Olivier Sir L
NAME: Olivier, Sir Laurence Kerr
ACHIEVEMENTS: Founding Director of the National Theater of Great Britain.
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 22 May, 1907, Dorking, UK.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 11 July, 1989, Steyning, West Sussex, UK. Aged 82
DISCIPLINE: Actor
FIELD: Theater, Film, Television, Radio, Audio Recordings.
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: Revd. Gerald Kerr Olivier, Agnes Louise Crookenden
SIBLINGS: Sybille and Gerard
SPOUSE: Jill Esmond (1930-1940), Vivien Leigh (1940-1960), Joan Plowright (1961-1989)
CHILDREN: Tarquin, Tamsin, Julie-Kate, Richard
EDUCATION: St. Edward’s School, Oxford; Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art.
MAJOR WORK:
LIFE AND TIMES:
Laurence Olivier began his professional stage work at the Birmingham Repertory Theater in 1927 and for eight years struggled with small roles or undemanding matinee idol leads. His breakthrough came when <worked with> Gielgud* cast him as Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet.
When Gielgud and Olivier switched the roles of Romeo and Mercutio, the gimmick attracted a good deal of attention and helped make the production a popular success. Critics enjoyed comparing the two actors, contrasting Gielgud’s poetic charm with Olivier’s quick intensity.
Olivier followed this up with two seasons at the Old Vic, where he played a wide variety of classical roles including Hamlet, Iago and Macbeth. In 1939, he took a break from the classical theater to appear as Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights,’ William Wyler’s film version of Emily Bronte’s novel. Other, equally successful film roles followed, in ‘Rebecca,’ as the tortured and mysterious Maxim De Winter; ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ as Darcy; and ‘That Hamilton Woman,’ as Lord Nelson (opposite his wife, actress <married to> Vivien Leigh*).
During World War II, Olivier directed and starred in a film version of Shakespeare’s Henry V. The film was intended to provide a patriotic boost, but it exceeded even those expectations. Henry V was an artistic triumph, from Olivier’s clever direction to <worked with> William Walton’s* brilliant musical score.
In 1944, Olivier joined <worked with> Ralph Richardson* and John Burrell as co-director of the Old Vic. While here, he created some of his most popular roles, including Richard III, Hotspur and King Lear. He delighted audiences by putting on a double bill of Oedipus Rex and Sheridan’s The Critic. In a single exhausting evening, he would follow the stark tragedy of the doomed King Oedipus with the role of the silly and comically inept playwright Mr. Puff.
However, it was precisely this kind of virtuoso, attention-grabbing performance that caused the Old Vic’s board of directors to dismiss Richardson and Olivier in 1948, worried that they were making the theater too much of a vehicle for their star performances.
Olivier moved on quickly, directing a film version of his celebrated Hamlet (for which role he received an Academy Award) and taking on the management of the St. James theater. He co-starred with Vivien Leigh in a series of memorable productions, including Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw, and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra and Titus Andronicus. As Macbeth (opposite Vivian Leigh as Lady Macbeth) Olivier gave what some critics regard as his greatest stage performance, charting with clinical skill the character’s descent into evil and madness. Meanwhile, he continued to make occasional appearances in film.
In 1952, he gave one of his finest performances in William Wyler’s Carrie (after the novel Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser). In 1954, he recreated one of his most popular roles, the diabolic Richard III, in his own film version of Shakespeare’s play, with yet another impressive William Walton score. In 1957, Olivier took a complete change of direction and appeared as the aging, third-rate comic Archie Rice in John Osborne’s The Entertainer. Osborne, called the “angry young man” by journalists, was the leader of a new generation of playwrights known for their hostility to traditional values and institutions.
Even while he embraced the latest theatrical trends, Olivier continued to take on classic roles. In 1959, the 52 year old Olivier once again shocked audiences when, as Coriolanus, he performed his death scene by falling off of a 12 foot platform to be caught by the ankles by two soldiers. Such stunts were part of Olivier’s style. In the film of Hamlet, he had leaped from a platform onto the actor playing Claudius, cracking his ribs.
In 1962, Olivier took on his biggest challenge as the first director of the National Theater of Great Britain. In this new role, he had to be not only a magnetic leading actor, but also a diplomat in his dealings with the public and the government, and something of a financial wizard as well.
As a director, he gathered a regular company of talented younger performers and championed the work of young and controversial playwrights. The new theater had a very wide range, performing not only Shakespeare, but French farce, Restoration Comedy, German Expressionism, and a host of modern authors. Oliver was certainly the star performer, as he proved with his performance in the title role of Shakespeare’s Othello, but he was just as likely to show up in smaller, supporting roles. In 1967, he was the bitter, hateful Captain Edgar in Strindberg’s Dance of Death; in 1970, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice; and in 1972, James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
The following year, Olivier resigned as the director of the National Theater. The remainder of his career was devoted primarily to smaller roles in a large number of films. There were some notable exceptions, however.
He won the New York Film Critics’ Award for his role in Sleuth (1972) and an Emmy for Love Among the Ruins on television opposite Katherine Hepburn in 1975. His portrayal of the sadistic Dr. Szell in the film Marathon Man was unforgettably sinister, and he memorably portrayed the dying Lord Marchmain in the television mini-series Brideshead Revisited in 1983. That same year, he performed King Lear for the last time in a television production.
Laurence Olivier was knighted in 1947, created a baron in 1970 and given the Order of Merit in 1981.
ASSESSMENT: Laurence Olivier is regarded as one of the 20th century’s greatest actors. As a film director, he proved that Shakespeare’s plays could be made into successful motion pictures. As a stage director and producer, he guided the National Theater through its crucial early years.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: Lawrence Olivier, one of greatest 20th-century actors
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bragg, Melvyn. Laurence Olivier London: Hutchinson, 1984
Holden, Anthony. Laurence Olivier New York: Atheneum, 1988
Wardle, Irving. “Laurence Olivier”, in Dictionary of National Biography: 1986-1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.