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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier little mark until his final year, when he played Puck in the school's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; his performance was a tour de force that won him popularity among his fellow pupils. In January 1924, his brother left England to work in India as a rubber planter. Olivier missed him greatly and asked his father how soon he could follow. He recalled in his memoirs that his father replied, "Don't be such a fool, you're not going to India, you're going on the stage." ## Early acting career (1924–1929). In 1924 Gerard Olivier, a habitually frugal man, told his son that he must gain not only admission to the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, but also a scholarship
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Laurence Olivier with a bursary to cover his tuition fees and living expenses. Olivier's sister had been a student there and was a favourite of Elsie Fogerty, the founder and principal of the school. Olivier later speculated that it was on the strength of this that Fogerty agreed to award him the bursary. One of Olivier's contemporaries at the school was Peggy Ashcroft, who observed he was "rather uncouth in that his sleeves were too short and his hair stood on end but he was intensely lively and great fun". By his own admission, he was not a very conscientious student, but Fogerty liked him and later said that he and Ashcroft stood out among her many pupils. On leaving the school after a year, Olivier gained
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier work with small touring companies before being taken on in 1925 by Sybil Thorndike and her husband Lewis Casson as a bit-part player, understudy and assistant stage manager for their London company. He modelled his performing style on that of Gerald du Maurier, of whom he said, "He seemed to mutter on stage but had such perfect technique. When I started I was so busy doing a du Maurier that no one ever heard a word I said. The Shakespearean actors one saw were terrible hams like Frank Benson." Olivier's concern with speaking naturally and avoiding what he called "singing" Shakespeare's verse was the cause of much frustration in his early career, as critics regularly decried his delivery. In
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Laurence Olivier 1926, on Thorndike's recommendation, Olivier joined the Birmingham Repertory Company. His biographer Michael Billington describes the Birmingham company as "Olivier's university", where in his second year he was given the chance to play a wide range of important roles, including Tony Lumpkin in "She Stoops to Conquer", the title role in "Uncle Vanya", and Parolles in "All's Well That Ends Well". Billington adds that the engagement led to "a lifelong friendship with his fellow actor Ralph Richardson that was to have a decisive effect on the British theatre." While playing the juvenile lead in "Bird in Hand" at the Royalty Theatre in June 1928, Olivier began a relationship with Jill Esmond, the
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https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier daughter of the actors Henry V. Esmond and Eva Moore. Olivier later recounted that he thought "she would most certainly do excellent well for a wife ... I wasn't likely to do any better at my age and with my undistinguished track-record, so I promptly fell in love with her." In 1928 Olivier created the role of Stanhope in R. C. Sherriff's "Journey's End", in which he scored a great success at its single Sunday night premiere. He was offered the part in the West End production the following year, but turned it down in favour of the more glamorous role of Beau Geste in a stage adaptation of P. C. Wren's 1929 novel of the same name. "Journey's End" became a long-running success; "Beau Geste" failed.
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Laurence Olivier "The Manchester Guardian" commented, "Mr. Laurence Olivier did his best as Beau, but he deserves and will get better parts. Mr. Olivier is going to make a big name for himself". For the rest of 1929 Olivier appeared in seven plays, all of which were short-lived. Billington ascribes this failure rate to poor choices by Olivier rather than mere bad luck. ## Rising star (1930–1935). In 1930, with his impending marriage in mind, Olivier earned some extra money with small roles in two films. In April he travelled to Berlin to film the English-language version of "The Temporary Widow", a crime comedy with Lilian Harvey, and in May he spent four nights working on another comedy, "Too Many Crooks".
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Laurence Olivier During work on the latter film, for which he was paid £60, he met Laurence Evans, who became his personal manager. Olivier did not enjoy working in film, which he dismissed as "this anaemic little medium which could not stand great acting", but financially it was much more rewarding than his theatre work. Olivier and Esmond married on 25 July 1930 at All Saints, Margaret Street, although within weeks both realised they had erred. Olivier later recorded that the marriage was "a pretty crass mistake. I insisted on getting married from a pathetic mixture of religious and animal promptings. ... She had admitted to me that she was in love elsewhere and could never love me as completely as I would
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Laurence Olivier wish". Olivier later recounted that following the wedding he did not keep a diary for ten years and never followed religious practices again, although he considered those facts to be "mere coincidence", unconnected to the nuptials. In 1930 Noël Coward cast Olivier as Victor Prynne in his new play "Private Lives", which opened at the new Phoenix Theatre in London in September. Coward and Gertrude Lawrence played the lead roles, Elyot Chase and Amanda Prynne. Victor is a secondary character, along with Sybil Chase; the author called them "extra puppets, lightly wooden ninepins, only to be repeatedly knocked down and stood up again". To make them credible spouses for Amanda and Elyot, Coward was
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Laurence Olivier determined that two outstandingly attractive performers should play the parts. Olivier played Victor in the West End and then on Broadway; Adrianne Allen was Sybil in London, but could not go to New York, where the part was taken by Esmond. In addition to giving the 23-year-old Olivier his first successful West End role, Coward became something of a mentor. In the late 1960s Olivier told Sheridan Morley: In 1931 RKO Pictures offered Olivier a two-film contract at $1,000 a week; he discussed the possibility with Coward, who, irked, told Olivier "You've no artistic integrity, that's your trouble; this is how you cheapen yourself." He accepted and moved to Hollywood, despite some misgivings. His
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Laurence Olivier first film was the drama "Friends and Lovers", in a supporting role, before RKO loaned him to Fox Studios for his first film lead, a British journalist in a Russia under martial law in "The Yellow Ticket", alongside Elissa Landi and Lionel Barrymore. The cultural historian Jeffrey Richards describes Olivier's look as an attempt by Fox Studios to produce a likeness of Ronald Colman, and Colman's moustache, voice and manner 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 breakthrough he hoped for; disillusioned with Hollywood, he
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier returned to London, where he appeared in two British films, "Perfect Understanding" with Gloria Swanson and "No Funny Business"—in which Esmond also appeared. He was tempted back to Hollywood in 1933 to appear opposite Greta Garbo in "Queen Christina", but was replaced after two weeks of filming because of a lack of chemistry between the two. Olivier's stage roles in 1934 included Bothwell in Gordon Daviot's "Queen of Scots", which was only a moderate success for him and for the play, but led to an important engagement for the same management (Bronson Albery) shortly afterwards. In the interim he had a great success playing a thinly disguised version of the American actor John Barrymore in
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Laurence Olivier George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's "Theatre Royal". His success was vitiated by his breaking an ankle two months into the run, in one of the athletic, acrobatic stunts with which he liked to enliven his performances. In 1935, under Albery's management, John Gielgud staged "Romeo and Juliet" at the New Theatre, co-starring with Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans and Olivier. Gielgud had seen Olivier in "Queen of Scots", spotted his potential, and now gave him a major step up in his career. For the first weeks of the run Gielgud played Mercutio and Olivier played Romeo, after which they exchanged roles. The production broke all box-office records for the play, running for 189 performances. Olivier
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Laurence Olivier was enraged at the notices after the first night, which praised the virility of his performance but fiercely criticised his speaking of Shakespeare's verse, contrasting it with his co-star's mastery of the poetry. The friendship between the two men was prickly, on Olivier's side, for the rest of his life. ## Old Vic and Vivien Leigh (1936–1938). In May 1936 Olivier and Richardson jointly directed and starred in a new piece by J. B. Priestley, "Bees on the Boatdeck". Both actors won excellent notices, but the play, an allegory of Britain's decay, did not attract the public and closed after four weeks. Later in the same year Olivier accepted an invitation to join the Old Vic company. The theatre,
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Laurence Olivier in an unfashionable location south of the Thames, had offered inexpensive tickets for opera and drama under its proprietor Lilian Baylis since 1912. Her drama company specialised in the plays of Shakespeare, and many leading actors had taken very large cuts in their pay to develop their Shakespearean techniques there. Gielgud had been in the company from 1929 to 1931, and Richardson from 1930 to 1932. Among the actors whom Olivier joined in late 1936 were Edith Evans, Ruth Gordon, Alec Guinness and Michael Redgrave. In January 1937 he took the title role in an uncut version of "Hamlet", in which once again his delivery of the verse was unfavourably compared with that of Gielgud, who had played
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Laurence Olivier the role on the same stage seven years previously to enormous acclaim. "The Observer"'s Ivor Brown praised Olivier's "magnetism and muscularity" but missed "the kind of pathos so richly established by Mr Gielgud". The reviewer in "The Times" found the performance "full of vitality", but at times "too light ... the character slips from Mr Olivier's grasp". After "Hamlet", the company presented "Twelfth Night" in what the director, Tyrone Guthrie, summed up as "a baddish, immature production of mine, with Olivier outrageously amusing as Sir Toby and a very young Alec Guinness outrageous and more amusing as Sir Andrew". "Henry V" was the next play, presented in May to mark the Coronation of George
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Laurence Olivier VI. A pacifist, as he then was, Olivier was as reluctant to play the warrior king as Guthrie was to direct the piece, but the production was a success, and Baylis had to extend the run from four to eight weeks. Following Olivier's success in Shakespearean stage productions, he made his first foray into Shakespeare on film in 1936, as Orlando in "As You Like It", directed by Paul Czinner, "a charming if lightweight production", according to Michael Brooke of the British Film Institute's (BFI's) Screenonline. The following year Olivier appeared alongside Vivien Leigh in the historical drama "Fire Over England". He had first met Leigh briefly at the Savoy Grill and then again when she visited
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Laurence Olivier him during the run of "Romeo and Juliet", probably early in 1936, and the two had begun an affair sometime that year. Of the relationship, Olivier later said that "I couldn't help myself with Vivien. No man could. I hated myself for cheating on Jill, but then I had cheated before, but this was something different. This wasn't just out of lust. This was love that I really didn't ask for but was drawn into." While his relationship with Leigh continued he conducted an affair with the actress Ann Todd, and possibly had a brief affair with the actor Henry Ainley, according to the biographer Michael Munn. In June 1937 the Old Vic company took up an invitation to perform "Hamlet" in the courtyard
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Laurence Olivier of the castle at Elsinore, where Shakespeare located the play. Olivier secured the casting of Leigh to replace Cherry Cottrell as Ophelia. Because of torrential rain the performance had to be moved from the castle courtyard to the ballroom of a local hotel, but the tradition of playing Hamlet at Elsinore was established, and Olivier was followed by, among others, Gielgud (1939), Redgrave (1950), Richard Burton (1954), Derek Jacobi (1979), Kenneth Branagh (1988) and Jude Law (2009). Back in London, the company staged "Macbeth", with Olivier in the title role. The stylised production by Michel Saint-Denis was not well liked, but Olivier had some good notices among the bad. On returning from Denmark,
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Laurence Olivier Olivier and Leigh told their respective spouses about the affair and that their marriages were over; Esmond moved out of the marital house and in with her mother. After Olivier and Leigh made a tour of Europe in mid 1937 they returned to separate film projects—"A Yank at Oxford" for her and "The Divorce of Lady X" for him—and moved into a property together in Iver, Buckinghamshire. Olivier returned to the Old Vic for a second season in 1938. For "Othello" he played Iago, with Richardson in the title role. Guthrie wanted to experiment with the theory that Iago's villainy is driven by suppressed homosexual love for Othello. Olivier was willing to co-operate, but Richardson was not; audiences
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Laurence Olivier and most critics failed to spot the supposed motivation of Olivier's Iago, and Richardson's Othello seemed underpowered. After that comparative failure, the company had a success with "Coriolanus" starring Olivier in the title role. The notices were laudatory, mentioning him alongside great predecessors such as Edmund Kean, William Macready and Henry Irving. The actor Robert Speaight described it as "Olivier's first incontestably great performance". This was Olivier's last appearance on a London stage for six years. ## Hollywood and the Second World War (1938–1944). In 1938 Olivier joined Richardson to film the spy thriller "Q Planes", released the following year. Frank Nugent, the critic
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Laurence Olivier for "The New York Times", thought Olivier was "not quite so good" as Richardson, but was "quite acceptable". In late 1938, lured by a salary of $50,000, the actor travelled to Hollywood to take the part of Heathcliff in the 1939 film "Wuthering Heights", alongside Merle Oberon and David Niven. In less than a month Leigh had joined him, explaining that her trip was "partially because Larry's there and partially because I intend to get the part of Scarlett O'Hara"—the role in "Gone with the Wind" in which she was eventually cast. Olivier did not enjoy making "Wuthering Heights", and his approach to film acting, combined with a dislike for Oberon, led to tensions on set. The director, William Wyler,
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https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier was a hard taskmaster, and Olivier learned to remove what Billington described as "the carapace of theatricality" to which he was prone, replacing it with "a palpable reality". The resulting film was a commercial and critical success that earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and created his screen reputation. Caroline Lejeune, writing for "The Observer", considered that "Olivier's dark, moody face, abrupt style, and a certain fine arrogance towards the world in his playing are just right" in the role, while the reviewer for "The Times" wrote that Olivier "is a good embodiment of Heathcliff ... impressive enough on a more human plane, speaking his lines with real distinction,
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Laurence Olivier and always both romantic and alive." After returning to London briefly in mid-1939, the couple returned to America, Leigh to film the final takes for "Gone with the Wind", and Olivier to prepare for filming of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca"—although the couple had hoped to appear in it together. Instead, Joan Fontaine was selected for the role of Mrs de Winter, as the producer David O. Selznick thought that not only was she more suitable for the role, but that it was best to keep Olivier and Leigh apart until their divorces came through. Olivier followed "Rebecca" with "Pride and Prejudice", in the role of Mr. Darcy. To his disappointment Elizabeth Bennet was played by Greer Garson rather than
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Laurence Olivier Leigh. He received good reviews for both films and showed a more confident screen presence than he had in his early work. In January 1940 Olivier and Esmond were granted their divorce. In February, following another request from Leigh, her husband also applied for their marriage to be terminated. On stage, Olivier and Leigh starred in "Romeo and Juliet" on Broadway. It was an extravagant production, but a commercial failure. In "The New York Times" Brooks Atkinson praised the scenery but not the acting: "Although Miss Leigh and Mr Olivier are handsome young people they hardly act their parts at all." The couple had invested almost all their savings in the project, and its failure was a grave
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Laurence Olivier financial blow. They were married in August 1940, at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara. The war in Europe had been under way for a year and was going badly for Britain. After his wedding Olivier wanted to help the war effort. He telephoned Duff Cooper, the Minister of Information under Winston Churchill, hoping to get a position in Cooper's department. Cooper advised him to remain where he was and speak to the 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 involvement—directed "That Hamilton Woman", with Olivier as Horatio Nelson and Leigh in the title role. Korda saw that the relationship
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Laurence Olivier between the couple was strained. Olivier was tiring of Leigh's suffocating adulation, and she was drinking to excess. The film, in which the threat of Napoleon paralleled that of Hitler, was seen by critics as "bad history but good British propaganda", according to the BFI. Olivier's life was under threat from the Nazis and pro-German sympathisers. The studio owners were concerned enough that Samuel Goldwyn and Cecil B. DeMille both provided support and security to ensure his safety. On the completion of filming, Olivier and Leigh returned to Britain. He had spent the previous year learning to fly and had completed nearly 250 hours by the time he left America. He intended to join the Royal
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Laurence Olivier Air Force but instead made another propaganda film, "49th Parallel", narrated short pieces for the Ministry of Information, and joined the Fleet Air Arm because Richardson was already in the service. Richardson had gained a reputation for crashing aircraft, which Olivier rapidly eclipsed. Olivier and Leigh settled in a cottage just outside RNAS Worthy Down, where he was stationed with a training squadron; Noël Coward visited the couple and thought Olivier looked unhappy. Olivier spent much of his time taking part in broadcasts and making speeches to build morale, and in 1942 he was invited to make another propaganda film, "The Demi-Paradise", in which he played a Soviet engineer who helps improve
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Laurence Olivier British-Russian relationships. In 1943, at the behest of the Ministry of Information, Olivier began working on "Henry V". Originally he had no intention of taking the directorial duties, but ended up directing and producing, in addition to taking the title role. He was assisted by an Italian internee, Filippo Del Giudice, who had been released to produce propaganda for the Allied cause. The decision was made to film the battle scenes in neutral Ireland, where it was easier to find the 650 extras. John Betjeman, the press attaché at the British embassy in Dublin, played a key liaison role with the Irish government in making suitable arrangements. The film was released in November 1944. Brooke,
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Laurence Olivier writing for the BFI, considers that it "came too late in the Second World War to be a call to arms as such, but formed a powerful reminder of what Britain was defending." The music for the film was written by William Walton, "a score that ranks with the best in film music", according to the music critic Michael Kennedy. Walton also provided the music for Olivier's next two Shakespearean adaptations, "Hamlet" (1948) and "Richard III" (1955). "Henry V" was warmly received by critics. The reviewer for "The Manchester Guardian" wrote that the film combined "new art hand-in-hand with old genius, and both superbly of one mind", in a film that worked "triumphantly". The critic for "The Times" considered
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Laurence Olivier that Olivier "plays Henry on a high, heroic note and never is there danger of a crack", in a film described as "a triumph of film craft". There were Oscar nominations for the film, including Best Picture and Best Actor, but it won none and Olivier was instead presented with a "Special Award". He was unimpressed, and later commented that "this was my first absolute fob-off, and I regarded it as such." ## Co-directing the Old Vic (1944–1948). Throughout the war Tyrone Guthrie had striven to keep the Old Vic company going, even after German bombing in 1942 left the theatre a near-ruin. A small troupe toured the provinces, with Sybil Thorndike at its head. By 1944, with the tide of the war turning,
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Laurence Olivier Guthrie felt it time to re-establish the company in a London base and invited Richardson to head it. Richardson made it a condition of accepting that he should share the acting and management in a triumvirate. Initially he proposed Gielgud and Olivier as his colleagues, but the former declined, saying, "It would be a disaster, you would have to spend your whole time as referee between Larry and me." It was finally agreed that the third member would be the stage director John Burrell. The Old Vic governors approached the Royal Navy to secure the release of Richardson and Olivier; the Sea Lords consented, with, as Olivier put it, "a speediness and lack of reluctance which was positively hurtful." The
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Laurence Olivier triumvirate secured the New Theatre for their first season and recruited a company. Thorndike was joined by, among others, Harcourt Williams, Joyce Redman and Margaret Leighton. It was agreed to open with a repertory of four plays: "Peer Gynt", "Arms and the Man", "Richard III" and "Uncle Vanya". Olivier's roles were the Button Moulder, Sergius, Richard and Astrov; Richardson played Peer, Bluntschli, Richmond and Vanya. The first three productions met with acclaim from reviewers and audiences; "Uncle Vanya" had a mixed reception, although "The Times" thought Olivier's Astrov "a most distinguished portrait" and Richardson's Vanya "the perfect compound of absurdity and pathos". In "Richard III",
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Laurence Olivier according to Billington, Olivier's triumph was absolute: "so much so that it became his most frequently imitated performance and one whose supremacy went unchallenged until Antony Sher played the role forty years later". In 1945 the company toured Germany, where they were seen by many thousands of Allied servicemen; they also appeared at the Comédie-Française theatre in Paris, the first foreign company to be given that honour. The critic Harold Hobson wrote that Richardson and Olivier quickly "made the Old Vic the most famous theatre in the Anglo-Saxon world." The second season, in 1945, featured two double bills. The first consisted of "Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2". Olivier played the warrior
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Laurence Olivier Hotspur in the first and the doddering Justice Shallow in the second. He received good notices, but by general consent the production belonged to Richardson as Falstaff. In the second double bill it was Olivier who dominated, in the title roles of "Oedipus Rex" and "The Critic". In the two one-act plays his switch from searing tragedy and horror in the first half to farcical comedy in the second impressed most critics and audience members, though a minority felt that the transformation from Sophocles's bloodily blinded hero to Sheridan's vain and ludicrous Mr Puff "smacked of a quick-change turn in a music hall". After the London season the company played both the double bills and "Uncle Vanya"
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Laurence Olivier in a six-week run on Broadway. The third, and final, London season under the triumvirate was in 1946–47. Olivier played King Lear, and Richardson took the title role in "Cyrano de Bergerac". Olivier would have preferred the roles to be reversed, but Richardson did not wish to attempt Lear. Olivier's Lear received good but not outstanding reviews. In his scenes of decline and madness towards the end of the play some critics found him less moving than his finest predecessors in the role. The influential critic James Agate suggested that Olivier used his dazzling stage technique to disguise a lack of feeling, a charge that the actor strongly rejected, but which was often made throughout his later
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Laurence Olivier career. During the run of "Cyrano", Richardson was knighted, to Olivier's undisguised envy. The younger man received the accolade six months later, by which time the days of the triumvirate were numbered. The high profile of the two star actors did not endear them to the new chairman of the Old Vic governors, Lord Esher. He had ambitions to be the first head of the National Theatre and had no intention of letting actors run it. He was encouraged by Guthrie, who, having instigated the appointment of Richardson and Olivier, had come to resent their knighthoods and international fame. In January 1947 Olivier began working on his second film as a director, "Hamlet" (1948), in which he also took
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Laurence Olivier the lead role. The original play was heavily cut to focus on the relationships, rather than the political intrigue. The film became a critical and commercial success in Britain and abroad, although Lejeune, in "The Observer", considered it "less effective than [Olivier's] stage work. ... He speaks the lines nobly, and with the caress of one who loves them, but he nullifies his own thesis by never, for a moment, leaving the impression of a man who cannot make up his own mind; here, you feel rather, is an actor-producer-director who, in every circumstance, knows exactly what he wants, and gets it". , the critic for "The Daily Telegraph" thought the film "brilliant ... one of the masterpieces of
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Laurence Olivier the stage has been made into one of the greatest of films." "Hamlet" became the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Olivier won the Award for Best Actor. In 1948 Olivier led the Old Vic company on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand. He played Richard III, Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan's" The School for Scandal" and Antrobus in Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth", appearing alongside Leigh in the latter two plays. While Olivier was on the Australian tour and Richardson was in Hollywood, Esher terminated the contracts of the three directors, who were said to have "resigned". Melvyn Bragg in a 1984 study of Olivier, and John Miller in the authorised
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Laurence Olivier biography of Richardson, both comment that Esher's action put back the establishment of a National Theatre for at least a decade. Looking back in 1971, Bernard Levin wrote that the Old Vic company of 1944 to 1948 "was probably the most illustrious that has ever been assembled in this country". "The Times" said that the triumvirate's years were the greatest in the Old Vic's history; as "The Guardian" put it, "the governors summarily sacked them in the interests of a more mediocre company spirit". ## Post-war (1948–1951). By the end of the Australian tour, both Leigh and Olivier were exhausted and ill, and he told a journalist, "You may not know it, but you are talking to a couple of walking
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Laurence Olivier corpses." Later he would comment that he "lost Vivien" in Australia, a reference to Leigh's affair with the Australian actor Peter Finch, whom the couple met during the tour. Shortly afterwards Finch moved to London, where Olivier auditioned him and put him under a long-term contract with Laurence Olivier Productions. Finch and Leigh's affair continued on and off for several years. Although it was common knowledge that the Old Vic triumvirate had been dismissed, they refused to be drawn on the matter in public, and Olivier even arranged to play a final London season with the company in 1949, as Richard III, Sir Peter Teazle, and Chorus in his own production of Anouilh's "Antigone" with Leigh
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Laurence Olivier in the title role. After that, he was free to embark on a new career as an actor-manager. In partnership with Binkie Beaumont he staged the English premiere of Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire", with Leigh in the central role of Blanche DuBois. The play was condemned by most critics, but the production was a considerable commercial success, and led to Leigh's casting as Blanche in the 1951 film version. Gielgud, who was a devoted friend of Leigh's, doubted whether Olivier was wise to let her play the demanding role of the mentally unstable heroine: "[Blanche] was so very like her, in a way. It must have been a most dreadful strain to do it night after night. She would be shaking
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Laurence Olivier and white and quite distraught at the end of it." The production company set up by Olivier took a lease on the St James's Theatre. In January 1950 he produced, directed and starred in Christopher Fry's verse play "Venus Observed". The production was popular, despite poor reviews, but the expensive production did little to help the finances of Laurence Olivier Productions. After a series of box-office failures, the company balanced its books in 1951 with productions of Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" and Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" which the Oliviers played in London and then took to Broadway. Olivier was thought by some critics to be under par in both his roles, and some suspected him
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Laurence Olivier of playing deliberately below his usual strength so that Leigh might appear his equal. Olivier dismissed the suggestion, regarding it as an insult to his integrity as an actor. In the view of the critic and biographer W. A. Darlington, he was simply miscast both as Caesar and Antony, finding the former boring and the latter weak. Darlington comments, "Olivier, in his middle forties when he should have been displaying his powers at their very peak, seemed to have lost interest in his own acting". Over the next four years Olivier spent much of his time working as a producer, presenting plays rather than directing or acting in them. His presentations at the St James's included seasons by Ruggero
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Laurence Olivier Ruggeri's company giving two Pirandello plays in Italian, followed by a visit from the Comédie-Française playing works by Molière, Racine, Marivaux and Musset in French. Darlington considers a 1951 production of "Othello" starring Orson Welles as the pick of Olivier's productions at the theatre. ## Independent actor-manager (1951–1954). While Leigh made "Streetcar" in 1951, Olivier joined her in Hollywood to film "Carrie", based on the controversial novel "Sister Carrie"; although the film was plagued by troubles, Olivier received warm reviews and a BAFTA nomination. Olivier began to notice a change in Leigh's behaviour, and he later recounted that "I would find Vivien sitting on the corner
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Laurence Olivier of the bed, wringing her hands and sobbing, in a state of grave distress; I would naturally try desperately to give her some comfort, but for some time she would be inconsolable." After a holiday with Coward in Jamaica, she seemed to have recovered, but Olivier later recorded, "I am sure that ... [the doctors] must have taken some pains to tell me what was wrong with my wife; that her disease was called manic depression and what that meant—a possibly permanent cyclical to-and-fro between the depths of depression and wild, uncontrollable mania. He also recounted the years of problems he had experienced because of Leigh's illness, writing, "throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster,
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Laurence Olivier 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." In January 1953 Leigh travelled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to film "Elephant Walk" with Peter Finch. Shortly after filming started she suffered a breakdown, and returned to Britain where, between periods of incoherence, she told Olivier 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 the breakdown, many of the Oliviers' friends learned of her problems. Niven said
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Laurence Olivier she had been "quite, quite mad", and in his diary, Coward expressed the view that "things had been bad and getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts." For the Coronation season of 1953, Olivier and Leigh starred in the West End in Terence Rattigan's Ruritanian comedy, "The Sleeping Prince". It ran for eight months but was widely regarded as a minor contribution to the season, in which other productions included Gielgud in "Venice Preserv'd", Coward in "The Apple Cart" and Ashcroft and Redgrave in "Antony and Cleopatra". Olivier directed his third Shakespeare film in September 1954, "Richard III" (1955), which he co-produced with Korda. The presence of four theatrical knights in the one film—Olivier
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Laurence Olivier was joined by Cedric Hardwicke, Gielgud and Richardson—led an American reviewer to dub it "An-All-Sir-Cast". The critic for "The Manchester Guardian" described the film as a "bold and successful achievement", but it was not a box-office success, which accounted for Olivier's subsequent failure to raise the funds for a planned film of "Macbeth". He won a BAFTA award for the role and was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award, which Yul Brynner won. ## Last years with Leigh (1955–1956). In 1955 Olivier and Leigh were invited to play leading roles in three plays at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford. They began with "Twelfth Night", directed by Gielgud, with Olivier as Malvolio and
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Laurence Olivier Leigh as Viola. Rehearsals were difficult, with Olivier determined to play his conception of the role despite the director's view that it was vulgar. Gielgud later commented: The next production was "Macbeth". Reviewers were lukewarm about the direction by Glen Byam Shaw and the designs by Roger Furse, but Olivier's performance in the title role attracted superlatives. To J. C. Trewin, Olivier's was "the finest Macbeth of our day"; to Darlington it was "the best Macbeth of our time". Leigh's Lady Macbeth received mixed but generally polite notices, although to the end of his life Olivier believed it to have been the best Lady Macbeth he ever saw. In their third production of the 1955 Stratford
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Laurence Olivier season, Olivier played the title role in "Titus Andronicus", with Leigh as Lavinia. Her notices in the part were damning, but the production by Peter Brook and Olivier's performance as Titus received the greatest ovation in Stratford history from the first-night audience, and the critics hailed the production as a landmark in post-war British theatre. Olivier and Brook revived the production for a continental tour in June 1957; its final performance, which closed the old Stoll Theatre in London, was the last time Leigh and Olivier acted together. Leigh became pregnant in 1956 and withdrew from the production of Coward's comedy "South Sea Bubble". The day after her final performance in the play
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Laurence Olivier she miscarried and entered a period of depression that lasted for months. The same year Olivier decided to direct and produce a film version of "The Sleeping Prince", retitled "The Prince and the Showgirl". Instead of appearing with Leigh, he cast Marilyn Monroe as the showgirl. Although the filming was challenging because of Monroe's behaviour, the film was appreciated by the critics. ## Royal Court and Chichester (1957–1963). During the production of "The Prince and the Showgirl", Olivier, Monroe and her husband, the American playwright Arthur Miller, went to see the English Stage Company's production of John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" at the Royal Court. Olivier had seen the play earlier
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Laurence Olivier in the run and disliked it, but Miller was convinced that Osborne had talent, and Olivier reconsidered. He was ready for a change of direction; in 1981 he wrote: Osborne was already at work on a new play, "The Entertainer", an allegory of Britain's post-colonial decline, centred on a seedy variety comedian, Archie Rice. Having read the first act—all that was completed by then—Olivier asked to be cast in the part. He had for years maintained that he might easily have been a third-rate comedian called "Larry Oliver", and would sometimes play the character at parties. Behind Archie's brazen façade there is a deep desolation, and Olivier caught both aspects, switching, in the words of the biographer
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Laurence Olivier Anthony Holden, "from a gleefully tacky comic routine to moments of the most wrenching pathos". Tony Richardson's production for the English Stage Company transferred from the Royal Court to the Palace Theatre in September 1957; after that it toured and returned to the Palace. The role of Archie's daughter Jean was taken by three actresses during the various runs. The second of them was Joan Plowright, with whom Olivier began a relationship that endured for the rest of his life. Olivier said that playing Archie "made me feel like a modern actor again". In finding an "avant-garde" play that suited him, he was, as Osborne remarked, far ahead of Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, who did not successfully
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Laurence Olivier follow his lead for more than a decade. Their first substantial successes in works by any of Osborne'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 1959's "The Devil's Disciple". The same year, after a gap of two decades, Olivier returned to the role of Coriolanus, in a Stratford production directed by the 28-year-old Peter Hall. Olivier's performance received strong praise from the critics for its fierce athleticism combined with an emotional vulnerability. In 1960 he made his second appearance for the Royal Court company in Ionesco's absurdist
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Laurence Olivier play "Rhinoceros". The production was chiefly remarkable for the star's quarrels with the director, Orson Welles, who according to the biographer Francis Beckett suffered the "appalling treatment" that Olivier had inflicted on Gielgud at Stratford five years earlier. Olivier again ignored his director and undermined his authority. In 1960 and 1961 Olivier appeared in Anouilh's "Becket" on Broadway, first in the title role, with Anthony Quinn as the king, and later exchanging roles with his co-star. Two films featuring Olivier were released in 1960. The first—filmed in 1959—was "Spartacus", in which he portrayed the Roman general, Marcus Licinius Crassus. His second was "The Entertainer", shot
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Laurence Olivier while he was appearing in "Coriolanus"; the film was well received by the critics, but not as warmly as the stage show had been. The reviewer for "The Guardian" thought the performances were good, and wrote that Olivier "on the screen as on the stage, achieves the tour de force of bringing Archie Rice ... to life". For his performance, Olivier was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also made an adaptation of "The Moon and Sixpence" in 1960, winning an Emmy Award. The Oliviers' marriage was disintegrating during the late 1950s. While directing Charlton Heston in the 1960 play "The Tumbler", Olivier divulged that "Vivien is several thousand miles away, trembling on the edge of
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Laurence Olivier a cliff, even when she's sitting quietly in her own drawing room", at a time when she was threatening suicide. In May 1960 divorce proceedings started; Leigh reported the fact to the press and informed reporters of Olivier's relationship with Plowright. The decree "nisi" was issued in December 1960, which enabled him to marry Plowright in March 1961. A son, Richard, was born in December 1961; two daughters followed, Tamsin Agnes Margaret—born in January 1963—and Julie-Kate, born in July 1966. In 1961 Olivier accepted the directorship of a new theatrical venture, the Chichester Festival. For the opening season in 1962 he directed two neglected 17th-century English plays, John Fletcher's 1638
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Laurence Olivier comedy "The Chances" and John Ford's 1633 tragedy "The Broken Heart", followed by "Uncle Vanya". The company he recruited was forty strong and included Thorndike, Casson, Redgrave, Athene Seyler, John Neville and Plowright. The first two plays were politely received; the Chekhov production attracted rapturous notices. "The Times" commented, "It is doubtful if the Moscow Arts Theatre itself could improve on this production." The second Chichester season the following year consisted of a revival of "Uncle Vanya" and two new productions—Shaw's "Saint Joan" and John Arden's "The Workhouse Donkey". In 1963 Olivier received another BAFTA nomination for his leading role as a schoolteacher accused of
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Laurence Olivier sexually molesting a student in the film "Term of Trial". ## National Theatre. ### 1963–1968. At around the time the Chichester Festival opened, plans for the creation of the National Theatre were coming to fruition. The British government agreed to release funds for a new building on the South Bank of the Thames. Lord Chandos was appointed chairman of the National Theatre Board in 1962, and in August Olivier accepted its invitation to be the company's first director. As his assistants, he recruited the directors John Dexter and William Gaskill, with Kenneth Tynan as literary adviser or "dramaturge". Pending the construction of the new theatre, the company was based at the Old Vic. With the
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Laurence Olivier agreement of both organisations, Olivier remained in overall charge of the Chichester Festival during the first three seasons of the National; he used the festivals of 1964 and 1965 to give preliminary runs to plays he hoped to stage at the Old Vic. The opening production of the National Theatre was "Hamlet" in October 1963, starring Peter O'Toole and directed by Olivier. O'Toole was a guest star, one of occasional exceptions to Olivier's policy of casting productions from a regular company. Among those who made a mark during Olivier's directorship were Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, Derek Jacobi and Anthony Hopkins. It was widely remarked that Olivier seemed reluctant to recruit
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Laurence Olivier his peers to perform with his company. Evans, Gielgud and Paul Scofield guested only briefly, and Ashcroft and Richardson never appeared at the National during Olivier's time. Robert Stephens, a member of the company, observed, "Olivier's one great fault was a paranoid jealousy of anyone who he thought was a rival". In his decade in charge of the National, Olivier acted in thirteen plays and directed eight. Several of the roles he played were minor characters, including a crazed butler in Feydeau's "A Flea in Her Ear" and a pompous solicitor in Maugham's "Home and Beauty"; the vulgar soldier Captain Brazen in Farquhar's 1706 comedy "The Recruiting Officer" was a larger role but not the leading
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Laurence Olivier one. Apart from his Astrov in the "Uncle Vanya", familiar from Chichester, his first leading role for the National was Othello, directed by Dexter in 1964. The production was a box-office success and was revived regularly over the next five seasons. His performance divided opinion. Most of the reviewers and theatrical colleagues praised it highly; Franco Zeffirelli called it "an anthology of everything that has been discovered about acting in the past three centuries." Dissenting voices included "The Sunday Telegraph", which called it "the kind of bad acting of which only a great actor is capable ... near the frontiers of self-parody"; the director Jonathan Miller thought it "a condescending
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Laurence Olivier view of an Afro Caribbean person". The burden of playing this demanding part at the same time as managing the new company and planning for the move to the new theatre took its toll on Olivier. To add to his load, he felt obliged to take over as 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 plagued him for several years. The National Theatre production of "Othello" was released as a film in 1965, which earned four Academy Award nominations, including another for Best Actor for Olivier. During the following year Olivier concentrated on management, directing one production ("The
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Laurence Olivier Crucible"), taking the comic role of the foppish Tattle in Congreve's "Love for Love", and making one film, "Bunny Lake is Missing", in which he and Coward were on the same bill for the first time since "Private Lives". In 1966, his one play as director was "Juno and the Paycock". "The Times" commented that the production "restores one's faith in the work as a masterpiece". In the same year Olivier portrayed the Mahdi, opposite Heston as General Gordon, in the film "Khartoum". In 1967 Olivier was caught in the middle of a confrontation between Chandos and Tynan over the latter's proposal to stage Rolf Hochhuth's "Soldiers". As the play speculatively depicted Churchill as complicit in the assassination
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Laurence Olivier of the Polish prime minister Władysław Sikorski, Chandos regarded it as indefensible. At his urging the board unanimously vetoed the production. Tynan considered resigning over this interference with the management's artistic freedom, but Olivier himself stayed firmly in place, and Tynan also remained. At about this time Olivier began a long struggle against a succession of illnesses. He was treated for prostate cancer and, during rehearsals for his production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" he was hospitalised with pneumonia. He recovered enough to take the heavy role of Edgar in Strindberg's "The Dance of Death", the finest of all his performances other than in Shakespeare, in Gielgud's view. ###
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Laurence Olivier 1968–1974. Olivier had intended to step down from the directorship of the National Theatre at the end of his first five-year contract, having, he hoped, led the company into its new building. By 1968 because of bureaucratic delays construction work had not even begun, and he agreed to serve for a second five-year term. His next major role, and his last appearance in a Shakespeare play, was as Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice", his first appearance in the work. He had intended Guinness or Scofield to play Shylock, but stepped in when neither was available. The production by Jonathan Miller, and Olivier's performance, attracted a wide range of responses. Two different critics reviewed it for
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Laurence Olivier "The Guardian": one wrote "this is not a role which stretches him, or for which he will be particularly remembered"; the other commented that the performance "ranks as one of his greatest achievements, involving his whole range". In 1969 Olivier appeared in two war films, portraying military leaders. He played Field Marshal French in the First World War film "Oh! What a Lovely War", for which he won another BAFTA award, followed by Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding in "Battle of Britain". In June 1970 he became the first actor to be created a peer for services to the theatre. Although he initially declined the honour, Harold Wilson, the incumbent prime minister, wrote to him, then invited him
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Laurence Olivier and Plowright to dinner, and persuaded him to accept. After this Olivier played three more stage roles: James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night" (1971–72), Antonio in Eduardo de Filippo's "Saturday, Sunday, Monday" and John Tagg in Trevor Griffiths's "The Party" (both 1973–74). Among the roles he hoped to play, but could not because of ill-health, was Nathan Detroit in the musical "Guys and Dolls". In 1972 he took leave of absence from the National to star opposite Michael Caine in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's film of Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth", which "The Illustrated London News" considered to be "Olivier at his twinkling, eye-rolling best"; both he and Caine were nominated
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Laurence Olivier for the Academy Award for Best Actor, losing to Marlon Brando in "The Godfather". The last two stage plays Olivier directed were Jean Giradoux's "Amphitryon" (1971) and Priestley's "Eden End" (1974). By the time of "Eden End", he was no longer director of the National Theatre; Peter Hall took over on 1 November 1973. The succession was tactlessly handled by the board, and Olivier felt that he had been eased out—although he had declared his intention to go—and that he had not been properly consulted about the choice of successor. The largest of the three theatres within the National's new building was named in his honour, but his only appearance on the stage of the Olivier Theatre was at its
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Laurence Olivier official opening by the Queen in October 1976, when he made a speech of welcome, which Hall privately described as the most successful part of the evening. ## Later years (1975–1989). Olivier spent the last 15 years of his life in securing his finances and dealing with deteriorating health, which included thrombosis and dermatomyositis, a degenerative muscle disorder. Professionally, and to provide financial security, he made a series of advertisements for Polaroid cameras in 1972, although he stipulated that they must never be shown in Britain; he also took a number of cameo film roles, which were in "often undistinguished films", according to Billington. Olivier's move from leading parts
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Laurence Olivier to supporting and cameo roles came about because his poor health meant he could not get the necessary long insurance for larger parts, with only short engagements in films available. Olivier's dermatomyositis meant he spent the last three months of 1974 in hospital, and he spent early 1975 slowly recovering and regaining his strength. When strong enough, he was contacted by the director John Schlesinger, who offered him the role of a Nazi torturer in the 1976 film "Marathon Man". Olivier shaved his pate and wore oversized glasses to enlarge the look of his eyes, in a role that the critic David Robinson, writing for "The Times", thought was "strongly played", adding that Olivier was "always
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Laurence Olivier at his best in roles that call for him to be seedy or nasty or both". Olivier was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and won the Golden Globe of the same category. In the mid-1970s Olivier became increasingly involved in television work, a medium of which he was initially dismissive. In 1973 he provided the narration for a 26-episode documentary, "The World at War", which chronicled the events of the Second World War, and won a second Emmy Award for "Long Day's Journey into Night" (1973). In 1975 he won another Emmy for "Love Among the Ruins". The following year he appeared in adaptations of Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and Harold Pinter's "The
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Laurence Olivier Collection". Olivier portrayed the Pharisee Nicodemus in Franco Zeffirelli's 1977 miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth". In 1978 he appeared in the film "The Boys from Brazil", playing the role of Ezra Lieberman, an ageing Nazi hunter; he received his eleventh Academy Award nomination. Although he did not win the Oscar, he was presented with an Honorary Award for his lifetime achievement. Olivier continued working in film into the 1980s, with roles in "The Jazz Singer" (1980), "Inchon" (1981), "The Bounty" (1984) and "Wild Geese II" (1985). He continued to work in television; in 1981 he appeared as Lord Marchmain in "Brideshead Revisited", winning another Emmy, and the following year he received his
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Laurence Olivier tenth and last BAFTA nomination in the television adaptation of John Mortimer's stage play "A Voyage Round My Father". In 1983 he played his last Shakespearean role as Lear in "King Lear", for Granada Television, earning his fifth Emmy. He thought the role of Lear much less demanding than other tragic Shakespearean heroes: "No, Lear is easy. He's like all of us, really: he's just a stupid old fart." When the production was first shown on American television, the critic Steve Vineberg wrote: The same year he also appeared in a cameo alongside Gielgud and Richardson in "Wagner", with Burton in the title role; his final screen appearance was as an elderly, wheelchair-bound soldier in Derek Jarman's
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Laurence Olivier 1989 film "War Requiem". After being ill for the last 22 years of his life, Olivier died of renal failure on 11 July 1989 aged 82 at his home near Steyning, West Sussex. His cremation was held three days later; his ashes were buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey during a memorial service in October that year. # Awards, honours and memorials. Olivier was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1947 Birthday Honours for services to the stage and to films. A life peerage followed in the 1970 Birthday Honours for services to the theatre; he was subsequently created Baron Olivier, of Brighton in the County of Sussex. Olivier was later appointed to the Order of Merit in 1981. He also received
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Laurence Olivier honours from foreign governments. In 1949 he was made Commander of the Order of the Dannebrog by the Danish King Frederik IX; the French appointed him ', Legion of Honour, in 1953; the Italian government created him ', Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, in 1953; and in 1971 he was granted the Order of Yugoslav Flag with Golden Wreath. From academic and other institutions, Olivier received honorary doctorates from Tufts University in Massachusetts (1946), Oxford (1957) and Edinburgh (1964). He was also awarded the Danish Sonning Prize in 1966, the Gold Medallion of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities in 1968; and the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts in
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Laurence Olivier 1976. For his work in films, Olivier received four Academy Awards: an honorary award for "Henry V" (1947), a Best Actor award and one as producer for "Hamlet" (1948), and a second honorary award in 1979 to recognise his lifetime of contribution to the art of film. He was nominated for nine other acting Oscars and one each for production and direction. He also won two British Academy Film Awards out of ten nominations, five Emmy Awards out of nine nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards out of six nominations. He was nominated once for a Tony Award (for best actor, as Archie Rice) but did not win. In February 1960, for his contribution to the film industry, Olivier was inducted into the
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Laurence Olivier Hollywood Walk of Fame, with a star at 6319 Hollywood Boulevard; he is included in the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 1977 Olivier was awarded a British Film Institute Fellowship. In addition to the naming of the National Theatre's largest auditorium in Olivier's honour, he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards, bestowed annually since 1984 by the Society of West End Theatre. In 1991 Gielgud unveiled a memorial stone commemorating Olivier in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. In 2007, the centenary of Olivier's birth, a life-sized statue of him was unveiled on the South Bank, outside the National Theatre; the same year the BFI held a retrospective season of his film work. # Technique
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Laurence Olivier and reputation. Olivier's acting technique was minutely crafted, and he was known for changing his appearance considerably from role to role. By his own admission, he was addicted to extravagant make-up, and unlike Richardson and Gielgud, he excelled at different voices and accents. His own description of his technique was "working from the outside in"; he said, "I can never act as myself, I have to have a pillow up my jumper, a false nose or a moustache or wig... I cannot come on looking like me and be someone else." Rattigan described how at rehearsals Olivier "built his performance slowly and with immense application from a mass of tiny details". This attention to detail had its critics:
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier Agate remarked, "When I look at a watch it is to see the time and not to admire the mechanism. I want an actor to tell me Lear's time of day and Olivier doesn't. He bids me watch the wheels go round." Tynan remarked to Olivier, "you aren't really a contemplative or philosophical actor"; Olivier was known for the strenuous physicality of his performances in some roles. He told Tynan this was because he was influenced as a young man by Douglas Fairbanks, Ramon Navarro and John Barrymore in films, and Barrymore on stage as Hamlet: "tremendously athletic. I admired that greatly, all of us did. ... One thought of oneself, idiotically, skinny as I was, as a sort of Tarzan." According to Morley, Gielgud
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier was widely considered "the best actor in the world from the neck up and Olivier from the neck down." Olivier described the contrast thus: "I've always thought that we were the reverses of the same coin... the top half John, all spirituality, all beauty, all abstract things; and myself as all earth, blood, humanity." Together with Richardson and Gielgud, Olivier was internationally recognised as one of the "great trinity of theatrical knights" who dominated the British stage during the middle and later decades of the 20th century. In an obituary tribute in "The Times", Bernard Levin wrote, "What we have lost with Laurence Olivier is "glory". He reflected it in his greatest roles; indeed he walked
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier clad in it—you could practically see it glowing around him like a nimbus... no one will ever play the roles he played as he played them; no one will replace the splendour that he gave his native land with his genius." Billington commented: After Olivier's death, Gielgud reflected, "He followed in the theatrical tradition of Kean and Irving. He respected tradition in the theatre, but he also took great delight in breaking tradition, which is what made him so unique. He was gifted, brilliant, and one of the great controversial figures of our time in theatre, 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
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier disagreed; he commented that although Olivier's great contemporaries were clearly predestined for the stage, "Larry could have been a notable ambassador, a considerable minister, a redoubtable cleric. At his worst, he would have acted the parts more ably than they are usually lived." The director David Ayliff agreed that acting did not come instinctively to Olivier as it did to his great rivals. He observed, "Ralph was a natural actor, he couldn't stop being a perfect actor; Olivier did it through sheer hard work and determination." The American actor William Redfield had a similar view: In comparing Olivier and the other leading actors of his generation, Ustinov wrote, "It is of course vain
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier to talk of who is and who is not the greatest actor. There is simply no such thing as a greatest actor, or painter or composer". Nonetheless, some colleagues, particularly film actors such as Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, came to regard Olivier as the finest of his peers. Peter Hall, though acknowledging Olivier as the head of the theatrical profession, thought Richardson the greater actor. Others, such as the critic Michael Coveney, awarded the palm to Gielgud. Olivier's claim to theatrical greatness lay not only in his acting, but as, in Hall's words, "the supreme man of the theatre of our time", pioneering Britain's National Theatre. As Bragg identified, "no one doubts
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Laurence Olivier
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laurence%20Olivier
Laurence Olivier actor, or painter or composer". Nonetheless, some colleagues, particularly film actors such as Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, came to regard Olivier as the finest of his peers. Peter Hall, though acknowledging Olivier as the head of the theatrical profession, thought Richardson the greater actor. Others, such as the critic Michael Coveney, awarded the palm to Gielgud. Olivier's claim to theatrical greatness lay not only in his acting, but as, in Hall's words, "the supreme man of the theatre of our time", pioneering Britain's National Theatre. As Bragg identified, "no one doubts that the National is perhaps his most enduring monument". # External links. - Official website
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Verner von Heidenstam
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verner%20von%20Heidenstam
Verner von Heidenstam Verner von Heidenstam Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam (6 July 1859 – 20 May 1940) was a Swedish poet, novelist and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1916. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1912. His poems and prose work are filled with a great joy of life, sometimes imbued with a love of Swedish history and scenery, particularly its physical aspects. # Biography. He was born in Olshammar, Örebro County on 6 July 1859 to a noble family. He studied painting in the Academy of Stockholm, but soon left because of ill health. He then traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and the orient. He was at once greeted as a poet of promise on the publication of his first collection
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Verner von Heidenstam
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verner%20von%20Heidenstam
Verner von Heidenstam of poems, "Vallfart och vandringsår" ("Pilgrimage: the Wander Years", 1888). It is a collection of poems inspired by his experiences in the orient and marks an abandonment of naturalism that was dominant then in Swedish literature. His love for beauty is shown also by the long narrative poem "Hans Alienus "(1892). "Dikter" ("Poems", 1895) and "Karolinerna" ("The Charles Men", 2 vols., 1897–1898), a series of historical portraits of King Charles XII of Sweden and his cavaliers, shows a strong nationalistic passion. English translations of short stories from "Karolinerna" can be found in the "American-Scandinavian Review" (New York), May 1914, November 1915, and July 1916. The two volumes of
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Verner von Heidenstam
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verner%20von%20Heidenstam
Verner von Heidenstam "Folkunga Trädet" ("The Tree of the Folkungs", 1905–07) are the inspired, epic story of a clan of Swede chieftains in the Middle Ages. In 1910 a controversy was waged in Swedish newspapers between a number of Swedish literary men on the topic of the proletarian “degradation” of literature, the protagonists of the two opposing camps being August Strindberg and Heidenstam. Professors Lidforss and Böök also took part. Heidenstam's chief contribution was the pamphlet, directed chiefly against Strindberg, "Proletärfilosofiens upplösning och fall" ("The Decline and Fall of the Proletarian Philosophy"). Heidenstam's poetical collection "Nya Dikter", published in 1915, deals with philosophical themes,
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Verner von Heidenstam
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verner%20von%20Heidenstam
Verner von Heidenstam mainly concerning the elevation of man to a better humanity from solitude. He died at his home Övralid on 20 May 1940. # Works. - "Från Col di Tenda till Blocksberg ", pictures of travel (1888) - "Vallfart och vandringsår" (1888) - "Renässans" (1889) - "Endymion" (1889, novel) - "Hans Alienus "(1892) - "Dikter" (1895) - "Karolinerna ("The Charles Men", 1897–98, novel) - "Sankt Göran och draken "(1900) - "Klassizität und Germanismus" (published in German, Vienna 1901) - "Heliga Birgittas pilgrimsfärd" ("Saint Bridget's Pilgrimage", 1901) - "Ett folk " (1902) - "Skogen susar "("The Forest Whispers", 1904) - "Folkungaträdet "("The Tree of the Folkungs", 2 volumes, 1905–1907) - "Svenskarna
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Verner von Heidenstam
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verner%20von%20Heidenstam
Verner von Heidenstam och deras hövdingar" (1910, historical lectures) - "Nya Dikter" (1915). Works in English translation - "A King and his Campaigners" (1902) - "The Soothsayer" (1919) - "Sweden's Laureate. Selected Poems of Verner Von Heidenstam" (1919) - (trans. by Charles Wharton Stork) - "The Birth of God" (1920) - "The Charles Men" (1920) - (trans. by Charles Wharton Stork) - "The Swedes and their Chieftains" (1925) - (trans. by Charles Wharton Stork) - "The Tree of the Folkungs" (1925) # See also. - List of Swedish language writers - List of Swedish language poets - Oscar Levertin # Further reading. - Barton, Hildor Arnold (2003). "Sweden and Visions of Norway: Politics and Culture, 1814-1905".
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Verner von Heidenstam
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verner%20von%20Heidenstam
Verner von Heidenstam k) - "The Birth of God" (1920) - "The Charles Men" (1920) - (trans. by Charles Wharton Stork) - "The Swedes and their Chieftains" (1925) - (trans. by Charles Wharton Stork) - "The Tree of the Folkungs" (1925) # See also. - List of Swedish language writers - List of Swedish language poets - Oscar Levertin # Further reading. - Barton, Hildor Arnold (2003). "Sweden and Visions of Norway: Politics and Culture, 1814-1905". SIU Press. - Larsson, Hans Emil (1909). "Swedish Literature," "The Journal of English and Germanic Philology" 8 (3), pp. 313–329. # External links. - Verner von Heidenstam at Projekt Runeberg - Works by Verner von Heidenstam at Swedish Literature Bank (in Swedish)
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology Dermatology Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin, nails, hair ( functions & structures ) and its diseases. It is a specialty with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is specialist doctor that manages diseases, in the widest sense, and some cosmetic problems of the skin, hair and nails. # Etymology. Attested in English in 1819, the word "dermatology" derives from the Greek δέρματος ("dermatos"), genitive of δέρμα ("derma"), "skin" (itself from δέρω "dero", "to flay") and -λογία "-logia". # History. In 1801 the first great school of dermatology became a reality at the famous Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris, while the first textbooks (Willan's, 1798–1808)
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology and atlases (Alibert's, 1806–1814) appeared in print during the same period of time. # Training. ## United States. After earning a medical degree (M.D. or D.O.), the length of training in the United States for a general dermatologist to be eligible for Board Certification by the American Academy of Dermatology, American Board of Dermatology or the American Osteopathic Board of Dermatology is a total of four years. This training consists of an initial medical, transitional, surgical, or pediatric intern year followed by a three-year dermatology residency. Following this training, one- or two- year post-residency fellowships are available in immunodermatology, phototherapy, laser medicine,
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology Mohs micrographic surgery, cosmetic surgery, dermatopathology, or pediatric dermatology. For the past several years, dermatology residency positions in the United States have been one of the most competitive to obtain. ## United Kingdom. In the UK, a dermatologist is a medically qualified practitioner who has gone on to specialize in medicine and then sub-specialize in dermatology. This involves: - Medical school for five years to obtain an MBBS, MBBCh or MB, BChir degree - One year of house jobs before becoming fully registered as a medical practitioner - Two to three years training in general medicine to obtain a higher degree in medicine and become a member of the Royal College of Physicians -
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology Having obtained the MRCP examination, applying to become a Specialty Registrar (StR) in Dermatology and training for four years in dermatology - Passing the Specialty Certificate Examination (SCE) in Dermatology before the end of training Upon successful completion of the four-year training period, the doctor becomes an accredited dermatologist and is able to apply for a consultant hospital post as a consultant dermatologist. # Fields. ## Cosmetic dermatology. Dermatologists have been leaders in the field of cosmetic surgery. Some dermatologists complete fellowships in surgical dermatology. Many are trained in their residency on the use of botulinum toxin, fillers, and laser surgery. Some
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology dermatologists perform cosmetic procedures including liposuction, blepharoplasty, and face lifts. Most dermatologists limit their cosmetic practice to minimally invasive procedures. Despite an absence of formal guidelines from the American Board of Dermatology, many cosmetic fellowships are offered in both surgery and laser medicine. ## Dermatopathology. A dermatolopathologist is a pathologist or dermatologist who specializes in the pathology of the skin. This field is shared by dermatologists and pathologists. Usually a dermatologist or pathologist will complete one year of dermatopathology fellowship. This usually includes six months of general pathology, and six months of dermatopathology.
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology Alumni of both specialties can qualify as dermatopathologists. At the completion of a standard residency in dermatology, many dermatologists are also competent at dermatopathology. Some dermatopathologists qualify to sit for their examinations by completing a residency in dermatology and one in pathology. ## Immunodermatology. This field specializes in the treatment of immune-mediated skin diseases such as lupus, bullous pemphigoid, pemphigus vulgaris, and other immune-mediated skin disorders. Specialists in this field often run their own immunopathology labs.Immunodermatology testing is essential for the correct diagnosis and treatment of many diseases affecting epithelial organs including
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology skin, mucous membranes, gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts.The various diseases often overlap in clinical and histological presentation and, although the diseases themselves are not common, may present with features of common skin disorders such as urticaria, eczema and chronic itch. Therefore, the diagnosis of an immunodermatological disease is often delayed.Tests are performed on blood and tissues that are sent to various laboratories from medical facilities and referring physicians across the United States. ## Mohs surgery. The dermatologic subspecialty called Mohs surgery focuses on the excision of skin cancers using a tissue-sparing technique that allows intraoperative assessment
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology of 100% of the peripheral and deep tumor margins developed in the 1930s by Dr. Frederic E. Mohs. The procedure is defined as a type of CCPDMA processing. Physicians trained in this technique must be comfortable with both pathology and surgery, and dermatologists receive extensive training in both during their residency. Physicians who perform Mohs surgery can receive training in this specialized technique during their dermatology residency, but many will seek additional training either through preceptorships to join the American Society for Mohs Surgery or through formal one to two years Mohs surgery fellowship training programs administered by the American College of Mohs Surgery. This technique
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Dermatology
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dermatology
Dermatology requires the integration of the same doctor in two different capacities: surgeon as well as pathologist. In case either of the two responsibilities is assigned to another doctor or qualified health care professional, it will not be considered to be Mohs surgery. ## Pediatric dermatology. Physicians can qualify for this specialization by completing both a pediatric residency and a dermatology residency. Or they might elect to complete a post-residency fellowship. This field encompasses the complex diseases of the neonates, hereditary skin diseases or genodermatoses, and the many difficulties of working with the pediatric population. ## Teledermatology. Teledermatology is a form of dermatology
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