Olivier: The authorised biography
By Terry Coleman,
Bloomsbury, ? 14.99

Laurence Olivier was without doubt the greatest English actor and man of the theatre of the 20th century. Everything about Olivier ? or Larry as his friends called him ? was larger than life. In this authorized biography, Terry Coleman captures this total persona, on and off the stage.

Olivier?s father was a High Church clergyman. Young Larry was sent to St Edward?s, Oxford, a minor public school, from where he went to Central School of Dramatic Art at the Albert Hall in London. One of the students with him was Peggy Ashcroft. What is remarkable is that even in those very early days Olivier made an impact on the future actress who remembered his eyebrows, his dark hair and his eyes, even then unlike anyone else?s. In his early youth, when Olivier, as he himself put it, was ?unremittingly obsessed by the thought of sex and was dying to get married?, he failed to propose to Ashcroft.

But Olivier?s career in theatre did not begin with the legendary bang. He worked in minor theatre companies. And, in fact, dabbled in films in the United States before he decided to become a Shakespearean actor. He decided to be a Shakespearean actor in 1936 when he was 28 years old. Looking back on this decision, he was later to write, ?My ambition required it. I required it of myself. I knew it wouldn?t happen unless I crashed that market. So I had to go on with the critics giving me bad notices, saying I couldn?t speak the verse to save my life and all that, and I just went on an on, and after about a year the Press referred to me as ?that Shakespearean actor?. Then I knew it had been done.?

Having made the decision, he moved to the Old Vic which is where an actor, in those days, could do a whole season of Shakespeare. He was egged on by his friend, Ralph Richardson. He began with Hamlet and adopted the famous interpretation that Hamlet had an Oedipus complex. Olivier, to outdo his great rival, John Gielgud, whose voice he could never match, chose to capitalize on something he had which Gielgud did not have: athleticism. Olivier was launched and he never looked back. The following year he also became a matinee idol with the success of two Hollywood films, Wuthering Heights and Rebecca.

It was in the US that he began his tumultuous relationship with Vivien Leigh who became the second Mrs Olivier. Coleman?s account of this relationship is very candid. The marriage was destined to end. Olivier married Joan Plowright and she became the anchor of his life.

Olivier became the numero uno of British stage and was the founder-director of the National Theatre. But his experience was not altogether happy. He felt betrayed and bitter. Coleman looks into this experience.

Despite his success on stage and screen, Olivier was a tortured soul. By the time his master called him, he had been stricken by too many illnesses. The day he died, London?s theatres, as a tribute to him, did not put on their lights. It was a tribute that Olivier would have loved.