Born May 22, 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, England, Laurence Olivier was the son of a High Anglican priest who became an actor at the age of ten at his father’s urging. After graduating from acting school in the late 1920s, he appeared in numerous productions, achieving his first major success in Private Lives in 1930, the year he married first wife Jill Esmond and made his first film.

Olivier’s British film successes included 1936’s As You Like It and Fire Over England opposite Vivien Leigh whom he married in 1940 after Esmond finally consented to a divorce. In 1938 he starred opposite Merle Oberon in The Divorce of Lady X and although they didn’t get along, co-starred once again in 1939’s Wuthering Heights while Leigh made Gone With the Wind. That was followed by Hollywood successes Rebecca and Pride and Prejudice and British successes That Hamilton Woman and 49th Parallel. Olivier earned Oscar nominations for both Wuthering Heights and Rebecca.

Filmed in England in 1944 during World War II, Olivier’s celebrated film version of Henry V was not shown in the U.S. until 1946 where it was an enormous success, earning Olivier his third nomination for Best Actor and winning him an honorary Oscar for acting, directing and producing the film, the first of several Shakespeare adaptations he would make of the course of five decades. His next, 1948’s Hamlet, earned him his only nomination for Best Director and his only competitive Oscar for Best Actor.

Post-Hamlet, Olivier concentrated mainly on the stage but did grace the screen with memorable roles in 1952’s Carrie, 1955’s Richard III (1956 in the U.S.), 1957’s The Prince and the Showgirl, and The Devil’s Disciple and 1960’s The Entertainer and Spartacus, the year he divorced Leigh and married Joan Plowright who played his daughter in The Entertainer. That marriage would last until his death. He earned further Oscar nominations for both Richard III and The Entertainer.

Olivier’s film career became more prolific in the 1960s and ‘70s in such films as 1963’s Term of Trial, 1965’s Bunny Lake Is Missing and Othello, 1966’s Khartoum, 1968’s The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1969’s Oh! What a Lovely War, 1972’s Sleuth, 1976’s Marathon Man, 1978’s The Boys from Brazil and 1979’s A Little Romance. Othello, Sleuth, Marathon Man and The Boys from Brazil all earned him Oscar nominations and he won an honorary Oscar for his body of work at the 1978 awards.

Olivier also had extensive TV credits, nine of which brought him Emmy nominations, five of which brought him wins. They were for 1960’s The Moon and Sixpence, 1973’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, 1975’s Love Among the Ruins, 1982’s Brideshead Revisited and 1984’s King Lear.

Lord Olivier died in 1989 at the age of 82. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939), directed by William Wyler

Wyler’s film of the last portion of Emily Bronte’s literary classic won the New York Film Critics Award as Best Picture of 1939. It was a compromise win over two factions, one of which supported Gone With the Wind and one of which supported Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Despite losing chunks of narrative that were better explored in later versions of the classic, this version remains the definitive one for lovers of classic Hollywood. Olivier is superb as Heatchcliff. If Merle Oberon is a little lacking in her portrayal of Cathy, this is more than made up for with the fine performances of Olivier, Daid Niven as Edgar, Flora Robson as Ellen and Geraldine Fitzgerald as Isabella.

REBECCA (1940), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcok’s first Hollywood film from Daphne Du Maurier’s instant classic gothic novel provided Olivier with his definitive non-Shakespearean role as the brooding widower who marries naïve Joan Fontaine who lives in the shadow of his first wife, the titled Rebecca.

The film is a veritable actors’ showcase not only for Fontaine and Olivier, but for Judith Anderson as the evil housekeeper, George Sanders as Rebecca’s lover, Gladys Cooper as Olivier’s sister, Nigel Bruce as her husband and Florence Bates as Fontaine’s employer at the beginning of the film.

HAMLET (1948), directed by Laurence Olivier

Olivier’s truncated version of Shakespeare’s best-known play is also Olivier’s best-known film of all his many films of Shakespeare’s works.

Olivier’s Oscar win for Best Actor was probably pre-ordained given the praise it received, but the film’s Best Picture win was a surprise to most people. It was a veritable shock to the Hollywood moguls who withdrew their financial support of the Academy forcing it to turn to television a few years later for the revenues they were losing.

RICHARD III (1956), directed by Laurence Olivier

Now considered Olivier’s best Shakespearean film as well as his best performance in a Shakespearean film, the film received respectable notices at the time, but was not considered as important a film as either Henry V or Hamlet

The film had a unique debut, appearing on TV on a Sunday afternoon at the same time it was making its theatrical debut. The TV showing was in black-and-white. If you wanted to experience it in breathtaking color, you had to go to the movies.

SLEUTH (1972), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Olivier’s deft portrayal of the man who loves to play games earned him his third New York Film critics Award for Best Actor. His previous wins had been for Henry V and Hamlet. Ironically he lost the Oscar to Marlon Brando in The Godfather, a role he had been considered for.

On screen with Michael Caine for practically the entire film, Olivier, who had won a life achievement award from the Academy three years earlier, proved in spades that his life achievements were far from over.

LAURENCE OLIVIER AND OSCAR

• Nominated Best Actor – Wuthering Heights (1939)
• Nominated Best Actor – Rebecca (1940)
• Nominated Best Actor – Henry V (1946)
• Honorary Award – For his outstanding achievement as actor, producer and director in bringing ‘Henry V’ to the screen. (1946)
• Nominated Best Director – Hamlet (1948)
• Oscar – Best Actor – Hamlet (1948)
• Nominated Best Actor – Richard III (1956)
• Nominated Best Actor – The Entertainer (1960)
• Nominated Best Actor – Othello (1965)
• Nominated Best Actor – Sleuth (1972)
• Nominated Best Supporting Actor – Marathon Man (1976)
• Nominated Best Actor – The Boys from Brazil (1978)
• Honorary Award – Career achievement (1978)