Olivier, Laurence Kerr

Olivier, Laurence Kerr (1907–89), English actor, director, and manager, knighted in 1947, created a life peer in 1970 (as Baron Olivier of Brighton, the first actor to be made a peer), and CH in 1981. He made his first appearance on the stage in 1922, playing Katharina in a schoolboy production of The Taming of the Shrew, and his professional début in London in 1924, in a small part in Alice Law's Byron. From 1926 to 1928 he was with the Birmingham Repertory company. He was the first Captain Stanhope in Sherriff's Journey's End when it was tried out in 1928, and in 1929 he made his New York début in Frank Vosper's Murder on the Second Floor. He had already attracted attention in Coward's Private Lives (1930; NY, 1931) and Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman's Theatre Royal (1934) when he was seen in his first major Shakespearian roles, alternating Romeo and Mercutio with Gielgud at the New Theatre (now the Albery) in 1935. During a subsequent season at the Old Vic, where he played Hamlet in its entirety (being later seen in the part at Elsinore), Henry V, Macbeth, and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, he emerged as an actor of the front rank, returning to the Vic in 1938 as Iago to the Othello of Ralph Richardson and as Coriolanus. After appearing in New York in S. N. Behrman's No Time for Comedy (1939) and as Romeo in 1940, he spent four years with the Fleet Air Arm, rejoining the Old Vic company in 1944 as a co-director and remaining with it until 1949. He gave some remarkable performances, notably as a superb Richard III (1944) and King Lear (1946) and in a double bill (1945; NY, 1946) in which he appeared in the title-role of Sophocles' Oedipus the King and as Mr Puff in Sheridan's The Critic. In 1950 he was in Fry's Venus Observed, written specially for him, and in 1951, in London and New York, he starred with his second wife Vivien Leigh in Antony and Cleopatra and Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, playing Antony and Caesar. He was also with her in Rattigan's The Sleeping Prince (1953), and spent a season at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre which produced memorable portrayals of the title-roles in Titus Andronicus and Macbeth (1955), both opposite his wife. He scored his greatest success in a modern role as the second-rate music-hall comedian Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer (1957; NY, 1958) opposite Joan Plowright, later to become his third wife. After Coriolanus at Stratford (1959) he played Berenger in Ionesco's Rhinoceros (1960) in London, and in New York played first the title-role (1960) and then Henry II (1961) in Anouilh's Becket. Later the same year he was appointed the first Director of the Chichester Festival Theatre. His starring role in David Turner's Semi-Detached (1962) was his last in the commercial theatre; a year later he became the first Director of the state-subsidized National Theatre company. He directed the opening production of Hamlet at the Old Vic, and during the first season appeared as Brazen in Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer and Astrov in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (which he also directed, in a production transferred from Chichester). In 1964 he was a controversial but memorable Othello and a superb Solness in Ibsen's The Master Builder. A year later he handed Chichester over to John Clements and concentrated all his attention on the National Theatre, where he was active as both actor and director. Among his important roles were Tattle in Congreve's Love for Love in 1965, Edgar in Strindberg's The Dance of Death in 1967, Shylock in a Victorian production of The Merchant of Venice in 1970, and James Tyrone in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in 1971. In 1973 he was succeeded by Peter Hall. Blessed with a strong interpretative intelligence, he was commonly regarded as the supreme actor of his generation. He was also an outstanding film actor.