Laurence Olivier: The Life Story Behind the Greatest Stage Actor

Laurence Olivier is often called the greatest actor of the twentieth century, and the title is not given lightly. He was a stage actor, a film actor, and a director, and he did all three at the highest level. He played Hamlet, Henry V, and Richard III on stage and on film, he played Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, he played a Nazi dentist in Marathon Man, and he founded the National Theatre in London, a company that still bears his name in its main auditorium. No other actor of his time did so much, in so many places, for so long.

He was born the son of a clergyman, in a small town in Surrey, and he became a lord, a Knight, and a peer of the realm. He was married three times, most famously to Vivien Leigh, the star of Gone with the Wind, and their marriage was one of the great love stories of the theatre, and one of its great tragedies. He lived to eighty-two, he worked until the end, and he left behind a body of work that is still the measure by which actors are judged.

This is the story of a boy who was shy, who was sent to a school for actors, who became a star on stage, who went to Hollywood and came back, who built a theatre for a nation, and who, in his last years, played small parts with the same care he had once given to kings.

Dorking, a Clergyman’s Son, and a Shy Boy Who Found the Stage

Laurence Kerr Olivier was born on 22 May 1907 in Dorking, a town in Surrey, England. He was the youngest of three children born to Gerard Olivier, a clergyman in the Church of England, and Agnes Olivier. His father was a strict, serious man, and his mother was kind and gentle. Laurence was a shy boy, and he was not strong. He was small, he was nervous, and he did not like school. He found comfort in the church, where his father preached, and in the stories he read, but he did not find a place where he belonged until he found the stage.

He went to school at All Saints in London, and then to St. Edward’s School in Oxford, where he began to act in school plays. He was not a natural at first. He was shy, and he spoke quietly, but he loved the feeling of being on stage, of becoming another person, and of making an audience listen. A teacher saw his talent, and encouraged him, and Laurence began to think that acting might be his life. He left school and went to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where he studied acting, voice, and movement. It was a new school, and it taught a new way of acting, based on clear speech and on the body, and Laurence learned it well.

At the Central School, he met other young actors, and he began to work in the theatre. He played small parts, he learned his craft, and he slowly gained confidence. He was not a handsome leading man in the usual sense, but he had a presence, a voice, and an intelligence that made people notice him. He played in London, in the West End, and he began to be talked about as a young actor with a future. He was still in his twenties, and he had a long way to go, but he had found his place, and he was ready to work for it.

In 1930, he married Jill Esmond, an actress, and they had a son, Tarquin. The marriage was not happy, and it would end in divorce, but it gave him a family, and it gave him a taste of the life of an actor married to an actress, a life of touring, of rehearsals, and of long absences. He worked hard in these years, playing in many plays, and learning from the older actors around him. He was a student of the theatre, and he watched, he listened, and he learned, until he was ready to take on the great roles himself.

The Old Vic, Shakespeare, and a Young Star

In the 1930s, Laurence Olivier joined the Old Vic, the great theatre in London that was known for Shakespeare, and he began to play the roles that would make him famous. He played Hamlet, he played Henry V, he played Romeo, and he played them with a power and a clarity that audiences had not seen before. He was not a traditional Shakespearean actor, who spoke in a grand, old-fashioned way. He spoke clearly, he moved naturally, and he made Shakespeare feel like a living man, not a statue. That was new, and audiences loved it.

He also played at the Old Vic with Ralph Richardson, another great actor, and the two men became friends and rivals. Richardson was older, and he was a master of comedy and of character, while Olivier was a master of tragedy and of kings. Together, they made the Old Vic the centre of English theatre, and they drew audiences who had never seen Shakespeare before. Olivier learned from Richardson, and Richardson learned from Olivier, and their partnership is still remembered as one of the great partnerships in the theatre.

In 1937, he played Hamlet at Elsinore, in Denmark, in the castle where the play is set, and the performance became legendary. He played the role again in London, and he was praised as the finest Hamlet of his generation. He also played Henry V, a king who leads his men into battle, and he made the role his own, with a voice that could rally an army and a presence that could fill a theatre. These were the roles that made him a star, and they were the roles that he would return to for the rest of his life, on stage and on film.

He also went to Hollywood in these years, and he made films that made him a star in America. He played Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights in 1939, opposite Merle Oberon, and he was nominated for an Academy Award. He played Maxim de Winter in Rebecca in 1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and he was praised for his performance as a haunted, secretive man. He was a film star now, as well as a stage star, and he had a choice to make: stay in Hollywood and make money, or return to London and to the theatre. He chose the theatre, again and again, because it was where he felt most at home.

Vivien Leigh, a Great Love, and a Marriage in the Spotlight

In the late 1930s, Laurence Olivier met Vivien Leigh, a beautiful young actress who had just become famous as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. They fell in love, and their affair became a scandal, because both were married to other people. They left their spouses, they married in 1940, and they became the most famous couple in the British theatre. They were beautiful, they were talented, and they were in love, and the public loved them for it. They acted together, they lived together, and they were photographed everywhere.

Their marriage was a great love, and it was also a difficult one. Vivien suffered from mental illness, and her moods changed suddenly, from joy to despair, and Laurence struggled to care for her while also working. He loved her deeply, and he tried to help her, but her illness was hard to live with, and it put a strain on their marriage. They acted together in plays, including Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra, and their performances were praised, but behind the scenes, their life was often painful. Vivien’s illness grew worse, and Laurence, who was working hard and who was often away, found it harder and harder to cope.

They divorced in 1960, after twenty years of marriage, and the divorce was a sad end to a great love. Laurence married Joan Plowright, an actress who had worked with him at the National Theatre, in 1961, and they had three children, and a happy marriage that lasted until his death. Vivien died in 1967, at the age of fifty-three, and Laurence was heartbroken. He spoke of her with love for the rest of his life, and he kept her memory alive. Their story is a love story, but it is also a story about illness, about the pressure of fame, and about two people who loved each other and could not live together, even though they tried.

Henry V, Hamlet, and Shakespeare on Film

Laurence Olivier’s great gift to the cinema was Shakespeare on film. In 1944, during the Second World War, he directed and starred in Henry V, a film about the English king who won the Battle of Agincourt. The film was made as a patriotic work, to lift the spirits of a country at war, and it did so brilliantly. It began in a theatre, as a play, and then it opened out into the fields of France, with a great battle, and a king who spoke to his men before the fight. The film was a success, and it won Olivier an honorary Oscar, for his work as actor, director, and producer. It showed that Shakespeare could work on film, and that a stage actor could make a great film.

In 1948, he directed and starred in Hamlet, a film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and that won Olivier the Oscar for Best Actor, the only time he won a competitive Oscar. The film was shot in black and white, in a great castle, and it was a dark, moody Hamlet, full of shadows and of doubt. Olivier played Hamlet as a man torn between action and thought, and his performance is still praised today. He also directed the film with great skill, using the camera to show Hamlet’s mind, and the film became a classic. It was a triumph, and it confirmed Olivier as the greatest Shakespearean actor of his time, on stage and on screen.

In 1955, he directed and starred in Richard III, a film about the hunchbacked king who murders his way to the throne. Olivier played Richard as a charming, witty, and evil man, with a limp and a hunched back, and he made the character both frightening and funny. The film was a success, and it showed that Olivier could play a villain as well as a hero. The three films, Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III, are his great Shakespeare films, and they are still watched today, in schools and in cinemas, as the standard by which Shakespeare on film is judged.

He also made other films, including The Entertainer in 1960, in which he played Archie Rice, a failing music hall comedian, and he was nominated for an Oscar. The role was very different from Shakespeare, and it showed his range as an actor. He could play a king, and he could play a sad, funny man in a seaside town, and both felt true. That range is what made him great, and it is why his work is still admired, even by actors who never saw him on stage.

The National Theatre and a Builder of Institutions

In 1963, Laurence Olivier became the first artistic director of the National Theatre, a new company that was to be the national theatre of Britain, like the Comédie-Française in France. It was a huge job, and Olivier took it on with energy and with vision. He chose the plays, he chose the actors, and he built a company that would perform the classics and new plays, in London and on tour. The company began at the Old Vic, while a new theatre was being built on the South Bank of the Thames, and Olivier led it for ten years, until 1973, when he handed over to Peter Hall.

Building the National Theatre was not easy. There were arguments about money, about the building, and about the plays, and Olivier had to fight for his vision. He believed that a national theatre should be for everyone, not only for the rich, and that it should perform the best plays, old and new, with the best actors. He worked hard to make that vision real, and he succeeded. The National Theatre is now one of the great theatres in the world, and its main auditorium is named the Olivier Theatre, in his honour. That is a fitting tribute to a man who gave ten years of his life to building it.

He was made a life peer in 1970, becoming Lord Olivier, the first actor to be made a peer for his work in the theatre. It was a great honour, and it showed how much the country valued him. He was no longer only an actor. He was a public figure, a builder of institutions, and a man who had changed the theatre in Britain for ever. He continued to act, on stage and on film, even as his health declined, and he worked until the end of his life, because acting was not only his job. It was his life.

Later Years, Marathon Man, and a Working Life to the End

In his later years, Laurence Olivier’s health declined, and he suffered from a muscle disease that made it hard for him to walk and to act. He did not stop working. He played in films, including Marathon Man in 1976, in which he played a Nazi dentist, a small but terrifying role, and he was nominated for an Oscar. He played in The Boys from Brazil in 1978, and in other films, and he played on television, in King Lear and in other plays. He was an old man now, but his voice was still strong, and his presence was still powerful, and audiences still came to see him.

He also wrote his memoirs, Confessions of an Actor, published in 1982, in which he wrote about his life, his marriages, and his work, with honesty and with humour. The book is a valuable record of a great actor’s life, and it shows a man who was thoughtful, funny, and aware of his own faults. He wrote about Vivien Leigh with love, about Joan Plowright with gratitude, and about his work with pride. It is a book that any young actor should read, because it tells the truth about the theatre, about fame, and about the hard work that lies behind a great career.

Laurence Olivier died on 11 July 1989, in Steyning, Sussex, at the age of eighty-two. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in Poets’ Corner, among the great writers and actors of England. His death was mourned all over the world, and his obituaries spoke of him as the greatest actor of his time, a man who had played kings and clowns, who had built a theatre for a nation, and who had left behind a body of work that would last for generations. His name is still spoken with respect by actors today, and his films are still watched, his stage work is still remembered, and his National Theatre still stands on the South Bank, a living tribute to a man who believed that theatre mattered, and who gave his life to it.

The Actor as Director and the Man Who Made Shakespeare Modern

Laurence Olivier was not only an actor. He was a director, and a great one, and his work as a director changed the way Shakespeare was played. Before him, Shakespeare was often played in a grand, old-fashioned way, with actors speaking in a high, formal style, and moving slowly across the stage. Olivier changed that. He spoke clearly, he moved naturally, and he made Shakespeare feel like a living man, not a statue. He also used film to make Shakespeare modern, opening up the plays to the fields, the castles, and the battles, and showing that a play written four hundred years ago could still speak to a modern audience.

He was also a man who believed in the theatre as a public service, not only as entertainment. He believed that a national theatre should be for everyone, that it should perform the best plays, and that it should train young actors. That belief drove him to build the National Theatre, and to work for it for ten years, even when it was hard and even when his health was failing. He did not build it for himself. He built it for the country, and for the future, and that is a legacy that no film can match. A film is watched and forgotten. A theatre stands, and it trains new actors, and it gives new audiences a place to see great plays. That is what Olivier built, and it is still standing today.

He also believed that an actor should serve the play, not himself, and that the star should not be bigger than the story. That belief is rare today, when many actors want to be the centre of attention, and when fame is often more important than the work. Olivier believed the opposite: the work came first, the play came first, and the actor’s job was to serve it. That is a lesson for any young actor, and for any person who works in public: do the work well, serve the story, and let the applause take care of itself. He did that for more than sixty years, and his work is the proof that it works.

He also worked with Ralph Richardson at the Old Vic, and the two men became friends and rivals, each learning from the other. Richardson was a master of comedy and of character, while Olivier was a master of tragedy and of kings, and together they made the Old Vic the centre of English theatre. That partnership shows how much actors can learn from each other, when they work together with respect, and how a theatre can become great when two great actors share a stage. Olivier learned from Richardson, and Richardson learned from Olivier, and their work together is still remembered as one of the great partnerships in the theatre.

He also directed films with great skill, using the camera to show a character’s mind, and not only their face. In Hamlet, he used shadows, in Henry V he used wide fields, and in Richard III he used close-ups to show a villain’s thoughts. That skill as a director is easy to miss, because we remember his acting, but it is a part of his greatness, and it shows that he understood film as well as he understood the stage. A great actor who can also direct is a rare thing, and Olivier was one.

He also played in The Entertainer in 1960, as Archie Rice, a failing music hall comedian in a seaside town, and the role showed a different side of him, a sad, funny man who had once been a star and who was now playing to small audiences. It was a role that Olivier loved, because it was close to his own life as an actor, and because it showed that he could play a small, ordinary man as well as a king. That range, from kings to comedians, is what made him great, and it is why his work is still admired by actors who never saw him on stage.

My Take:

I think Laurence Olivier is the greatest actor of the twentieth century, and I say that with confidence, because no other actor did so much, in so many places, for so long. He played Shakespeare on stage and on film, he played modern plays, he played villains and heroes, he directed films, and he built a National Theatre. That is a career that no one else can match, and it is a career that changed the theatre in Britain for ever. When I watch his Hamlet, or his Henry V, or his Richard III, I feel that I am watching a man who understood acting as a craft, as an art, and as a public service, all at once.

What I admire most is his work as a builder. He did not only act. He built the National Theatre, and he led it for ten years, choosing the plays, choosing the actors, and fighting for money and for a building. That is a different kind of work from acting, and it is harder in many ways, because it means meetings, arguments, and long days when no one applauds. Olivier did it, because he believed that Britain needed a national theatre, and that the theatre should be for everyone, not only for the rich. That belief is still alive today, in the theatre on the South Bank that bears his name. A film is watched and forgotten. A theatre stands, and it trains new actors, and it gives new audiences a place to see great plays. That is a legacy that will last longer than any film.

I also admire his Shakespeare films. Henry V, made during the Second World War, was a patriotic film, and it lifted the spirits of a country at war. Hamlet, made in 1948, won the Oscar for Best Picture, and won Olivier the Oscar for Best Actor. Richard III, made in 1955, showed that he could play a villain as well as a hero. These three films are still the standard by which Shakespeare on film is judged, and they are still watched in schools and in cinemas today. They show that a stage actor could make a great film, and that Shakespeare, written four hundred years ago, could still speak to a modern audience. That is a great achievement, and it is one that Olivier should be proud of.

His marriage to Vivien Leigh is a part of his story that moves me and saddens me at the same time. They were beautiful, they were talented, and they were in love, and their marriage was one of the great love stories of the theatre. But Vivien suffered from mental illness, and her moods changed suddenly, and Laurence struggled to care for her while also working. He loved her deeply, and he tried to help her, but her illness was hard to live with, and it put a strain on their marriage. They divorced in 1960, and Vivien died in 1967, at fifty-three, and Laurence was heartbroken. I feel sympathy for both of them, because they loved each other, and they could not live together, even though they tried. It is a sad story, and it shows that love is not always enough, especially when illness is part of it.

I think about his later marriage to Joan Plowright, too, because it shows a different side of him. Joan was an actress who had worked with him at the National Theatre, and their marriage, from 1961 until his death in 1989, was happy and stable. They had three children, and they built a life together that was quieter and kinder than his life with Vivien. That is a hopeful part of his story. A man who had a painful first marriage, and a painful second marriage, found happiness in his third, and he kept it for nearly thirty years. That shows that a person can learn from the past, and can build a better life, even late in life. I respect that, and I am glad for him.

His health in later years is another part of his story that I think about with admiration. He suffered from a muscle disease that made it hard for him to walk and to act, and yet he kept working. He played in Marathon Man, in The Boys from Brazil, and on television, in King Lear, and he gave those performances with the same care he had once given to kings. That takes a kind of courage that is easy to miss, because we see only the finished film, not the pain and the effort that went into it. He was an old man, he was ill, and he still showed up, and he still gave his best. That is a lesson for anyone who feels that illness is a reason to stop. Olivier did not stop. He worked until the end, because acting was not only his job. It was his life.

There is a part of his story that I find less admirable, and I want to be honest about it. He could be difficult to work with, and he could be proud and demanding. He was a star, and he knew it, and he sometimes treated other actors with less kindness than they deserved. He was also a man who put his work first, and his family second, and that cost him in his marriages. I do not say this to lessen his achievement. I say it because a great actor can also be a difficult person, and Olivier was both. His work was great, but his life was not perfect, and a reader should know that, so that they can admire his work without pretending that the man was a saint.

I also think that some of his films have not aged well, and that is a fair thing to say. Henry V is a patriotic film, made during a war, and it feels old-fashioned today in places. Richard III is a great performance, but the film is stagey in parts, and it does not feel like a modern film. That is not a criticism of Olivier. It is a fact about films made in the 1940s and 1950s, when the camera was used differently. His stage work, which was his greatest work, cannot be seen today, except in recordings, and that is a loss. We have his films, but we do not have his Hamlet on stage, except in memory, and that is a pity, because the stage was where he was greatest.

What I learn from him, in the end, is that an actor can be more than an actor. Olivier was an actor, a director, a builder, and a public figure, and he used all those roles to serve the theatre. He did not only take from the theatre. He gave to it, by building a company, by training young actors, and by making Shakespeare available to people who had never seen it. That is a lesson for any person with a gift: use it not only for yourself, but for others, and for the future. A gift that is only used for fame will fade. A gift that is used to build something for others will last.

I also learn from him that work is a form of love. He worked until he was eighty-two, even when he was ill, because he loved acting, and he loved the theatre. He did not retire, and he did not stop, because stopping would have meant giving up the thing he loved most. That is a lesson for anyone who loves their work: do it as long as you can, do it well, and do not be afraid of age. Age does not end a career. It changes it, and it can make it richer, if a person is willing to take smaller parts, and to play them with the same care as the great ones. Olivier did that, in Marathon Man, in King Lear, and in his last films, and those small parts are as memorable as his kings.

If I could speak to him, I would thank him for his Hamlet, for his Henry V, for his Richard III, and for the National Theatre, which still stands on the South Bank, and which still bears his name. I would tell him that his work is still the measure by which actors are judged, and that young actors still watch his films to learn how to speak Shakespeare. I would also tell him that his life, with its loves, its losses, and its hard work, is a story worth telling, and that it still teaches us today, that theatre matters, that words matter, and that a person who gives their life to an art can change the world, one performance at a time.

In the end, I see Laurence Olivier as a shy boy from Dorking who became a lord, a king on stage, and a builder of a theatre for a nation. He was a great actor, a great director, and a great man, with faults as well as gifts, and his life is a reminder that a single person, with talent and with hard work, can leave behind something that lasts for generations. His National Theatre still stands, his films are still watched, and his name is still spoken with respect. That is a legacy to be proud of, and it is one that began with a shy boy who found the stage, and who never left it.

I also think about the young actors who watch his films today, and who see a man playing Hamlet, Henry V, and Richard III, and who dream of doing the same. They should know that Olivier worked for his greatness, that he trained, he practised, and he gave his life to the theatre. A great actor is not born. He is made, by hard work, by study, and by a love of the work itself. Olivier made himself, from a shy boy in Dorking, into the greatest actor of his time, and that journey is a lesson for anyone who dreams of a life on the stage.

I also think about the way his films are used in schools, to teach Shakespeare to young people who have never seen a play. A teacher can show Olivier’s Hamlet, or his Henry V, and a class of students can see, in a single lesson, what Shakespeare means, and why his words still matter. That is a great gift to education, and it is one that Olivier gave without knowing it, because he made his films to be watched, not to be taught, and yet they are taught, year after year, because they are the best way to show a young person what great acting looks like. That is a legacy that will last as long as schools teach Shakespeare, which is to say, for a very long time.

I think about his voice once more, because it is the thing that stays with me when I think of him. It was clear, it was strong, and it could make a line of Shakespeare sound like music. I have heard many actors speak Shakespeare, but few have a voice like Olivier’s. It was a voice that was trained, that was cared for, and that was used with great skill, to bring great words to life. That voice is still heard today, in recordings of his films and his stage work, and it still teaches young actors how to speak, how to breathe, and how to make words live. That is a gift that does not fade, even when the man who owned it has gone.

I also think about the way his memoirs are read by young actors today, who want to learn about the theatre from a man who lived it for more than sixty years. He wrote about his life, his marriages, and his work, with honesty and with humour, and his book is a valuable record of a great actor’s life. A young actor who reads it learns that the theatre is hard work, that fame is not easy, and that a great career takes a lifetime of effort. That is a lesson worth learning, and Olivier teaches it well, because he lived it, and he wrote about it with a clarity that few actors have matched.

I also think about the way his Shakespeare films are studied in film schools, where students learn how to turn a play into a film, and where they see in Olivier a man who did it better than anyone. His Henry V is still shown as an example of how to make Shakespeare work on screen, and his Hamlet is still the only Shakespeare film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. That is a record that has stood for more than seventy years, and it is one that no other actor-director has matched.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Laurence Olivier born?

Laurence Olivier was born on 22 May 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, England. He was the youngest of three children born to Gerard Olivier, a clergyman, and Agnes Olivier, and he was a shy boy who found his place on the stage.

What are Laurence Olivier’s most famous Shakespeare films?

His most famous Shakespeare films are Henry V in 1944, Hamlet in 1948, and Richard III in 1955. Hamlet won the Academy Award for Best Picture and won Olivier the Oscar for Best Actor, the only competitive Oscar he won.

Did Laurence Olivier win an Oscar?

Yes, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Hamlet in 1948, and he won honorary Oscars for Henry V and for his lifetime of work. He was nominated many times, and he is one of the most honoured actors in film history.

Who was Vivien Leigh to Laurence Olivier?

Vivien Leigh was his second wife, married from 1940 to 1960. She was the star of Gone with the Wind, and their marriage was one of the great love stories of the theatre, but it was strained by her mental illness, and they divorced in 1960.

What is the National Theatre?

The National Theatre is a theatre company in London that Olivier led as its first artistic director from 1963 to 1973. He built the company, chose its plays and actors, and its main auditorium on the South Bank is named the Olivier Theatre in his honour.

When did Laurence Olivier become a lord?

He was made a life peer in 1970, becoming Lord Olivier, the first actor to be made a peer for his work in the theatre. It was a great honour, and it showed how much the country valued his work.

When did Laurence Olivier die?

He died on 11 July 1989 in Steyning, Sussex, at the age of eighty-two. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in Poets’ Corner, among the great writers and actors of England.