Olivier (56 page)

Inch by inch he fought his way back. He had to teach himself to walk, to teach himself to write, to strengthen his muscles by remorseless training in the gym, to strengthen his voice by endless hours of practice. He never altogether recovered. John Gielgud saw him at a lunch for Lauren Bacall early in 1979 and was dismayed to find him “so changed and withered, but he talked gallantly, made a speech – a bit rambling – and even said he might be tempted to try and act in the theatre again”. It was not Peter Hall’s fault that he did not do so. From the moment that Olivier had recovered to the point where his appearance on a stage did not seem inconceivable, Hall had been bombarding him with invitations to direct or play whatever took his fancy. Would he like to direct “Romeo and Juliet”? Or “The Wild Duck”? Or a Chekhov? Or act in a new play by Howard Brenton – “It has an amazing part!”? Or give a master class on Shakespeare? “I am letting the ideas tumble out in an attempt to show you the strength of my feelings and our need to have you here.” If Olivier had replied that he wanted above all to play
Dick Whittington, or even his Cat, the idea would have been greeted with delight. As it was, he replied discouragingly: “I just cannot think of anything I particularly want to do.” He had just visited the new theatre which at last was somewhere near completion. A “marvellous place”, he found it, though “I cannot honestly swear … that the impression given by the O[livier] Theatre is overridingly one of intimacy. The Lyttelton is also a perfect gem.” But fine though the new theatres might be, he held out little hope that he would ever act in them.
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One reason why he fought shy of too conspicuous a relationship with the National Theatre was that he had residual doubts about what he suspected might become a takeover of the National by Stratford. One of his objections to Peter Hall as Director had been that he was too closely associated with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. He complained to Hall that actors, when they came to see the Director, would not know whether they were seeking a job at the National or at Stratford. Hall retorted that he had resigned as a director at Stratford some time before. “He was delighted,” Hall recorded. Delighted, perhaps, but not convinced. When tentative plans were revived for what would in effect have been a merger between the National and Stratford, Olivier at first professed himself enthusiastic but soon recanted. He sabotaged the negotiations by imposing what Hall and the Director at Stratford, Trevor Nunn, felt to be unreasonable restrictions on the time that the Stratford company would be allowed to perform on the South Bank. Since nobody takes his “contortions very seriously, not much harm done”, wrote Hall. “It’s very difficult to know what motivates Larry’s vacillations. Certainly in some cases – and this is one of them – a Machiavellian love of intrigue.” A delight in thwarting Hall would have been more accurate: that, and a genuine belief that the last decade had shown that Stratford and the National could co-exist in amicable competition and that the theatre in Britain would be the stronger for their continued independence. Hall was deluding himself if he really believed that nobody took Olivier’s attitude “very seriously” and that he could be ignored. Lord Goodman, that master power broker, knew
better. He told Hall that opinion was turning against the merger. Olivier was the only person who could reverse the trend, “and that he was not about to do”.
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The new building opened at last in October 1976. “I really thought it was
his
National Theatre and it was
his
building,” Hall recalled. He urged Olivier to take the centre of the stage at the opening: “You have to open
your
building.” Olivier prevaricated. He was frightened of being at the centre of anything, he said. “I think I can possibly undertake to get away with not more than a few ill-chosen words to start the thing going.” His qualms were not entirely fictitious – he was far from restored in health – but he must also have been getting some satisfaction from keeping Hall in doubt. His pleasure was the greater because Tynan, eager as ever to make mischief, had gleefully reported that an exhibition mounted to mark the opening of the National Theatre contained fifty-seven items relating to Barry Jackson’s Birmingham Rep., only five relating to Olivier’s time at the National and “room after room devoted to Hall’s Stratford”. “We didn’t really understand Peter Hall,” Olivier said, or is quoted by Tynan as saying. “I’ve never known a man more dedicated to self-glorification.” Hall sensed and deplored Olivier’s hostility. “It was one of the nastiest periods of my life,” he told Richard Eyre. “The friendship went because I was the next generation – I was the future. And I understood it all, none of us likes giving up. And Larry wasn’t just the king, he was the emperor.”
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In fact Olivier can never have doubted that he was going to speak at the first night in the new theatre, in the presence of the Queen and with everyone who was anyone in the audience. Peter Hall heard that he had been sneaking into the theatre at 8.00 a.m. and practising his speech behind locked doors. “I have to admire his professionalism,” he remarked. Olivier returned the compliment, though somewhat grudgingly. He rejected Joan Plowright’s advice and learned his speech by heart. “I knew that slimy bastard wouldn’t be using notes,” he told Tynan, “and I was damned if I was going to let him outdo me.” The effort was worthwhile. The play that Hall had selected for the first night
proved to be a disaster. “The one undoubted success of the entire opening ceremony,” Hall generously admitted, “was Larry who … made an elegant, though over-written speech. The audience gave him a standing ovation. So they should have done. But it was difficult for a play to follow that.” It is hard to be sure whether Olivier would have derived more satisfaction from the success of his speech or the failure of Hall’s opening play.
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“For a year after I retired I was Associate Director,” Olivier told Mark Amory, “to look like a good sport and not let people think I was sulking.” In fact it was more like four years between the time that Hall took over as Director and Olivier’s final resignation as Consultant Director. His role, however, became more and more nominal over the years. He told Rayne in June 1977 that he was fed up with being asked what was going on at the National when he had virtually nothing to do with it. When he had made similar noises in 1975 Hall had begged him to stay on and to accept the Life Presidency. When in the end he left it seemed no more than the public affirmation of what was already an accomplished fact. The Board had proposed that they should commission a portrait by David Hockney to commemorate the occasion; Olivier rather ungraciously replied that he disliked having his portrait painted and that, while he did not know Hockney’s portraits, he found his landscapes hard to understand. He countered with the proposal that the Board should commission a group picture of his children by “some artist of a more formal type”. The Board did not feel that this would quite meet the needs of the occasion. In one of his last letters to Peter Hall Olivier said: “If there is anything for which I am really required advice-wise or any such thing as that, you have only to call; but I shan’t be even the tiniest bit surprised if you never do.” They never did.
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There was little point in taking the story beyond 1975, Olivier told George Weidenfeld when considering the shape of his autobiography, “because, since then, the only remarkable thing I can boast of doing is to recover from a frightening illness. The jobs I have done have been
some half-dozen pictures and a year’s work producing a T.V. series for Granada – none of it really worthy of any cock-crowing.” There were indeed no supreme achievements yet to come, but by the standards of most mortals he did much that was memorable. In particular, he came to terms with television. The film that did most to reconcile Olivier to the medium was “Love Among the Ruins”, a dated but enjoyable romantic comedy, directed by George Cukor and co-starring Katharine Hepburn. Olivier said in his memoirs that he was devoted to both of them. The three had often idly discussed the possibility of doing something together; now it had happened. “It was an unforgettable six weeks,” wrote Olivier. “It passed like a lovely pink shooting star, so memorable but quickly gone.” The film was not as memorable as the filming; with such a director and such stars, however, it could hardly fail to succeed. The producer, Allan Davis, remembered it with affection. He found Olivier “most co-operative”, ready to work on a Sunday and, by so doing, inspiring Hepburn to do the same. She was acting in a play by Enid Bagnold at the time. Olivier took Davis backstage to meet her. His lead-up to the meeting was not quite so affectionate as his memoirs might lead one to expect. “Don’t get too excited, boysie,” he told Davis. “She can be the most awful fucking bitch in the world and she might be like that tonight.”
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The T.V. series which he had told George Weidenfeld he was making for Granada was a much more onerous affair. When Olivier emerged from hospital after his bout of myositis he was emaciated, exhausted and cautious about taking on any new commitment. His brother-in-law David Plowright, who was controller of programmes for Granada Television, decided that the best cure would be immediate and demanding work. He signed up Olivier to select and produce a series of six plays, each of which had first appeared in the last seventy-five years and each of which was deemed “the best play” for its particular year. “This series saved my life,” Olivier remarked. “I was dying. I know I was. I didn’t want to live any longer. I had nothing to live for and I felt that it was cruel of me to put Joannie through agony any longer … and then
my dear brother-in-law gave me my life back.” “I had nothing to live for” is a curious declaration coming from a man who had a wife and three children under the age of fifteen. Probably Olivier would have rephrased it if he had been challenged. It contained an essential truth, however. Olivier loved his family and would have been distraught if ill had come upon them, but work was his life-blood. Nothing could replace it. He accepted the new challenge with gluttonous zest. In his memoirs Olivier said that he “reluctantly” played in five out of the six films. There was no reluctance about it, said Derek Granger, who co-produced the series; he would have been outraged if anyone had tried to stop him. “As you know,” Granger told Tynan, “he is fanatically and obsessively interested in all processes and mechanical gadgets, so that the whole technical business of television was fascinating for him. In all this, he masterminded every detail. He designed his own titles, he worked out the billings … he worked with the composers on the incidental music. He virtually did the adaptations himself.”
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David Plowright was right; the scent of battle rekindled Olivier’s appetite for work, and therefore for life. Peter Sallis and Alan Bridges joined him for dinner while the six plays were being filmed. Bridges remarked that he was just about to embark on a feature film. Olivier immediately wanted to know if there were parts for him and his wife. It was “the energy of the man” that amazed Sallis. “There he was, finding out what else he could cram into his life. There was a restless urge to keep working.” But could the urge be gratified? However willing the spirit, the body was frail, and it was the body that concerned the producers who stood to lose large sums of money if a star had to abandon work when a film was still unfinished. It was the custom to insure against such a risk. In the case of the Granada series it proved impossible to get cover except for a premium which was ruinously expensive. The money at stake in a television series of this kind could be kept within limits; Granada took the risk and got away with it. The problem was far more intractable when a full-length feature film was involved.
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In the autumn of 1975 John Schlesinger conceived the idea of casting
Olivier as Dr Christian Szell, a Nazi arch-villain, in a splendidly black and over-the-top thriller called “Marathon Man”. The Marathon Man himself was to be played by Dustin Hoffman, the cost of the film would be enormous, the stakes were very high. Olivier went to lunch with Schlesinger to discuss the possibility. At first he was unenthusiastic and Schlesinger in his mind wrote him off as a potential Szell: “His voice was terribly high, his muscles had weakened, he said he did not want any lunch.” Schlesinger began to expound the plot. “This is when you run after him,” he explained. “Can’t run, dear boy, can’t run,” observed Olivier. “I can walk fast, though,” he added helpfully. Schlesinger became more and more convinced that this would not do. Then Olivier became enthused by the plot, particularly a lurid scene in which Szell tortures the unfortunate Hoffman by drilling holes in his teeth. As the afternoon wore on Olivier recovered his strength and seemed to shed years off his age. “I would so love to play this, such a monstrous part,” he said; adding cautiously, “if Paramount will pay my exorbitant fee”.
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Paramount were more than happy to do so. The next problem was that Dr Szell was supposed to be bald. Was it fair to expect an old, sick man of Olivier’s stature to submit to this humiliation? Schlesinger braced himself to introduce the topic, but before he had time to do so, Olivier suggested that he should be shaved immediately: “I think it might be best to get it done.” It had never occurred to him to ask for changes to the script which would have spared his hair: he was proud of his appearance, but the demands of the part must come first.
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Olivier got on well with Schlesinger from the start and concluded that he was a director to be trusted. Nevertheless, he found it necessary to ask Derek Granger whether he thought that Schlesinger was gay. “Why do you want to know?” asked Granger. “Because when some of us actors are under the thumb of a director, we like all the information we can get,” Olivier answered darkly. Whatever information he may have gleaned he found no cause to use it. Schlesinger thought that Olivier was overacting in certain scenes and suggested that he might make it “more intimate”. “You mean, cut the ham fat?” asked Olivier. “You know, a lot
of people don’t tell me these things because I have this reputation of being so perfect I don’t need direction – but I do, I do, just like the next man.” Schlesinger would have been ill advised to push his luck too far, but he had won Olivier’s confidence and anything he said would be treated with respect if not invariable deference.
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