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Laurence Olivier Biography

in full Laurence Kerr Olivier also called (1947–70) Sir Laurence Olivier

(1907 - 1989)

Related Works

Films
1931 The Yellow Passport (US the Yellow Ticket)
1933 Perfect Understanding

1933 No Funny Business
1936 Moscow Nights
1936 As You Like It
1937 Fire Over England
1937 Twenty-One Days (aka The First and the Last)
1938 The Divorce of Lady X
1939 Wuthering Heights
1940 Rebecca
1940 Pride and Prejudice
1941 That Hamilton Woman (UK Lady Hamilton)
1941 49th Parallel
1943 The Demi-Paradise
1944 Henry V
1948 Hamlet
1952 Carrie
1952 The Beggar's Opera
1955 Richard III
1957 The Prince and the Showgirl
1959 The Devil's Disciple
1960 The Entertainer
1960 Spartacus
1962 Term of Trial
1965 Bunny Lake is Missing
1965 Othello
1966 Khartoum
1968 Dance of Death
1968 The Shoes of the Fisherman
1969 Oh What a Lovely War
1969 Battle of Britain
1970 Three Sisters
1971 Nicholas and Alexandra
1972 Lady Caroline Lamb
1972 Sleuth
1976 The Seven Per Cent Solution
1976 Marathon Man
1977 A Bridge Too Far
1977 The Betsy
1978 The Boys From Brazil
1979 A Little Romance
1979 Dracula
1980 The Jazz Singer
1981 Clash of the Titans
1981 Inchon
1984 The Bounty
1985 The Jigsaw Man
1985 Wild Geese II
1988 War Requiem
Television
1958 John Gabriel Borkmann
1972 Long Day's Journey into Night
1973 The Merchant of Venice
1975 Love Among the Ruins
1976 Jesus of Nazareth
1976 The Collection
1976 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
1976 Hindle Wakes
1977 Come Back Little Sheba
1977 Daphne Laureola
1977 Saturday Sunday Monday
1981 Brideshead Revisited
1982 A Voyage Round My Father
1983 King Lear
1984 The Ebony Tower
1986 Lost Empires

» More

Related People

Related Sites

SIr Laurence Olivier Official Web site

(born May 22, 1907, Dorking, Surrey, England—died July 11, 1989, near London) a towering figure of the British stage and screen, acclaimed in his lifetime as the greatest English-speaking actor of the 20th century. He was the first member of his profession to be elevated to a life peerage.

The son of an Anglican minister, Olivier attended All Saints Choir School, where at age nine he made his theatrical debut as Brutus in an abridgement of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Five years later he played the female lead in The Taming of the Shrew at Oxford's St. Edward's School, repeating this performance at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. These early stage appearances did not go unnoticed by the theatrical notables of the era, who encouraged Olivier to consider acting as a profession. At first he dismissed the notion, hoping to follow the example of his older brother by managing an Indian rubber plantation; but his father, who had heretofore been ambivalent on the subject of acting, all but demanded that young Laurence embark upon a stage career.

Olivier enrolled at the Central School of Dramatic Art in 1924, then began his professional career with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company (1926–28). Three years later he made his first significant West End appearance, playing the title role in a staging of P.C. Wren's Beau Geste. Also in 1929, he made his Broadway debut in Murder on the Second Floor. Having acted in British films from 1930, he was briefly signed by Hollywood's RKO Radio Pictures in 1931, but he failed to make much of an impression at this early date. What could have been his first Hollywood break in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Queen Christina (1933) was scuttled when star Greta Garbo vetoed Olivier as her leading man in favour of her former lover John Gilbert.

During this period Olivier broadened his acting range by tackling difficult classical roles; he also chose to accept character parts that allowed him to hide what he considered his shortcomings behind heavy makeup and false beards. As he gained confidence in himself and his craft, audiences responded positively to him. The theatre critics also liked his work, though their comments were guarded and often compared Olivier unfavourably to such contemporaries as John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. He scored a significant triumph as star of an unabridged 1937 staging of Hamlet. He returned to Hollywood to play the tormented Heathcliff in Samuel Goldwyn's production of Wuthering Heights (1939). This time around, movie audiences took notice, and Olivier's subsequent international stardom was a fait accompli.