Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.
Autograph-hunting is the most unattractive manifestation of sex-starved curiosity.
Have a very good reason for everything you do.
I believe in the theater; I believe in it as the first glamorizer of thought. It restores dramatic dynamics and their relations to life size.
I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.
I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.
I often think that could we creep behind the actor's eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.
I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare. An actor must act.
I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it.
I take a simple view of living. It is keep your eyes open and get on with it.
I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.
I'm rather bored by the subject-meaning me. It's a sort of a yoke, but at times you know, a yoke is a kind of comfort. And it's always there.
If he was lost for a moment, he would dive straight back into its honey.
Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.
Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.
My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.
Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it.
The actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.
The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.
There is a spirit in us that makes our brass to blare and our cymbals crash-all, of course, supported by the practicalities of trained lung power, throat, heart, guts.
We ape, we mimic, we mock. We act.
We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.
When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.
In 1979, Laurence received an Honorary Award from the Academy Awards for the full body of his work, for the unique achievements of his entire career and his lifetime of contribution to the art of film.
Laurence was the original TV spokesman for the launch of the Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera.
Some of Lauence's stage performances include the plays: Romeo and Juliet, Private Lives, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Ceasar and Cleopatra, The Entertainer, Merchant Of Venice, Macbeth, Henry V, Henry IV pt 1, Henry iv PT 2, The Critic, Oedipus The King, School For Scandal, Anthony and Cleopatra, King Lear, and Antigone.
In 1970, Laurence was made "Baron Olivier of Brighton," for services to the theater, which allowed him to sit in the House of the Lords.
Laurence was generally considered the greatest "Macbeth" of the 20th Century for his second stage portrayal of the role in the 1950s, he had hoped to bring "The Scottish Play" to the Big Screen in the late 1950s, but the failure of his movie Richard III to make back its money frustrated his plans. Producer Michael Todd, Liz Taylor's third husband, told Olivier in 1958 that he likely would produce the film with Olivier as "Macbeth" and Olivier's real-life wife Vivien Leigh as his Lady, but that hope died in the plane crash that claimed Todd's life. Thus, the infamous Macbeth curse prevented the greatest actor of the 20th Century from realizing his dream. The movie critic Pauline Kael, who considered Olivier the "wittiest actor" in film history, considered it a tragedy and said that it showed that there was something fundamentally wrong with the commercial filmmaking industry, that it could deny such a great talent a chance to make such a potentially significant film. Olivier never directed another Shakespearean film after the "failure" of Richard III.
Laurence perfected an Italian accent in order to play "Don Vito Corleone" in The Godfather (1972), but director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Marlon Brando for the part.
Laurence was portrayed by Andrew Clarke in Blonde (2001), by Anthony Higgins in Darlings of the Gods (1989), and by Anthony Gordon in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980).
Laurence was named the #14 greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends list by the American Film Institute
Laurence modelled the accent for his character of "George Hurstwood," an American living in turn of the last century Chicago in Carrie (1952), on Spencer Tracy.
Laurence was a life-long friend of Ralph Richardson, whom he met and befriended in London as a young acting student during the 1920s, he was dismayed that Richardson expected to play "Buckingham" in his film of Shakespeare's Richard III (1955). Olivier wanted Orson Welles, another friend, to play the role but could not deny his oldest friend. In his autobiography, Olivier says he wishes he had disappointed Richardson and cast Welles instead as he would have brought an extra element to the screen, an intelligence that would have gone well with the plot element of conspiracy.
According to producer Robert Evans, he could not obtain insurance for Laurence to appear in Marathon Man (1976). He went ahead with Olivier despite the obstacle. Evans and the rest of the production members, particularly Dustin Hoffman, were quite charmed by the man Hoffman called "Sir."
Laurence's oldest son by Jill Esmond, Tarquin Olivier, says in his 1993 memoir My Father Laurence Olivier that he was shocked when meeting his father in California in the early 1980s that he was dissatisfied with his career and felt something of a failure. Olivier belittled his own achievements and held up the career of Cary Grant as the paradigm of greatness. Grant, who had a fortune estimated at $70 million by Look Magazine in its February 23, 1971 issue (an amount equivalent to $300 million in 2003 dollars), was the person who presented Olivier with his career achievement Oscar in 1979. The two were acquaintances, never friends.
Laurence was chosen to play "Antonio" in Queen Christina (1933) but was rejected by Greta Garbo after an initial meeting at the studio. The part later went to Garbo's former lover John Gilbert, whose career had hit bottom after the advent of sound. In his autobiography Confessions of an Actor, Olivier says that he understands why she behaved the way she did, but in Felix Barker's 1953 The Oliviers - A Biography, it was plain that Olivier and his career were hurt by being rejected by the biggest star in Hollywood. Olivier had had to sail from England to America, and then sail back, all under the harsh glare of the Hollywood publicity machine.
Laurence was nominated for Broadway's 1958 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for The Entertainer, a role he recreated in an Oscar-nominated performanve in the film version of the same name, The Entertainer (1960). This was his only nomination for a Tony, an award he never won.
The Society of London Theatre renamed The Society of West End Theatre Awards, which had been launched in 1976, "The Laurence Olivier Awards" in his honor in 1984. The annual awards are considered the most prestigious in the London theater world.
In her autobiography, Limelight and After, Claire Bloom claims that her lover Laurence merely went through the motions during their affair in the mid-1950s. She thought Olivier seduced her as that was what a great actor was supposed to do.
The Olivier Theatre, the largest theatre in the new National Theatre complex on the south bank of the Thames, opened on October 4, 1976 with Albert Finney playing Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine The Great, directed by Peter Hall . The Queen officially opened the National Theatre on October 25th. Ironically, the Olivier Theatre is walled with concrete that so deadens sound, actors now use microphones during performances, something unthinkable for a great stage actor known for his ability to project his voice to the top balconies of the largest theaters.
Laurence once said that he always visualized the physical appearance of a character that he was going to play before he did anything else.
Laurence was voted the 20th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Laurence's film version of Shakespeare's Hamlet (1948) is still, as of 2004, the only film of a Shakespeare play to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and the only one to actually win an Oscar for acting (Laurence Olivier for Best Actor).
Laurence attended The Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Laurence was the son-in-law of actress Eva Moore. She was Jack and Jill Esmond's mother.
Laurence ranked tenth in the 2001 Orange Film Survey of greatest British actors.
Laurence's family nickname was "Kim."
Laurence and Roberto Benigni are the only two actors to have directed themselves in Oscar winning performances.
Laurence was interred at Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK. He was only the second actor to receive this honor, along with the 19th century Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean.
Laurence ranked #46 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. (October 1997)
Laurence was 5' 10?" (1.79 m) tall.
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