Olivier

by Terry Coleman

Hardcover, 2005

Status

Available

Genres

Publication

New York : H. Holt, 2005.

Description

Based on unprecedented access, the definitive biography of Sir Laurence Olivier, the dashing, self-invented Englishman who became the greatest actor of the twentieth century. Olivier met everyone, knew everyone, and played every role in existence. But he was as elusive in life as he was on the stage, a bold and practiced pretender who changed names, altered his identity, and defied characterization. Biographer Coleman draws for the first time on the vast archive of Olivier's private papers and those of his family, uncovering the history and the private self that Olivier worked all his life to obscure. Acting and sex were for him inseparable: through famous romances with Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright and countless trysts, these relationships entangled with his stage work, each feeding the other and driving Olivier to greater heights. Here is the first comprehensive account of the man whose autobiography, written late in his life, told only a small part of the story.--From publisher description.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member AlisonM

Coleman manfully weeds out the fact from the fiction in the long & colourful life of one of the English stage's greatest actors. Even handed & fair but factual excellence over-rules entertainment value.

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LibraryThing member bibliothecarivs

Famed and acclaimed British actor Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) was an actor to his core, a self-identification which guided him confidently along the path of his life's work. But it also meant that his true personality, underneath his talent for professional deception, was known by only a few.

Given unprecedented access to the remnants of Olivier's life (his effects, his letters, and his family) to cut through the miasmus of previous biographies, Terry Coleman has crafted a great and moving opus on the life of an equivocating genius.

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LibraryThing member knahs

This is a comprehensive biography of stage and film star Laurence Olivier. The author was authorized by Olivier's estate so had access to papers, letters, family members, and friends. With just the book and films to judge him by (I never saw him on stage), I always found him to be stiff as a film

actor. (His second wife Vivien Leigh was a much better film actor). He also seems to be somewhat stiff as a person. He seemed to have no real love for his first wife or son. His passionate affair with Vivien Leigh that did result in a 20 year marriage was marred by her battle with mental illness. While Leigh and Olivier were inseparable, as the mental ups and downs became more frequent, he pulled away instead of supporting her. Even Noel Coward felt that Olivier should have "turned sharply on Vivien years ago and given he a clip in the chops" (page 261) shows how sexist these men were. As usual, Olivier comes across as a self-centered, egotistical person. The book has a comprehensive list of his stage and film roles. There is a section on The Olivier Family which lists third wife, Joan Plowright, and the three children he had with Plowright, as well as information on his son, Tarquin, with first wife Jill Esmond, but nothing on Esmond and her fate. There is also a section where his contemporaries like John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft remember him.

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