have 'resigned'. Melvyn Bragg in a study of Olivier in 1984, and John Miller in Richardson's authorized biography agree that this action by Esher delayed the creation of a National Theater for at least a decade. In 1971, Bernard Levin wrote that the Old Vic's company from 1944 to 1948 "was the most illustrious that has ever been assembled in this country" that "the governors summarily dismissed them for the sake of a more mediocre spirit of enterprise".

1948-1951ː Postwar

Olivier with Leigh in Australia, 1948

At the end of the Australian tour, Leigh and Olivier were tired and the actor told a reporterː "You may not know it, but youre talking to a couple of walking corpses". He would later comment that he "lost Vivien"; in Australia, a reference to Leigh's affair with Australian actor Peter Finch, who they met on tour. Soon after Finch would move to London, where Olivier auditioned him and put him under a long-term contract with Laurence Olivier Productions. The romance between Finch and Leigh would continue for a few more years.

Although the Old Vic management triumvirate was de facto dissolved, the trio refused to go public and Olivier even arranged to play a final season in London with the company in 1949 with his own production of Antigone with Leigh in the title role. After this, he began his new career as an actor-manager. With Binkie Beaumont as partner, he made the UK premiere of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, with Leigh in the central role of Blanche DuBois. The play was demonized by many critics but the production met with a good response from audiences and left Leigh on a platter to play Blanche in the film version. Gielgud, who was a devoted friend of Leigh's, doubted that Olivier would be wise to leave her. playing the demanding role of the mentally unstable heroine: "[Blanche] was very much like her, in a way. It must have been a terrible strain doing it night after night. She would be shaking, pale, and quite distraught by the end."

I think I'm a pretty good manager now.... I led the St. James for eight years. I didn't do it all right.... I made mistake after mistake, but I dare say that those mistakes taught me something.

Olivier's company is based at St James's Theatre. In January 1950 he produced, directed and starred in the stage version of Christopher Fry's Venus Observed. The production was very popular, despite the bad reviews, but its excessive budget did not help improve the accounts of Laurence Olivier Productions. After a string of box office failures, the company balanced its accounts in 1951 with George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra and Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra with the which toured London and Broadway. Some critics thought that Olivier was below his level in these two roles, and some suspected that he was deliberately underacting so that Leigh could measure up to him.Olivier dismissed such criticism as an insult to him as actor. From the point of view of his biographer W. A. Darlington, he simply did a poor job as Caesar and Antony, finding the former dull and the latter weak. Darlington comments, "Olivier, in his late forties, when he should have been displaying his powers at his peak, seemed to have lost interest in his own acting." Over the next four years, Olivier spent much of his time of his time working as a producer, presenting plays rather than directing or acting in them. The St James's seasons included visits by Ruggero Ruggeri's company with two works by Pirandello and the works of the comedy Darlington considers a 1951 production of Othello starring Orson Welles as the pick of Olivier's productions at the theatre.

1951–1954ː Time as an independent

Photogram of Olivier and Jennifer Jones Carrie. (1952)

While Leigh was making Streetcar in 1951, Olivier returned to Hollywood to star in William Wyler's Carrie, based on the controversial novel Sister Carrie; although the shoot was plagued with problems, Olivier received good reviews and even a BAFTA nomination. Olivier began to notice Leigh's changes in attitude and, as he later commented,

"I found Vivien sitting in the corner of the bed, twisting her hands and sobbing, in a state of grave distress. Naturally, I was desperately trying to give you some comfort, but for some time I was inconsolable. "

After a vacation with Coward in Jamaica, the actress seemed to have recovered but Olivier would later recall that

"I am sure that... [the doctors] tried to tell me what was happening to my wife; that her illness was called maniac depression and what that meant. A cyclic vaivén possibly permanent between the depths of depression and wild and uncontrollable mania.

He also recounted the years of trouble he himself had experienced from Leigh's illness writing

"Through his possession for that mysteriously evil monster, the maniac depression, with its ever closer mortal spirals, preserved his own individual astuce, a capacity to disguise his true mental condition of almost all except me."

In January 1953 Leigh traveled to Ceylon to shoot Elephant Walk with Peter Finch. Shortly after filming began, the actress suffered a nervous breakdown and she was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. He returned to Britain where, in the midst of his delirious periods, he confessed to Olivier that he was in love with Finch and that he had been having an affair with him. This caused the breakup and many of the Oliviers' friends found out about their problems. Niven said he found the actor "constantly angry," and in his diary, Coward wrote that "things had gone from bad to worse since 1948."

Around Elizabeth II's coronation season of 1953, Olivier and Leigh starred in the West End comedy The Sleeping Prince by Terence Rattigan. It ran for eight months but was widely considered a minor contribution to the season, amid other productions such as Gielgud's Venice Preserv'd, The Apple Cart with Coward or Antony and Cleopatra with Ashcroft and Redgrave.

Olivier directed his third film version of Shakespeare in September 1954. Ricardo III (Richard III) was co-produced by him and Korda. The presence of four theatrical gentlemen in one film (Olivier, Cedric Hardwicke, Gielgud and Richardson) was described by critics as the "An-All-Sir-Cast". The critic of The Manchester The Guardian describes the film as a "bold and successful achievement". a new version of Macbeth. He also earned a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actor, which would go on to win Yul Brynner.

1955–1956ːLast productions with Leigh

In 1955, Olivier and Leigh were invited to play three roles in three plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater in Stratford. It started 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 opinion that he was vulgar, Gielgud would later comment:

Somehow the production didn't work. Olivier was determined to interpret Malvolio in his particular and quite extravagant way. It was extremely touching at the end, but he played the previous scenes as a Jewish hairdresser, with a sledge and an extraordinary accent, and insisted on falling behind a bench at the garden scene, although I begged him not to do it... But Malvolio is a very difficult role.

The next production was Macbeth. Reviews raved about Olivier's performance in the title role. For J. C. Trewin, Olivier was "the best Macbeth of our days". Instead, they were more lukewarm with Glen Byam directing. Shaw, the design of Roger Furse and Leigh's Lady Macbeth, although until the end of his life, Olivier always believed that she had been the best Lady Macbeth he had ever seen.

Olivier and Leigh in 1957

In the third production of the 1955 Stratford season, Olivier played the title role of Tito Andrónico, with Leigh playing Lavinia. Reviews of Leigh were once again disappointing, although Peter Brook's production and Olivier's performance as Tito received the biggest standing ovation in Stratford's history from the first-night crowd, with critics hailing the production as a milestone. in post-war British theatre. Olivier and Brook toured Europe in June 1957. Their last performance, at the old Stoll Theater in London, would be the last time Leigh and Olivier performed together.

Leigh became pregnant in 1956 and retired to the play South Sea Bubble. The day after her last performance in the play, she miscarried, causing her to enter a period of depression that lasted months. That same year, Olivier directed and co-starred with Marilyn Monroe in The Prince and the Showgirl (The Prince and the Showgirl). Although filming was challenging due to Monroe's behavior, the film was highly regarded by critics.

1957–1963ː Royal Court and Chichester

During the filming of The Prince and the Showgirl, Olivier, Monroe and Monroe's husband, playwright Arthur Miller, went to see John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court. Olivier had seen the play before and had not liked it, but Miller was convinced that Osborne had talent and made Olivier reconsider. He agreed to a change of address. In this regard, in 1981 I wrote:

I had come to a stage of my life in which I was deeply fed up, not only tired, but I was sick. Consequently, the public was probably beginning to agree with me. My working rhythm had become a bit lethal: a classic or semi-classic film; a play or two in Stratford, or a nine-month career in the West End, etc., etc. I was going crazy, desperately looking for something suddenly cool and exciting. What I felt was that my image was boring me to death..

Olivier with Joan Plowright The Entertainer on Broadway in 1958

Osborne returned with another play, The Entertainer, an allegory of Britain's post-colonial decline, centering on a variety comic character named Archie Rice. Having read the first act, Olivier asked to be cast in the role. For years he had maintained that he could easily have been a third-rate comedian named "Larry Oliver", and even did a few parts at parties. But behind Archie's facade lies a deep desolation, and Olivier captured both aspects, shifting, in the words of his biographer Anthony Holden, "from a gleefully tacky comic routine to moments of the most heartbreaking pathos. The production of Tony Richardson for the English Stage Company moved from the Royal Court to the Palace Theater in September 1957. After this, it toured and returned to the Palace again. The role of Archie's daughter had three actresses different. The second of these was Joan Plowright, with whom Olivier began a romantic relationship that would last the rest of his life. Olivier said that playing Archie "made me feel like a modern actor again". In his search for an avant-garde role, a move that suited him, he was, as Osborne commented, far ahead of Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, who did not successfully follow his example for a decade. Substantial hits for actors of Olivier's generation were Alan Bennett's Forty Years On (Gielgud in 1968) and David Storey's Home (Richardson and Gielgud in 1970).

Olivier received another BAFTA nomination for his supporting role in the 1959 film The Devil's Disciple. Two decades later, Olivier returned to pick up the role of Coriolanus, in the Stratford stage production directed by the young director Peter Hall. His performance Olivier's performance received wide critical acclaim for its ferocious athleticism combined with emotional vulnerability. In 1960, he made his second appearance with the Royal Court troupe in the absurdist play Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco. The production was chiefly notable for the star's quarrels with the director, Orson Welles, who according to biographer Francis Beckett suffered the "dreadful treatment" which Olivier had inflicted on Gielgud in Stratford five years earlier. Olivier ignored his director and his authority.In 1960 and 1961 Olivier appeared in the Broadway play Becket, with Anthony Quinn as the king, then swapping roles with the co-star of he.

Poster of the film Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick, one of the films in which Olivier appeared in 1960

Olivier participated in two films from 1960. The first was filmed in 1959 and is about Spartacus, in which he plays the role of the Roman general, Marco Licinio Crassus. The second would be The Entertainer (The Entertainer) , which was well received by critics, although not as well as its theatrical version. The critic of The Guardian ruled that the performances were good ones and wrote that Olivier "both on screen and stage, pulls off the tour de force of playing Archie Rice...". For his performance, Olivier earned a further Oscar nomination for best actor. He also participated in the television adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence in 1960, where he won an Emmy Award.

Meanwhile, the marriage to Leigh disintegrated in the late 1950s. While directing Charlton Heston in the 1960 play The Tumbler, Olivier reported that "Vivien is several thousand miles away. from miles away, trembling on the edge of a cliff, even as she sits quietly in her own living room", at a time when she was threatening to commit suicide. In May 1960, divorce proceedings began. Leigh denounced the incident to the press and informed reporters of Olivier's relationship with Plowright. Although Olivier and Plowright could not initially marry, they had three children Richard (December 1961), Tamsin Agnes Margaret (January 1963) and Julie-Kate (July 1966).

In 1961 Olivier accepted the position of director of a new theatrical venture, the Chichester Festival. For the inaugural 1962 season, he directed two 17th-century British plays, the 1638 comedy The Chances by John Fletcher and the tragedy The Broken Heart by John Ford, as well as a new production of Uncle Vanya. The company had a solid cast with Thorndike, Casson, Redgrave, Athene Seyler, John Neville, and Plowright. The first two plays were graciously received; the Chekhov production drew rave reviews. The Times wrote, "It is doubtful whether the Moscow Art Theater could better this production." The second season of Chichester the following year was to re-stage Uncle Vanya and two new productions Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw and The Workhouse Donkey by John Arden. In 1963 Olivier received another BAFTA nomination for the teacher who is accused of sexual harassment in Term of Trial.

National Theatre

1963–1968

As the Chichester Festival was born, the creation of the National Theater began to take shape. The British government began to send funds to the construction of the South Bank of the Thames. Lord Chandos was the first president of the National Theater Board in 1962 and in August Olivier agreed to become the institution's first director. He hired directors John Dexter and William Gaskill as assistants, with Kenneth Tynan as literary adviser. Pending the construction of a new theatre, the company had its first show at the Old Vic. With the permission of both organisations, Olivier he continued to run the Chichester Festival for the first three seasons of the National. He used the 1964 and 1965 festivals to give previews of works he hoped to perform at the Old Vic.

The National Theater's inaugural production was Hamlet in October 1963, starring Peter O'Toole and directed by Olivier. O'Toole was the invited star, one of the exceptions in which Olivier agreed to cast an actor outside of the regular company. Among those who made their mark during Olivier's direction were Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi and Anthony Hopkins. Olivier was criticized for being so reluctant to recruit his peers to perform in his company. Evans, Gielgud and Paul Scofield appeared sparingly, and Ashcroft and Richardson never performed at the National during Olivier's time. Robert Stephens, a member of the company, said "Olivier's only big flaw was his paranoid jealousy of anyone he thought was a rival."

In his decade at the helm of the National, Olivier starred in 13 plays and directed eight. Many of those performances were supporting roles, such as the crazed butler in Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear, that of the pompous lawyer in Maugham's Home and Beauty or that of the vulgar soldier Captain Brazen in Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer.

Apart from his Astrov as Uncle Vanya, a role already known to Chichester, his first major role at the National was Othello, directed by Dexter in 1964. The production was a complete success and ran regularly for five seasons. His performance divided critics. Most critics and theater colleagues praised it highly. Franco Zeffirelli called it "an anthology of everything known about acting in the last three centuries." Critics included The Sunday Telegraph, which said of her that it was "the kind of bad acting only a great actor is capable of... close to the borders of self-parody"; director Jonathan Miller ?thought "a vision condescending to an Afro-Caribbean person". The burden of casting this demanding role while also running the new company and planning the move to the new theater took its toll on Olivier. furthermore, he felt compelled to take on the role of 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 gave him it lasted for many years. The National Theater production of Othello was made into a film in 1965, which garnered four Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for Olivier.

In the following year, Olivier focused on preparing and directing The Crucible, playing for it the comic role of Tattle in William Congreve's Love for Love, and working on the film Bunny Lake is Missing. The Times noted that this production "restores faith in the work as a masterpiece". In the same year, Olivier played the Mahdi in the film Kartoum.

In 1967 Olivier found himself involved in a confrontation between Chandos and Tynan over the latter's proposal to stage Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers. The play speculated on a possible Churchill complicity in the assassination of Polish Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski, which Chandos considered indefensible. At his urging, the board unanimously vetoed the production. Tynan considered relinquishing the management's artistic freedom over this interference, but Olivier himself stood firm in his place, and Tynan did too.About this time Olivier began a long struggle against a succession of illnesses. He was treated for prostate cancer and, while filming as a director with Three Sisters, an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's classic, he was hospitalized for pneumonia. He recovered quickly enough to take over. demanding role of Edgar in Strindberg's The Dance of Death, the best of all his performances other than Shakespeare, in Gielgud's opinion.

While Olivier was in hospital suffering from prostate cancer, he learned the news of Vivien Leigh's death. But, upon being notified of the news about her ex-wife, he requested voluntary discharge and immediately went to her side. He himself recounts in his memories that he remained alone next to Leigh's body "asking forgiveness for all the damage they had done." He always remembered her as her great love of her life.

1968–1974

Olivier intended to step down as director of the National Theater at the end of his first five-year contract, once the company had moved into the new building. But in 1968, due to bureaucratic problems, the building was not yet finished, so he agreed to extend the contract for another five years. His next role (and last appearance in a Shakespearean play) was Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, his first time performing this play. He intended for either Guinness or Scofield to play Shylock, but it had to be him when neither was available. Jonathan's production Miller's portrayal of Olivier drew a wide range of responses. Two different critics reviewed it for "The Guardian". One of them wrote "this is not a role that requires him, or for which he will be particularly remembered"; the other commented that the performance "ranks as one of his greatest achievements, spanning the entire range of his acting."

In 1969 Olivier appeared in two war movies, playing military officers. In one of them, he played French Field Marshal John French in the World War I film Oh! What a Lovely War, for which he won another BAFTA Award, which was followed by Air Marshal Hugh Dowding in The Battle of Britain (Battle of Britain) . In June In 1970 he became the first actor to be named with the crown title of "par" for his services to the theatre.Though he initially declined the honor, Harold Wilson, the incumbent Prime Minister, wrote to him and subsequently invited him and Plowright to dinner to persuade him to accept.

Laurence Olivier in 1972, during production the print

After Olivier he played three new stage roles: James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night (1971–72), Antonio in Saturday, Sunday, Monday by Eduardo de Filippo and John Tagg in The Party Trevor Griffiths (both 1973–74). Among the roles he hoped to play, but could not due to health problems, was Nathan Detroit in the musical Guys and Dolls. In 1972 he was absent from the National to star opposite Michael Caine in the classic of Joseph L. Mankiewicz the Sleuth, an interpretation that The Illustrated London News sees as seeing "Olivier at his brilliant and dazzling best". Both were nominated for the Oscars for Best Actor, losing the statuette to Marlon Brando for The Godfather.

Olivier's last two works as director were Jean Giradoux's Amphitryon (1971) and Priestley's Eden End (1974). , his contract as director of the National Theater ended, and he was replaced by Peter Hall. The board handled the succession tactlessly, and Olivier felt that, although he had declared his intention to leave, he had not been adequately consulted about the choice of his successor. The largest of the three theaters inside the National Building was named in his honour, but his only appearance on the Olivier Theater stage was at its official opening with the Queen in October 1976, when he gave a welcoming address, which Hall privately described as the most successful part of the evening.

Later years (1975–1989)

Olivier spent his last 15 years watching over his finances and his health, affected by thrombosis and dermatomyositis, a degenerative muscle disease. Professionally, to continue having financial security, he made ads for Polaroid cameras in 1972, although he stipulated that they were never to be seen in Britain. He also played a number of film cameos, which were found in "often mediocre films", according to Billington. he could obtain the health insurance necessary for larger roles, with only brief film stints available.

Olivier along with Katharine Hepburn in a picture of George Cukor's telefilm Love between ruins (1975)

In the mid-1970s, Olivier became increasingly involved in television work, a medium he initially despised. In 1973 he was the narrator of the 26-episode World at War documentary, where he recounted the events of World War II, and won his second Emmy Award for Long Journey into Night (1973). In 1975, he won another Emmy for Love in the Ruins. The following year, he appeared in the television version of the Tennessee Williams classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Collection by Harold Pinter. Olivier worked in the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth, where he played Nicodemus, achieving another outstanding job. In 1978 he appeared in the film Los niños del Brasil (The Boys from Brazil) , playing the role of Ezra Lieberman, a Nazi hunter and for which he received his eleventh and final Oscar nomination.. Although he did not win it, in that edition he received the Honorary Oscar for a lifetime.

Olivier's dermatomyositis caused him to be hospitalized for the last three months of 1974 and he spent early 1975 slowly recovering and regaining his strength. When he was ready, he contacted director John Schlesinger, who offered him the role of a Nazi torturer in the 1976 film Marathon Man. Olivier shaved the crown of his head and wore oversized glasses to widen the look in his eyes, in a role David Robinson would write about in The Times, "heavily acted", and he added that Olivier was "always at his best in roles that require him to be sleazy or nasty or both". For this performance, Olivier was again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and would win a Golden Globe in the same category.

Olivier continued to work in film in the 1980s, with roles such as The Jazz Singer (1980), Inchon (1981), Mutiny on board (The Bounty) (1984) and Wild Geese II (1985). He also worked for television. In 1981 he played the role of Lord Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited, where he won another Emmy Award and, the following year, received his tenth and final BAFTA nomination for his television adaptation of the play John Mortimer A Voyage Round My Father. In 1983 he played his last Shakespearean role as Lear in King Lear, for Granada Television, winning his fifth Emmy. He thought the role Lear's Lear was far less demanding than other Shakespearean tragic heroes he had done in his career: 'Well, Lear is easy. He's like all of us, really: he's just a stupid old man." When the production was first shown on American television, critic Steve Vineberg wrote:

Olivier Funeral Plate at Poets' Corner

"Olivier seems to have discarded the technique this time: his is an impressively pure Lear. In his final speech, about Cordelia's lifeless body, he draws us so close to Lear's pain that we can barely bear to look, because we have seen the last hero of Shakespeare to play Laurence Olivier. In the most sublime of the works, our best actor has given an indelible performance. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to express simply gratitude.".

That same year he appeared in a cameo role alongside Gielgud and Richardson in Wagner, starring Burton. His final appearance was as a wheelchair-bound war veteran in the Derek Jarman War Requiem released in 1989.

After struggling with poor health for his last 22 years, Olivier would die of kidney failure on July 11, 1989 at age 82 at his home near Steyning. His remains were cremated three days later and his ashes were deposited in the Poets & # 39; Corner of Westminster Abbey at a funeral service in October of that same year.

Acting method and technique

Laurence Olivier has been described by various film media, actors and audiences as the god of acting. Olivier's acting technique was painstakingly crafted and he was known for changing his appearance considerably from role to role. He was very fond of makeup, and unlike Richardson and Gielgud, he changed voices and accents. His technique was self-defined by him as "working from the outside in". He added & #34;I can never act like myself, I have to have a pillow under my sweater, a false nose or a mustache or a wig (...) I can't look like me and be someone else." Rattigan described Olivier's transformations as a way of "building his performance slowly and with immense discipline out of a mass of small details". His attention to detail delighted critics: Agate remarked, " 34;When I look at a clock it is to see the time and not to admire the mechanism. I want an actor to tell me Lear's time of day but Olivier doesn't. He asks me to watch the wheels turn.”

Olivier in 1939

Tynan remarked to Olivier that "you're not really a philosophical or contemplative actor"; Olivier was known for being physically exhausting in his performances. He told Tynan that this was due to his influence as a young man of Douglas Fairbanks, Ramon Navarro and John Barrymore on film, and of Barrymore himself on stage as Hamlet: & # 34; tremendously athletic. He admired him a lot, we all did.... You thought you were an idiot, skinny as you were, like some kind of Tarzan." According to Morley, Gielgud was considered "the best actor in the world from the neck up and Olivier from the neck down. " Olivier responded in this regard: "I have always believed that we were two sides of the same coin (...) the upper half of John, all spirituality, all beauty, all abstract; and I eat all the earth, the blood, the humanity."

Along with Richardson and Gielgud, Olivier became internationally recognized as one of the "great theatrical trinity of gentlemen" who dominated the British stage during the second half of the century XX. In his obituary The Times, Bernard Levin wrote, "What we have lost with Laurence Olivier is the &# 34;glory". He reflected it in his great roles; in fact, he was walking around dressed in it, you could practically see it shining around him like a nimbus (...) no one will ever play the parts the way he played them. No one will replace the splendor he gave his homeland with his genius." Billington commented:

[Olivier] elevated the art of the 20th century performance... mainly by the overwhelming force of his example. Like Garrick, Kean, and Irving before him, left the glamour and emotion of the performance so that, in any theater of the world, one night of Olivier elevated the level of expectation and sent spectators to the dark a little more aware of themselves and of having experienced a transcendent touch of ecstasy. That, in the end, was the true measure of his greatness.

After Olivier's death, Gielgud said, "he carried on the theatrical tradition of Kean and Irving. He respected tradition in the theater, but he also enjoyed breaking tradition, which is what made him so unique. He was gifted, brilliant and one of the great controversial figures of our time in theater, 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 theater, 'Larry could have made a notable ambassador, an important minister, a fearsome cleric. At worst, he would have acted the roles with more skill than is normally experienced." Director David Ayliff agreed that acting didn't come instinctively to Olivier as it did to his great rivals.. He observed, 'Ralph was a natural actor, he couldn't help but be a perfect actor; Olivier did it through sheer hard work and determination." Actor William Redfield had a similar vision:

Ironically, Laurence Olivier has less talent than Marlon Brando. He's even less gifted than Richard Burton, Paul Scofield, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud. But he remains the final actor of the twentieth century. Why? Because I wanted to be. Their achievements are due to dedication, scholarship, practice, determination and courage. He's the bravest actor of our time.

Compared to other actors of his generation, Ustinov wrote, "Of course, it is vain to talk about who is and who is not the best actor. There is simply no such thing as the greatest actor, painter or composer'. However, some colleagues, particularly film actors such as Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, came to regard Olivier as the best of his peers. Peter Hall, while acknowledging Olivier as the leader of the theatrical profession, thought of Richardson as the great actor. Olivier's claim to theatrical greatness lies not only in his acting, but how, in Hall's words, " the supreme man of the theater of our time", pioneer of the National Theater of Great Britain. As Bragg said, "no one doubts that the National is perhaps its most eternal monument".

Theatrical and film career

AnnexːTheatrical and film career of Laurence Olivier

Awards

Oscar Awards

He was the first actor to be nominated for an acting Academy Award in five consecutive decades; only Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine have since done so, but he is the only one who has always been nominated for best leading actor, since Nicholson in the 1960s and Streep in the 1970s were only nominated for supporting actors.

BAFTA Awards

Golden Globe Awards

Emmy Awards

David de Donatello Award

Venice International Film Festival

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Berlin International Film Festival

Tony Awards

Evening Standard Theatre Awards