Olivier (20 page)

Perched rather uncomfortably between his first wife, Jill Esmond, and his second, Vivien Leigh.

On the set of the film of “Hamlet” in 1948. Vivien Leigh had wanted to play Ophelia, but instead Jean Simmons, described by Olivier as a “ravishing sixteen-year-old”, was given the part.

“Amazement upon amazement,” Olivier wrote to Jill Esmond in the autumn of 1944, “all wonderful successes … quite unbelievable. Nothing like it has ever happened to me before.” By the time he wrote the Old Vic had already embarked on the second phase of its triumphant progress. The two parts of “Henry IV” will be remembered above all for Richardson’s Falstaff. No performance of any part can be definitive, but few indeed of those who saw him doubted that they were witnessing something which they could never hope to see rivalled in their lifetime. But though Richardson was the hero – and admitted by Olivier to be so – Olivier was much praised for his extraordinary virtuosity. In “Part One” he played Henry Percy, that paradigm of hot-headed and turbulent fighting men; in “Part Two” the twittering and absurd Justice Shallow. The contrast between the two characters could hardly have been more striking; but these were merely sighting shots for what was to be one of the most ambitious and audacious performances of his life.
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It seems to have been Olivier’s idea that there should be a double bill, in which “Oedipus” would be followed by “The Critic”: the supremely tragic Oedipus by W. B. Yeats out of Sophocles followed by that prattling ninny, Sheridan’s Mr Puff. Olivier cheerfully admitted: “I wanted to show off. Ralph had had everything up to then.” The purists were outraged: “Would Irving have followed Hamlet with Jingle?” demanded the
Sunday Times
: “No!” But Garrick might, as Bryan Forbes has pointed out. “I feel that there are more than passing similarities between Garrick
and Olivier,” Forbes went on to say, “even a certain physical resemblance and certainly numerous parallels in their approach to the art of acting.” Garrick or no Garrick, Tyrone Guthrie was opposed to what he saw as unspeakable vulgarity. “Over my dead body!” he declared. “That could be arranged,” was more or less Olivier’s response. Guthrie recognised that he could do nothing to stop the performance and returned, fulminating, to New York. “Oedipus” and “The Critic” had their first showing in October 1945, two months after the Japanese surrender and the end of the Second World War.
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Since the end of the war in Europe in May, the London theatre had been regaining its former vigour. There could not have been a better time for Olivier and the Old Vic to strike gold.

What sticks most vividly in the mind of those fortunate enough to have seen Olivier as Oedipus was the great cry he uttered when he discovered that the prophecy had been fulfilled; he
had
killed his father; he
had
committed incest with his mother, he
had
driven his mother to suicide and, despairing, he gouges out his eyes with the gold pins from his mother’s dress. He based the cry, he claimed, on the anguished protest of an ermine which has licked salt scattered on hard snow and found itself held fast and unable to escape. Both this explanation and the cry itself teeter on the edge of absurdity. Henry Root, the inspired creation of the satirist William Donaldson, showed how it could be parodied when he explained that the cry was based on the mating call of the North American bull moose: “Ever a perfectionist, Olivier spent nine months practising in a forest thirty miles from Quebec. With such success, in fact, that he got shot four times.” Only an actor of extraordinary powers could have made this ghastly denouement convincing to a sophisticated London audience. “I never hoped for so vast an anguish,” wrote Tynan. “Olivier’s final ‘Oh! Oh!’ when the full catalogue of his sins is unfolded must still be resounding in some high recess of the New Theatre’s dome: some stick of wood must still, I feel, be throbbing from it.”
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An interval devoted to a change of costume and of mood, and Olivier was on stage again as Mr Puff. Some critics felt that he overdid
the comedy; that Sheridan’s wit was weakened by indulgence in slapstick. Tynan thought that it was a bad example of an actor not trusting his author; Noël Coward, on the other hand, thought it “quite perfect. Technically faultless and fine beyond words.” For Olivier it was a glorious relief after the rigours of Oedipus. If he took it lightly this did not mean that, for a moment, he relaxed his rigidly professional approach: Alan Dent remembered him withdrawing “from the company of his wife and myself [to] practise Mr Puff’s fantastic ways of taking snuff for quite ten minutes on end, totally unaware that we were gazing at the solo rehearsal from the other end of the room.” He also took physical risks. He evolved an elaborate device by which he would be swept up into the flies, borne to earth again on a painted cloud, propelled violently into the heavens and finally delivered back to earth where he performed a somersault. It was a prime example of the extravagance which Tynan condemned; it also nearly cost him his life. The equipment somehow went awry and Olivier found himself dangling thirty feet above the stage with no apparent means of extricating himself. Eventually the fly-man managed to lower him to the ground. “And that,” he wrote, “was how my very favourite invention became a living dread for the next six months.” It never occurred to him, however, to cut out or even to reduce the scale of this piece of business. He had convinced himself that it was an important element in his success; there could be no question of accepting anything below the best; the show must go on.
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There was to be one more major role that season. Olivier had never thought that he would play King Lear; he knew Richardson coveted the part and was happy to let him take it. But when the time came to apportion the parts between them, Richardson had first pick and chose Cyrano de Bergerac. Olivier wanted the part for himself and, as a means of wresting it back, made Lear his first selection. Richardson looked disconcerted and Olivier felt sure that, after the meeting, it would be possible to swap the one part for the other. When it came to the point, however, it became clear that Richardson had no intention of surrendering Cyrano. Olivier was stuck with Lear. It is often said that Lear is
the impossible part: by the time one is old enough to play it one is too old to play it. Olivier, only thirty-nine, was too young. Next time he played it he would be too old. He underestimated the problems ahead of him. “Frankly, Lear is an easy part,” he claimed boldly. “We can all play it. It is simply being straightforward … He’s like all of us really, he’s just a stupid old fart …” This somewhat insouciant approach led to a Lear that was bad-tempered, blustery, eccentric from the start and not particularly royal. “His Lear was a failure,” judged Max Adrian. “I hated it, and I told him so.” Not many people were so bluntly condemnatory. Gielgud thought him “brilliantly clever and absolutely complete in his characterisation, but it is a little doddering King without majesty or awesomeness. However,” he added wryly, “the critics were lyrical, and I hope I am not jealous.” “Lyrical” was perhaps too generous, but on the whole Olivier was highly praised. It is remarkable, however, that given his capacity to dominate a stage, the image which even today often predominates in the memory of those who saw the performance is not of Olivier’s Lear but the chill, stark white face of Alec Guinness’s infinitely pathetic Fool. “Not Larry’s part, I fear,” said Wolfit with satisfaction. “You see, Lear’s a bass part, Larry’s a tenor.” He was right in thinking that Olivier never felt that he belonged in “Lear”. He made a sound try, but by his own standards he fell short of triumph.
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Not content with playing the King, Olivier elected to direct the production as well. Margaret Leighton, who played Regan, thought he was brilliant as a director. “He astonished me by having everything worked out in great detail. He had planned every single move for Regan and each move was in accordance with the text and helped to explain it… It was a marvellously meticulous piece of direction, and at the same time he made me understand not just my own part but the whole play.” There were some who thought he worked everything out in
too
great detail; his vision of each part was so clear-cut and imposed with such authority that spontaneity was lacking. The duty of the director was to direct, Olivier believed – at least when it was he who was doing the directing – and the duty of the actor was to take direction. Where the
two were in potential conflict, it was the director who prevailed. Olivier the director did no favours for Olivier the actor; if the needs of the play demanded that Olivier the actor should be reined in, then Olivier the director would make sure that it was done. Lawrence Langner of the Theatre Guild in New York had been told by Burrell that the actor who played Lear would traditionally hog the limelight and cut down all the other parts to enhance his own. “I looked at the programme to see who had directed the play with such a sense of integrity as to make King Lear himself but one of the series of fine portrayals. It was Laurence Olivier.”
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He was harsh on himself, but he could be quite as harsh on others. He would be interested in other people’s points of view, and might even from time to time take account of them, but he would not tolerate sustained dissent. Marian Spencer, who had been the original choice for Regan, was summarily sacked. “I found very soon that the part did not suit you,” wrote Olivier. Nor was she “sympathetic to my view of the part”. If she had been younger and more inexperienced he might have tried to force his view on her, “but I really did not think it right to attempt this with an actress of your standing and knowledge”. So out she went; a dire warning to other members of the cast that if they crossed the will of their director they would be likely to regret it.
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Even by the end of its first season, in April 1945, the Old Vic had achieved the sort of cult status normally associated with the more celebrated crooners or pop stars. On its last night St Martin’s Lane was closed for an hour while 2,500 delirious fans massed outside, cheering any actors who showed their faces and setting up a wild chant of “We want Larry! We want Larry!” Eighteen months later, though the hysteria might slightly have died down, the reputation of the company had not ceased to grow. Between August 1944 and December 1946 the Old Vic Company had rarely fallen below the level of excellence and had produced some of the finest performances that can ever have graced the London stage or, indeed, any other stage. For this the credit, above all, must be given to Richardson and Olivier. It would be futile to speculate which made the greater contribution. Two superlatively fine actors at
the peak of their powers, they complemented each other to perfection. For the most part their relationship was harmonious but inevitably there was tension and a sense of rivalry. When Richardson was given a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours in 1947, wrote Olivier in his memoirs, “You should have heard the screams of fury.” He professed to be disapproving – “artists should not accept honours of this kind” – but recanted six months later. “When the offer came along,” he cheerfully admitted, “I found that I liked the idea tremendously, and so did Puss [Vivien Leigh].” The fact that he could write about it with such self-mockery suggests that the fury did not run very deep, but it was fearsome while it lasted.
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