I recently bought a large lot of vintage silent movie memorabilia that strangely also included a run of Sir Laurence Olivier press photos marking many moments during his life and career on stage and screen from 1946-1975.
Most are at auction on eBay this week
(items ending April 25, 2010), but I thought it’d be nice to capture them all in one place for all time with this photo post.
Please note that the photos vary in size (each described in detail on eBay) and that the dates given here are the dates included on each press tag and/or press stamp found on the reverse side of each photo.
Enjoy:
1946 Olivier as Richard III in the Old Vic Theater Company Presentation
1949 photo of Olivier distributed by wire services upon his winning the Academy Award for Best Actor as Hamlet
1955 Olivier visits with Kenneth More and Anatole Litvak on the set of wife Vivien Leigh's The Deep Blue Sea
1955 - Olivier as Richard III once again, this time for the film production
1956 - Olivier with New York City Commissioner of Commerce Richard Patterson Jr. looking at a modernistic painting depicting Olivier as Richard III
1956 Olivier in The Sleeping Prince. The press tag on this one asks if co-star Marilyn Monroe can be very far away.
1957 - Olivier rehearsing for his role in The Entertainer
1959 - Olivier as Charles Strickland in TV's The Moon and Sixpence
1960 wire photo shows Vivien Leigh upon winning divorce from Olivier with charge of adultery with Joan Plowright who's on the far right
1960 - Olivier with Joan Plowright during a break from filming The Entertainer
1961 - Olivier with wife Joan Plowright
1961 - Olivier and Julie Harris to co-star in Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory on CBS TV
1961 - Olivier and Harris in Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory
1969 - Oliver with Richard Attenborough in David Copperfield
1969 - Olivier embraces wife Joan Plowright in a scene from filming of Chekhov's Three Sisters
1969 - Olivier and Plowright again during Three Sisters, this time with Derek Jacobi at the right
1975 - Olivier in Love Among the Ruins on ABC television
Once again please see my current eBay listings for all of the Sir Laurence Olivier press photos that are either currently at auction or available for immediate sale.
For detailed coverage of the life and career of not only Sir Laurence Olivier, but also Vivien Leigh, be sure to check out vivandlarry.com.
Laurence Olivier was and still is my favourite actor, he really introduced me to the classics especially Shakespeare through his film of Richard 111 which i saw on TV in the early 60’s when i was at school. I was spellbound by his performance and i became very interested in the theatre etc. He was i think a good actor he could transform himself to the character he was playing. I loved his Henry V (Once more into the breach once more or hold the wall with our English dead) and his film of Hamlet made the year i was born the duelling scene was brilliant with Terence Morgan. And his demonic Richard 111 you knew he was a nasty piece of work even before he opened his mouth to speak, and that strange vocal address so high pitched and evil sounding what great acting. I think Olivier was one of the greatest actors of his generation maybe the greatest of modern times. He not only directed and produced his Shakespeare films he also took the leading roles, it was such a shame he never did the film of Macbeth i would have loved to have seen that.
I haven’t made my way through the Shakespeares yet, so I’d say my favorite Olivier at this time is Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Actually, I love his scene as the constable in The Magic Box, reacting to Robert Donat during his Eureka! moment, but it’s such a brief part it’s more of a footnote.
I agree with you Carole Heath your comment is very apt regarding Laurence Olivier. I was introduced to Shakespeare’s King Lear which he did as a tv production when he was much older. His health had been bad at the time he played Lear never the less his prowess as an actor of some merit still came across. His Lear contained the characterization that was needed I think.