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Laurence Olivier
Age: 82 (passed away Jul. 11th, 1989)
Height: 5' 10"
Birth Place: Dorking, Surrey, England, UK
Born: May. 22nd, 1907
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Laurence Olivier's Main TV Roles
NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at
IMDB
BIOGRAPHY: He could speak William Shakespeare (I)'s lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles C. Bennett, who met Laurence Olivier in 1927. One of Olivier's earliest successes as a Shakespearean actor on the London stage came in 1935 when he played "Romeo" and "Mercutio" in alternate performances of "Romeo and Juliet" with John Gielgud. A young Englishwoman just beginning her career on the stage fell in love with Olivier's Romeo. In 1937, she was "Ophelia" to his "Hamlet" in a special performance at Kronberg Castle, Elsinore, Denmark. In 1940, she became his second wife after both returned from making films in America that were major box office hits of 1939. His film was Wuthering Heights (1939), her film was Gone with the Wind (1939). Vivien Leigh and Olivier were screen lovers in Fire Over England (1937), 21 Days (1940) and That Hamilton Woman (1941). There was almost a fourth film together in 1944 when Olivier and Leigh traveled to Scotland with Charles C. Bennett to research the real-life story of a Scottish girl accused of murdering her French lover. Bennett recalled that Olivier researched the story "with all the thoroughness of Sherlock Holmes" and "we unearthed evidence, never known or produced at the trial, that would most certainly have sent the young lady to the gallows". The film project was then abandoned. During their two-decade marriage, Olivier and Leigh appeared on the stage in England and America and made films whenever they really needed to make some money. In 1951, Olivier was working on a screen adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie" (Carrie (1952)) while Leigh was completing work on the film version of the Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She won her second Oscar for bringing "Blanche DuBois" to the screen. Carrie (1952) was a film that Olivier never talked about. George Hurstwood, a middle-aged married man from Chicago who tricked a young woman into leaving a younger man about to marry her, became a New York street person in the novel. Olivier played him as a somewhat nicer person who didn't fall quite as low. A PBS documentary on Olivier's career broadcast in 1987 covered his first sojourn in Hollywood in the early 1930s with his first wife, Jill Esmond (I), and noted that her star was higher than his at that time. On film, he was upstaged by his second wife, too, even though the list of films he made is four times as long as hers. More than half of his film credits come after The Entertainer (1960), which started out as a play in London in 1957. When the play moved across the Atlantic to Broadway in 1958, the role of "Archie Rice"'s daughter was taken over by Joan Plowright, who was also in the film. They married soon after the release of The Entertainer (1960).
TRIVIA:
- 4/21/58: According to "Time Magazine," as an addendum to its cover story on 'Alec Guinness' (qv), in 1957 Olivier turned down a Hollywood offer of $250,000 for one motion picture. Instead of making the movie and pocketing the cash (worth approximately $1.7 million in 2005 terms), Olivier preferred to take on the role of Archie Rice in 'John Osborne (II)' (qv)'s _The Entertainer (1960)_ (qv) (a role written specifically for him) at the princely sum of £45 per week (worth $126 in 1957 dollars at the contemporaneous exchange rate, or $856 in 2005 terms).
- Was in frail health while filming _The Boys from Brazil (1978)_ (qv), having recently undergone surgery for kidney stones.
- Won three Best Actor Awards from the New York Film Critics Circle: as the eponymous protagonists of Shakespeare's _The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944)_ (qv) and _Hamlet (1948)_ (qv), and as the mystery writer in _Sleuth (1972)_ (qv).
- Said once that he always visualized the physical appearance of a character that he was going to play before he did anything else.
- The filmmakers wanted him to play Clive Candy in _The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)_ (qv) (1943), but he was prevented from being furloughed from the Navy to take the role by Prime Minister 'Winston Churchill (I)' (qv), who didn't want the film to be made. Churchill didn't want to bolster the production with an actor and star of Olivier's calibre as it felt the movie was critical of a type of British patriot. Olivier was allowed to take a leave from the Navy to make a film about Shakespeare's patriotic King Henry V in _The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France (1944)_ (qv). 'Roger Livesey' (qv) was cast instead. A generation later he played Olivier's father Billy Rice in _The Entertainer (1960)_ (qv), though he was less than a year older than him.
- Godfather of 'Victoria Tennant (I)' (qv).
- The first thespian to receive both a Best Actor Oscar (for _Hamlet (1948)_ (qv)) and a Worst Actor Razzie (for _Inchon (1981)_ (qv)).
- Is portrayed by 'Andrew Clarke (I)' (qv) in _Blonde (2001) (TV)_ (qv), by 'Anthony Higgins (I)' (qv) in _Darlings of the Gods (1989) (TV)_ (qv) and by 'Anthony Gordon (I)' (qv) in _Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980) (TV)_ (qv).
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