OLIVIER: The Life of Laurence Olivier

by Thomas Kiernan

book

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

302 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[user · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a man so lauded & so extraordinarily visible in modern Entertainment history, Laurence Olivier endures as a difficult man to pin down biographically. While it is certainly commendable, and testament to Kiernan's journalistic skills, that he has been able to draw on so many first-hand sources, the experience of reading OLIVIER seems far more akin to perusing through an assortment of stitched-together journal articles than a fully-fledged biography, likely due to his obscure character. While the book may be informative to someone only just getting into his work, or one with net-zero knowledge on British cultural history, the biography ultimately treads over territory that even the casual fan would find familiar. That being said, I found Kiernan's accounts of the critical & public reception towards Olivier's work (both 'onstage' and 'behind the scenes') interesting, however, was nevertheless disappointed by just how cursory these portions were, to the point of being immensely misleading at times. To pinpoint one example in particular (on a topic that I am embarrassingly well-versed), on page 253, Kiernan makes the claim that Olivier's performance of Richard III (in his 1955 film of the same name) was universally lauded as "his greatest film performance yet", and that the film as a collective drew enough praise to kickstart an informal campaign demanding that Olivier abandon acting & dedicate himself to directing film. Without going into too much depth on the topic, this is a fundamental misreading of the public & critical reception to the movie, & also fails to contextualize the production in terms of its impact on Olivier's immediate career. To refer to just one major critical response at the time of the film's release, it was referred by The Guardian (Feb 28, 1958) as "oddly fragmentary", the article noting that Olivier's obsessive commitment to maintaining the integrity of the original text "slacken[ed]" the film- directly framing the direction as a step down from the "rich tapestry" that the actor-director was able to produce in prior Shakespeare cinematic adaptations. Now, while not all critical responses were as frosty as in The Guardian (or other dissenting papers), the review nevertheless points to the high level of variability in the film's reception that Kiernan fails to establish in his account of its release. One major repercussion of the glowing profile provided by the biography is that it also gives the impression that Richard III was an unambiguous financial success, and that it generated enough public support in his role as director that Olivier would have no feasible issue in seeking subsequent directorial work, which is in direct contradiction to reality. His following production, which, importantly, directly continued the tradition of his three previous films, was again to be an adaptation of a Shakespeare drama (Macbeth) with Olivier straddling the dual positions of actor and director. Notoriously, the production was cancelled, despite having gone into pre-production as early as 1954. This was due to no single factor, but ultimately, his inability to pin down financial support became a major issue following the death of Alexander Korda in January 1956, the month after Richard III's release. I'm certainly not the first to point this out, nor is a Goodreads review the best place to make this claim, but if Richard III had been such an enormous success, as Kiernan goes to great lengths to stress, then Olivier would have had absolutely no troubles in finding financial backing for Macbeth, especially if he was having to probe for support during its theatrical run. This leads me to believe that the film was in fact far less financially successful, and far less warmly received, than was reported at the time & which Kiernan unquestioningly believes. Moreover (and this is symptomatic of broader issues within his work), Kiernan presents Richard III & 'the Macbeth affair' as two wholly separate events, and is more interested in bringing up Macbeth in relation to the state of the Olivier-Leigh marriage - specifically to highlight Leigh's deteriorating mental state (which I will address), which in all is a misleading approach to historiography, as it fails to create a timeline of Olivier's career & economic condition that accurately reflects his history. Be this either an intentional omission, or a failure on his part to make the connection between the two events in the first place, it is nevertheless a major shortcoming of the book. If he fails so spectacularly when writing on such pivotal career moments as these, I can only guess at what other essential connections he has failed to draw when reporting on lesser known periods of Olivier's life.
Leading on to other major shortcomings of the biography, I also can't stress enough just how spectacularly misogynistic Kiernan's treatment of Vivien Leigh is. Not only does he frame her manic depression (keep in mind that she had an official diagnosis at the time of the book's publication, but he nevertheless continues to refer to her in an outdated & alarmist light) as a tool of hysterics that she wielded in order to hold Olivier's career back, he is also hell-bent on painting her as wildly irrational & nigh insane. He frames her as a chronic 'slut' - over-reporting on (alleged) extra-marital affairs & her 'wild' sexual appetite, juxtaposing this against his measly portrait of Olivier as 'humble' & 'loyal', who suffered in the shadows by virtue of being 'bound' to Vivien (implicitly suggesting that Olivier was faithful & pursued no pleasures outside of marriage, well-known to be wildly untrue). His detailing on Leigh's sexual activity, versus excessive skepticism over any allegations faced by Olivier of non-monogamous activity, exceeds any and all parody. To refer once more to his account of Richard III (1955)'s production, on page 252 Kiernan states that Leigh had "convinced herself" that Olivier was having an affair with co-star Claire Bloom, and that her neurotic delusion stemmed from "jealous[y]" at having lost the role of Lady Anne to the then-twenty-three year old actress (a casting choice which Kiernan implies was a thanklessly charitable gesture by Olivier to support Leigh's mental health). His decision to frame her upset as wild hallucination is, first & foremost, ridiculous, considering that Bloom & Olivier were in actual fact sleeping together, and that by the 1950's, he had already amassed a reputation for doggedly pursuing sexual affairs with young actresses. In expressing anxieties about her husband's loyalty, Leigh was clearly responding to his established patterned behavior - evidence of a rationality & logical competency that Kiernan repeatedly denies her. This framing decision ought to be viewed less as perplexing miscommunication on his part, and more so as a deliberate method he employs as part of his broader misogynistic campaign against Leigh to depict her as an insane & overly-possessive 'slut'. If Kiernan had done his research (or was was remotely interested in providing a nuanced account of Leigh) he would know that the two women (Bloom & Leigh) would collaborate and co-star shortly after in the Duel of Angels, going on to form a deep friendship which Bloom herself has described as completely devoid of "any tension or rivalry," and that she was shown nothing but "the greatest kindness and affection" from the elder actress. This is is in direct contradistinction to the portrait he paints of her as a chronically vindictive, jealous woman - which leads to the fact that he is willing to mislead, misrepresent, & lie through his teeth in order to support his misogynistic crusade against Vivien Leigh; efforts which he seems to view as 'support' of Olivier, as if divorce & marital disputes are a question of 'picking sides.' Issues concerning his treatment of Leigh continue further, with Kiernan citing (conveniently anonymous) sources alleging that she had 'secretly desired' & as such was responsible for, her own rape. His cruelty extends to the point of extraordinary dissonance, in which he lavishes praise on Olivier for experimenting with Stanislavski’s method & ‘living' as his characters, but derides Vivien for taking her characters offstage and 'letting' herself be ‘possessed’ her performances.
In sum, this approach creates a portrait of paradoxes & contradictions, in which - according to OLIVIER - Leigh is deranged to the point of retaining the inculpable mental capacity of a child, but simultaneously, is somehow consciously responsible for every dilemma in her life. That is to say, Kiernan only grants Leigh agency when it comes to accounting for her mistakes, & is so blinded by his prejudice that he is utterly unwilling to question the contradictory nature of the 'infant-whore complex' that he gleefully boxes her into, in turn, reducing Leigh to a misogynistic caricature that bears fundamentally zero resemblance to the kind, talented, multifaced, generous woman that she was. The author's wholesale dismissal of her appears to come down to the fact that he genuinely does not believe that anyone suffering with mental health issues is capable of being a good person, especially when they have 'the gall' to 'make' their woes visible to loved ones.
How this book ever achieved publication will continue to baffle me. Value can certainly be found in the broad strokes that it paints of Olivier's career, but it fails miserably when it comes to attempting a remotely nuanced portrait of the subject or of the women in his life, & as such I can only recommend the book if one is willing to approach it laden with a degree of skepticism.

[Jolyon Direnko-Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating insight into the making of a man. I previously knew very little about Laurence Olivier and had no idea that he very nearly squandered his talent and indeed took so long to recognise and channel the talent that he had.

This biography is well written, drawing on numerous sources many of which are unidentified for reasons that are explained in the preface. The author does not put his subject on a pedestal, revealing Oliviers flaws and mistakes as much as dwelling on his successes and triumphs during his transformation from misdirected youth to institution of the English theatre.