50 Fun Facts About Laurence Olivier

Which Greek god did Olivier play in the 1981 fantasy film Clash of the Titans?

Zeus was one of many late screen cameos Olivier took for the pay cheque: illness had ended his stage career and he had a young family to provide for.

Who decided that the young Olivier should become an actor?

His clergyman father ran a strict household and seemed the least likely ally, yet it was he who told Laurence to make the stage his career.

Which future Dame, Olivier's fellow pupil at the Central School, played Juliet to his Romeo in 1935?

Peggy Ashcroft trained beside him under Elsie Fogerty, whose stress on elegant diction appealed to neither of them; Edith Evans was the Nurse in that 1935 production.

Olivier's first important West End success came in 1930 as Victor Prynne in which play?

Private Lives opened London's new Phoenix Theatre with its author and Gertrude Lawrence in the leads; Olivier's Victor is the stuffy new husband Amanda deserts on their honeymoon.

In the famous 1935 Romeo and Juliet, Olivier and John Gielgud did what during the run?

They exchanged their two leading parts, Romeo and Mercutio. First-night critics rated Olivier's verse-speaking well below Gielgud's, which infuriated him.

In June 1937 the Old Vic took Olivier's Hamlet abroad to perform in which town?

Elsinore, Denmark, is home to Kronborg Castle, the play's setting. Olivier's 1937 visit, with Vivien Leigh as Ophelia, opened almost two decades of star Hamlets performing there.

Which Emily Brontë character did Olivier play in his 1939 Hollywood breakthrough?

Heathcliff taught him to respect the screen: Olivier had looked down on film acting, he admitted, until director William Wyler took him in hand.

Olivier played the brooding widower Maxim de Winter in which 1940 Hitchcock film?

Rebecca was Hitchcock's first American film. Olivier pushed for Vivien Leigh as his young bride, but producer David O. Selznick judged her wrong for the part and cast Joan Fontaine.

Which naval hero did Olivier play opposite Vivien Leigh in the 1941 wartime film That Hamilton Woman?

Horatio Nelson's stand against Napoleon was meant to mirror Britain's against Hitler: Alexander Korda shot it in America as propaganda while the US was still neutral.

Which Jane Austen hero did Olivier play opposite Greer Garson in a 1940 MGM film?

Mr Darcy should have had Vivien Leigh as his Elizabeth Bennet: she wanted the part, but her producer David O. Selznick refused to release her and Garson played it.

Which composer wrote the score for Olivier's Henry V?

William Walton scored all the Shakespeare films Olivier directed, and when a studio threw out his 1969 Battle of Britain score, an outraged Olivier got one sequence put back.

Olivier's 1948 Hamlet was the first British film to win which Academy Award?

Best Picture had never before gone to a film made outside America. Eileen Herlie, who played Hamlet's mother, was more than a decade younger than Olivier.

Which pair of characters did Olivier cut entirely from his 1948 film of Hamlet?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern went, along with Fortinbras, as Olivier stripped out the play's political intrigue to save time and keep the focus on Hamlet's own family.

Which honour did Olivier receive in the 1947 Birthday Honours?

A knighthood came six months after his co-director at the Old Vic was dubbed, to Olivier's open envy.

In a famous 1940s double bill, Olivier played Mr Puff in Sheridan's The Critic straight after which Greek tragic king?

Oedipus gave way in a single evening to Sheridan's farcical Mr Puff: a leap from horror to laughter still cited as proof of Olivier's chameleon range.

In the 1938 Old Vic Othello, Olivier played Iago to whose Othello?

Ralph Richardson would not play along with director Tyrone Guthrie's theory that Iago secretly desires Othello, so audiences missed the point of Olivier's performance.

Which Roman did Olivier play in Kubrick's Spartacus (1960)?

Marcus Licinius Crassus lost his voice in one scene: when it was restored in 1991, after Olivier's death, Anthony Hopkins imitated him on the soundtrack at Joan Plowright's suggestion.

Which 'angry young man' playwright wrote the seedy music-hall comic Archie Rice at Olivier's request?

John Osborne had finished only the first act when Olivier asked to play Archie; joining the radical young Royal Court gave the great classical star a new charge of energy.

Which American star did Olivier direct and act opposite in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)?

Marilyn Monroe's lateness and clashes with her director made the shoot so fraught that it became a film itself: My Week with Marilyn (2011), with Kenneth Branagh as Olivier.

Which Lawrence of Arabia actor played Hamlet in the National Theatre's opening production under Olivier in 1963?

Peter O'Toole, fresh from his film triumph, was directed by Olivier himself, while the grand new company ran its offices from a row of huts near the Old Vic.

Which new festival theatre did Olivier lead as its first director, staging Uncle Vanya in its opening season?

Chichester's first season in 1962 began with two neglected 17th-century plays that were only politely received; Uncle Vanya, with Olivier and Michael Redgrave, was the huge success.

Which Italian director cast Olivier as Nicodemus in the 1977 television epic Jesus of Nazareth?

Franco Zeffirelli had already used him unseen nine years earlier: Olivier spoke the prologue and epilogue of the director's 1968 Romeo and Juliet without any screen credit.

Olivier's last stage appearance in a Shakespeare play, at the National in 1970, was as which character?

Shylock was Jonathan Miller's production; Olivier, famous for his false noses, wanted one for the part, and his director talked him into taking it off for a plainer look.

Which critic did Olivier recruit as the National Theatre's literary adviser, only for the board to veto his staging of Soldiers?

Kenneth Tynan wanted Rolf Hochhuth's play, which accused Churchill of complicity in a Polish leader's death; the board vetoed it and it opened in the West End instead.

In Sleuth (1972) Olivier's crime novelist Andrew Wyke plays cat and mouse with which co-star?

Michael Caine and Olivier were both Oscar-nominated for the two-hander; in the 2007 remake Caine switched sides and played Olivier's part, Andrew Wyke, opposite Jude Law.

What is the name of the Nazi war criminal Olivier plays in Marathon Man (1976)?

Christian Szell, the fugitive camp dentist who drills for answers while asking 'Is it safe?', won Olivier a Golden Globe and ranks 34th on the American Film Institute's list of screen villains.

Who plays the graduate student and distance runner tortured by Olivier's character in Marathon Man?

Dustin Hoffman, in a much-retold story, stayed up for days to look wrecked, and Olivier asked why he didn't just try acting; Hoffman says he had really been out partying and Olivier was joking.

In The Boys from Brazil (1978), Olivier's Nazi hunter pursues which real fugitive war criminal, played by Gregory Peck?

Josef Mengele put Olivier on the other side: two years after playing a fugitive Nazi he was the ageing hunter, a part loosely based on Simon Wiesenthal that brought an Oscar nomination.

Which character did Olivier play in the 1981 television serial Brideshead Revisited, winning an Emmy?

Lord Marchmain left his wife and his Church for Venice, then came home to die; Olivier's deathbed scene ends with the old sceptic making the sign of the cross.

Olivier's final Shakespearean role, for Granada Television in 1983, was which king?

He had already played the part on stage decades before at the Old Vic.

Which star witnessed Olivier's secret 1940 wedding?

Katharine Hepburn was a last-minute recruit: the writer Garson Kanin, asked to be best man, brought her along as maid of honour when Olivier married Vivien Leigh at San Ysidro Ranch, Santa Barbara.

For which two film roles did Vivien Leigh, Olivier's second wife, win Best Actress Oscars?

Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois made her a double winner; before Hollywood chose her she told a reporter 'I've cast myself as Scarlett O'Hara', and Olivier directed her Blanche on the London stage.

Olivier's third wife, Joan Plowright, first acted opposite him in which play in 1957?

The Entertainer brought her in as a replacement: she took over the daughter's part from Dorothy Tutin when the production moved to the West End, and married her leading man in 1961.

What was the name of Olivier's son with his first wife Jill Esmond?

Tarquin was the one child of a marriage Olivier's memoir calls 'a pretty crass mistake'; Olivier left Jill Esmond for Vivien Leigh while Tarquin was still a small child.

Which friend told Olivier 'You've no artistic integrity' when he took a Hollywood contract in 1931?

Noël Coward, as Olivier told it, added 'this is how you cheapen yourself'; Olivier went anyway, but his film career did not take off and he was soon back on the London stage.

For his life peerage in 1970, Olivier took the title Baron Olivier of which seaside town?

Brighton gave the first actor raised to the peerage his title, and he took it lightly: 'I'm too much of an urchin not to smile slightly at the idea of being a lord,' he said.

In the 1970s Olivier fronted a series of television commercials for which product?

Polaroid cameras put him on American screens from 1972, and he took it wryly: a generation of youngsters, he said, would know him only as 'that man who did the Polaroid commercials'.

Which musical role did ill health stop Olivier playing at the National Theatre?

Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls went instead to Bob Hoskins when the National finally staged the show in 1982: its first musical, a huge hit, in the auditorium named after Olivier.

Where were Olivier's ashes buried after his death in 1989?

Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey received his ashes after a memorial service at which his own recorded voice rang through the church, speaking Henry V's St Crispin's Day speech.

Under what name did London's top stage prizes begin, eight years before taking Olivier's name?

Society of West End Theatre Awards shortened to an unlucky acronym: winners spoke of their SWET awards until 1984, when Olivier's name gave the prizes a more dignified ring.

Whom did Olivier play in the film As You Like It?

Orlando was his first Shakespeare role on film, and the picture disappointed him, yet he went back to its cast: John Laurie, Orlando's brother here, appears in all three Shakespeare films Olivier directed.

Which actor played King Edward IV in Olivier's Richard III (1955), one of four knights billed in its cast?

Cedric Hardwicke had a famous admirer: George Bernard Shaw called him his fifth favourite actor, the first four being the Marx Brothers.

Which three actors are often grouped with Olivier as the mid-century British stage's greats?

Gielgud, Redgrave and Richardson all acted with him: when Redgrave's daughter Vanessa was born in 1937, the story goes, Olivier told their Old Vic Hamlet audience that a great actress had been born.

Olivier left Hollywood during the Second World War to join which flying service?

The Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Navy's flying branch, took him in 1941, and later released him from duty to direct and star in the morale-boosting film Henry V.

Which city's repertory company, joined in 1926, gave Olivier his first leading roles?

Birmingham nearly sacked him for giggling on stage, he later admitted, yet within two years it had made a leading man of him and the West End followed.

Olivier created which role in R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End at its 1928 Sunday-night premiere?

Stanhope won him fine notices, but he gave up the part to play Beau Geste: that show closed within weeks, while Journey's End, with Colin Clive in his part, ran for nearly 600 performances.

In which neutral country were the battle scenes of Olivier's Henry V filmed?

Ireland was out of the war, so Agincourt could be staged there in 1943 with hundreds of local men as extras, and the production paid an extra pound to any who brought his own horse.

In the 1966 film Khartoum, Olivier played the Mahdi opposite whom as General Gordon?

Charlton Heston had taken the 1960 Broadway play The Tumbler to be directed by Olivier; it closed after five performances, and Khartoum brought them back together.

Which honour did Olivier receive in 1981?

The Order of Merit insignia was carried up the aisle at his memorial service by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., in a procession of actors bearing symbols of his career.

Olivier lost the male lead in a 1933 Hollywood film opposite which screen legend?

Greta Garbo's Queen Christina went ahead with her old screen partner John Gilbert instead; accounts differ on whether she turned Olivier down herself or his screen tests had already ruled him out.