Philip Ziegler is a well known biographer and historian with some twenty four books to his name, including biographies of Addington, Melbourne, Diana Cooper, Mountbatten, Edward VIII, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath to name just a few. He is well placed to write about Olivier, being a historian and having lived through the years of Olivier's success. The session was Chaired by Magnus Linklater.
Ziegler confessed there were already too many books about Olivier, but no other book has said what he wanted to say. For "Olivier", Ziegler had unrestricted access to some fifty hours of uncut taped conversations recorded by Oliver on a range of subjects which have not been made public before. Ziegler said the greatest compliment about the book had been paid by Olivier's son who said, "this is the Larry I knew."
Laurence Olivier's personal ambition was to be the world's greatest actor - which arguably he achieved. He was the master of Shakespeare and was probably the greatest interpreter of the Bard in the 20th Century. But he was also the complete actor and could willingly take on any role, even song and dance If he had acted in pantomime he would have wanted to be the very best and to give the most memorable performance.
Every role was a challenge, indeed in "Othello" his performance was described by William Whitelaw as "like being on stage with a force ten gale".
Olivier liked to work everything out meticulously in advance so that a performance could be perfect. But things could go wrong; once he was to play Nelson, but could not remember which arm Nelson had lost. He looked for advice but could find none so decided to play Nelson with a missing left arm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and have him missing his right arm on the alternate days!
He also insisted when playing Othello on being made up all over, instead of just hands and face. Apparently one of his children saw the make-up being removed and was caught at school next day trying to wipe off the colouring from the face of a small black girl!
Olivier always said that he would never ask anyone to do anything that he was not prepared to do himself, so when an extra was called upon to climb a tree and jump down, the man asked Olivier to show him, which he duly did. Unfortunately Olivier twisted his ankle, however, he then turned to the extra, without a grimace and said, "well it's really easy!"
He did not know how to stop, there was one instance where a butler fell ill and the understudy was also unavailable, so Olivier took over the role as the butler and then the play became one about the butler rather than the main character!
As a director he was extremely demanding and wanted to supervise every detail himself, he would pick the play, the actors, the venue and check every detail. When the National Theatre was being set up he was again into everything right down to the paint colours throughout. Here again he wanted to run everything; when a door keeper left he organised a party for him, checked the arrangements and the budget and finally made the farewell speech.
His great cry about the National Theatre was that he wanted, "his ship to be a happy ship." It is no exaggeration to say that if it had not been for Olivier there would have been no National Theatre.
In spite of a somewhat turbulent life style he managed to marry in three actress wives; Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright. Ziegler seemed to prefer Vivien Leigh who he described as, "beautiful, charming, and intelligent although she could be possessive and manipulative.
Ziegler described how he abandoned her while she was filming "Gone with the Wind" in Hollywood. Of course, she was never, he said, a really great actress and to find herself living with probably the greatest actor in the world must have caused some friction. As we know she sadly had a bi-polar disorder, what was them called manic depression. This was during the last part of their relationship and he was then starting to see Joan Plowright.
Olivier was a 'total chameleon' and could adapt to any surroundings; he played over two hundred roles in his life and was able to adapt totally to each and every one of them. But he always had self doubt and sometimes this was very marked - on one occasion he asked John Mills to come round to his dressing room, where he bemoaned the fact that he did not know his lines and in fact that no one in the whole cast knew their lines, however, after a whisky and soda he went out and gave a totally majestic performance.
In his early years he even suffered from stage fright, but once actually on stage himself he seemed to be on auto-pilot and would always give a great performance; it was almost as though he did not know he was acting as he became so totally absorbed in the character he was representing.
Ziegler said that the book had been great fun to write although he felt that he may have played down Olivier's less attractive points. For instance he was rather unkind to Marilyn Monroe with whom he was 'bitchy and ill tempered'.
Magnus Linklater asked if Ziegler really like Olivier as a man? The reply was rather strange, in that Ziegler felt felt he never really got to know Olivier.
There is no doubt that Olivier was a complex individual who could be generous with praise, yet was jealous of other people playing a part he had performed, lest they brought something different to it which he had overlooked.
To his family he was almost acting while being a father and he may have suffered because of the early death of his own mother which upset him greatly.
Asked which role was his best, Ziegler felt that Olivier's Richard III was supreme, although his performances in Othello, Henry V and Hamlet were all truly magnificent.
The book gives a fascinating insight into Olivier's life; this is unique being from an uncut and unedited diary by probably the greatest actor the world has ever seen.
Olivier by Philip Ziegler (Quercus Publishing, 2013)