Line #9 Creator/LaurenceOlivier


1	[[quoteright:295:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/laurence_olivier_2853.jpg]]
2
3	->''"And though\
4	I'm no Olivier\
5	If he fought\
6	Sugar Ray, he would say\
7	That the thing\
8	Ain't the ring, it's the play\
9	And though I could fight\
10	I'd much rather recite\
11	That's entertainment!"''
12	-->-- '''[[Creator/RobertDeNiro Jake La Motta]]''', ''Film/RagingBull''
13
14	Laurence Kerr Olivier, [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever Baron Olivier of Brighton]] (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director, considered in his lifetime to be the greatest actor of his generation.
15
16	On stage, he was unanimously seen as a genius actor and director. In cinema, he hit a peak in his early films, including an MediaNotes/AcademyAward-winning performance as the title role in ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'' (1948), which he also directed. ''Hamlet'' also won [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestPicture Best Picture]] (the ''only'' film spoken in Shakespeare's dialogue to win to date) and earned him a [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestDirecting Best Director]] nomination (making him the first person to direct ''himself'' to an Oscar, and the only one until Creator/RobertoBenigni matched the feat for ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful'' 50 years later).
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18	As a film director, Olivier is best known for his three Creator/WilliamShakespeare adaptations. In addition to ''Hamlet'', there's ''Henry V'' (1944) and ''Theatre/RichardIII'' (1955), both of which were shot in Technicolor, featuring impressive cinematic spectacle for its time, and still considered [[Creator/OrsonWelles among]] [[Creator/RomanPolanski the]] [[Creator/AkiraKurosawa best]] Shakespeare films. His turn as Richard III in particular proved to be one of his most iconic and much-parodied roles, famous for his BreakingTheFourthWall monologues to the camera. He was nominated for the [[MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestActorInALeadingRole Best Actor]] Oscar each time, and it more or less cemented him in PopCulturalOsmosis as [[TheBardOnBoard "the" Shakespearean actor]].
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20	He was married for 20 years to Creator/VivienLeigh and often starred with her on stage and screen. He is often compared to Creator/KennethBranagh, another stage and screen star who directed himself in cinematic versions of ''Henry V'' and ''Hamlet''. In what was perhaps the logical extreme to both their careers, Branagh netted an MediaNotes/AcademyAward nomination for playing Olivier in ''Film/MyWeekWithMarilyn'', a film about the difficult production of ''The Prince and the Showgirl'', which co-starred Olivier and Creator/MarilynMonroe.
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22	He is the TropeNamer for MoneyDearBoy, which was his response to why he appeared in ''Film/{{Inchon}}''. The [[MediaNotes/LaurenceOlivierAward Olivier Awards]] are given every year to the best of London theatre, serving as the London equivalent to Broadway's [[MediaNotes/TonyAwardWinners Tony Awards]].
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24	He also has an [[http://www.laurenceolivier.com/ official site]].
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26	----
27	!!Laurence Olivier on TV Tropes:
28
29	* ''Film/TheYellowTicket'' (1931)
30	* ''Film/FireOverEngland'' (1937)
31	* ''Film/TheDivorceOfLadyX'' (1938)
32	* ''Film/{{Wuthering Heights\|1939}}'' (1939) (Academy Award nomination)
33	* ''Film/{{Pride and Prejudice\|1940}}'' (1940)
34	* ''Film/{{Rebecca\|1940}}'' (1940) (Academy Award nomination)
35	* ''Film/TwentyOneDays'' (1940)
36	* ''Film/FortyNinthParallel'' (1941)
37	* ''Film/ThatHamiltonWoman'' (1941)
38	* ''Film/{{Henry V\|1944}}'' (1944) (Honorary Academy Award) (also directed)
39	* ''Film/{{Hamlet\|1948}}'' (1948) (Academy Award) (also directed)
40	* ''Theatre/RichardIII'' (1955) (Academy Award nomination) (also directed)
41	* ''Film/ThePrinceAndTheShowgirl'' (1957) (also directed)
42	* ''Film/{{Spartacus}}'' (1960)
43	* ''Theatre/TheEntertainer'' (1960) (Academy Award nomination)
44	* ''Film/BunnyLakeIsMissing'' (1965)
45	* ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' (1965) (Academy Award nomination)
46	* ''Film/TheShoesOfTheFisherman'' (1968)
47	* ''Film/BattleOfBritain'' (1969)
48	* ''Theatre/ThreeSisters'' (1970)
49	* ''Film/LadyCarolineLamb'' (1972)
50	* ''Film/NicholasAndAlexandra'' (1972)
51	* ''Theatre/{{Sleuth}}'' (1972) (Academy Award nomination)
52	* ''Film/MarathonMan'' (1976) (Academy Award nomination)
53	* ''Theatre/CatOnAHotTinRoof'' (1976 TV movie)
54	* ''Film/ABridgeTooFar'' (1977)
55	* ''Series/JesusOfNazareth'' (1977)
56	* ''Literature/TheBoysFromBrazil'' (1978) (Academy Award nomination)
57	* ''Film/TheJazzSinger'' (1980)
58	* ''Film/ClashOfTheTitans1981''
59	* ''Film/{{Inchon}}'' (1981)
60	* ''Theatre/KingLear'' (1983 TV movie)
61	* ''Film/TheBounty'' (1984)
62	----
63	!!Tropes associated with Laurence Olivier's work include:
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65	* ByronicHero: He played Heathcliff, Richard III, Maxim de Winter, Hamlet, and his take on Nelson in ''That Hamilton Woman'' was also quite Byronic, brooding, dark and intense, he was also a real life one.
66	* CreatorBacklash: Olivier had many rotten films to choose from, but he seemed to particularly hate the musical ''The Beggar's Opera'', due to his contentious relationship with director Peter Brook, and ''The Jazz Singer'', which he said "oozes sentiment like pus," adding "I never saw anything, heard anything, read anything so absolutely awful." The only films he really liked were the ones he made with Creator/WilliamWyler who he noted taught him how to act for films.
67	* CreatorCouple: He and Creator/VivienLeigh appeared in many stage productions together but only three films.[[note]] Leigh auditioned for the role of Mrs. de Winter in ''Film/{{Rebecca\|1940}}'' but was passed over; the footage of her screen test with Olivier still exists.[[/note]] ''Film/ThatHamiltonWoman'' is considered the best and it was UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill's favorite film. He also worked several times with Joan Plowright, notably both the play and film of ''Theatre/TheEntertainer''.
68	* DontCallMeSir: Despite being knighted (or given the equivalent) by at least five countries, and eventually being made a Baron, he insisted that others call him "Larry".
69	* DyeingForYourArt: Olivier occasionally did this, most famously his stage version of ''Theatre/{{Othello}}''. He wore full-body make-up, lifted weights, and spent months working with a vocal coach to lower his voice an entire octave. More controversially, he dyed himself again to play the Mahdi in ''Khartoum'', to look more Arab.
70	** Interestingly, he seemed to not be in favor of the more dangerous types of MethodActing, famously chastising Creator/DustinHoffman for staying up an excessively long time to get into character instead of just acting.
71	* InsistentTerminology: Subverted - he always insisted everyone just call him "Larry", even after his knighthood and being raised to the peerage.
72	* LargeHam: Frequently labeled as such by detractors. Granted, Olivier was a classically trained stage actor, and it did become his default style in Shakespeare adaptations or his [[MoneyDearBoy paycheck roles]]. But anyone watching Olivier in, say, ''Theatre/TheEntertainer'' or ''Marathon Man'', or his own favorite, Wyler's ''Carrie'' [[note]]As in Theodore Dreiser's ''Sister Carrie'' and not Creator/StephenKing's prom-from-hell[[/note]] or in Creator/OttoPreminger's ''[[Film/BunnyLakeIsMissing Bunny Lake is Missing]]'' would know he was capable of more nuanced performances. It should also be noted that Olivier was such a great stage actor that he found acting for films harder than many other Hollywood stars since he found it hard to [[DamnYouMuscleMemory dial down his instinctive stagecraft]] for the cameras, and as a constant touring stage actor with a film career, he had to shift and juggle registers, something that actors of later generation (and MethodActing) were able to do more easily. Olivier credited Creator/WilliamWyler for teaching him how to act for films and felt his films with him were his best.
73	* MethodActing: He supposedly hated method acting or rather what came to pass for it. He actually was very good friends with Creator/MarlonBrando and Creator/EliaKazan and certainly did appreciate modern theatre (such as Stanislavsky, Chekhov, Peter Brook) but he found the exaggerated and headlines-grabbing nature of method acting odd.
74	** This bias was confirmed and reinforced during the filming of ''Film/ThePrinceAndTheShowgirl'' (which he directed and played one of the title roles). Creator/MarilynMonroe proved difficult for Olivier since Marilyn's coach Paula Strasberg would insist she employ all the Stanislavskian techniques even in a read-through. More or less every director who worked with Marilyn after she signed up with the Strasbergs admitted she was hard to work with.
75	** Also, a story goes that, when filming ''Film/MarathonMan'', Creator/DustinHoffman stayed up all night in order to appear tired for a scene. Olivier was unimpressed by the show and said "Why not try acting, dear boy? It's easier".[[note]]Hoffman, for his part, considered this a playful jab at him, rather than disparagement of Method acting per se. When mentioning this story, Hoffman made sure to remind people that, right after saying this, Olivier laughed and said, "''I'm'' one to talk."[[/note]] Incidentally, Creator/EliaKazan, one of the pioneers behind the method, defended Olivier's approach:
76	--->'''Creator/EliaKazan''': Larry needs to know first of all how the person he’s to play walks, stands, sits, dresses; he has to hear in his memory’s ear the voice of the man whom he’s going to imitate. I lived across the street from him at the time I was directing his wife, Creator/VivienLeigh, in the film of ''Film/AStreetcarNamedDesire'', and would often drop over to see him. Larry was working with Creator/WilliamWyler on ''Sister Carrie'' and, as ever, concentrating on what might seem to “us” to be insignificant aspects of his characterization. I remember pausing outside a window late one Sunday morning and, undetected, watching Larry go through the pantomime of offering a visitor a chair. He’d try it this way, then that, looking at the guest, then at the chair, doing it with a host's flourish, doing it with a graceless gesture, then thrusting it brusquely forward...always seeking the most revealing way to do what would be a quickly passing bit of stage business for any other actor...Which way is better? As in all art, both.
77	* MoneyDearBoy: {{Trope Namer\|s}} and page quote source. It was the reason he gave for appearing in ''Film/{{Inchon}}'' (which netted him the second of his two Razzies). His explicit reason for being less selective with his roles late in life and starting doing film roles like ''Inchon'' – which he hated making – just for the money was that after he was forced out of his job as director of the National Theatre, he was worried that he would die and his family would be left with nothing -- he was building an inheritance for them.
78	* OneForTheMoneyOneForTheArt: He nearly bankrupted himself helping to run the National Theatre, which played a large part in why Olivier took so many subpar film roles in his later years.
79	* PlayingAgainstType: While it's hard to say that Olivier, with his diverse selection of roles, had a "type," his appearance in Creator/JohnOsborne's ''Theatre/TheEntertainer'' counts. Besides playing a seedy musical hall comedian, Olivier's involvement gave credibility to Osborne and the Royal Court Theatre, who were considered disreputable outsiders among England's stage community. Afterwards, establishment actors like John Gielgud and Creator/AlecGuinness queued to appear at the Royal Court!
80	* RomanceOnTheSet: Met Creator/VivienLeigh while filming ''Film/FireOverEngland'', and Joan Plowright during the stage production of ''Theatre/TheEntertainer''.
81	* ShakespearianActors: He was considered to be one of the greatest, and alongside Creator/RalphRichardson and John Gielgud in acclaim as a "theatrical knight". Likewise, he attained fame for his Shakespeare films, and his take on Richard III was especially iconic.
82	* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: He occasionally put on ridiculous accents for some of his roles. Like ''Film/FortyNinthParallel'' where he plays a Canadian trapper and has an accent that is supposed to sound like Canadian-French-English, and then his weird nasal accent for ''Khartoum'' where he plays the Mahdi. His portrayal of General [=MacArthur=] in ''Inchon'' has been likened to a bad impression of Creator/WCFields. And then there was the apparent Caribbean accent he used in ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' which Olivier admitted was an exotic accent of his own invention.

Context Creator / LaurenceOlivier