John Dexter (2 August 1925 - 23 March 1990) was an English theatre, opera, and film director.

Theatre

Born in Derby, England, Dexter left school at the age of fourteen to serve in the British army during World War II. Following the war, he began working as a stage actor before turning to producing and directing shows for repertory companies. In 1957, he was appointed Associate Director of the English Stage Company.

Dexter's first great success was his production of Roots, in 1959, which brought Dame Joan Plowright to prominence. He went on to direct Toys in the Attic (with Dame Wendy Hiller, 1960), and Saint Joan (1963). In 1964, he was named Associate Director of the National Theatre of Great Britain, and he produced The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964).

That year, he also directed Othello, with Sir Laurence Olivier (in one of his greatest roles), Dame Maggie Smith, and Frank Finlay. It was considered a tremendous success. RCA recorded an audio version, and, the following year, Stuart Burge made a film of the production (now available on DVD) for BHE Films.

Dexter continued with Hamlet (with music by Conrad Susa, 1969), Equus (one of his triumphs, 1973), The Party (Lord Olivier's final stage appearance, 1973), Phaedra Britannica (with his friend, Dame Diana Rigg, 1975), The Merchant (1977), As You Like It (with music by Harrison Birtwistle, 1979), Life of Galileo (with Sir Michael Gambon, 1980), The Glass Menagerie (with Jessica Tandy, 1983), and Julius Cæsar (1988). His final great success was M. Butterfly (1988), on Broadway, and the following year, he staged Die Dreigroschenoper there (with Sting as Macheath), which was to be his final production.

Cinema

Dexter's debut feature-film was The Virgin Soldiers (with Lynn Redgrave, 1969). His second film was The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker (aka, Pigeons, with Elaine Stritch, 1970); his third was I Want What I Want (1972).

For Granada Television, Dexter directed Twelfth Night, with Sir Alec Guinness and Sir Ralph Richardson, in 1969.

Opera

Dexter made his operatic debut at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, in 1966, with Benvenuto Cellini, with Nicolai Gedda, and, in 1983, he staged a double-bill of Le rossignol (with Natalia Makarova) and L'enfant et les sortilèges for the company. At the Hamburg State Opera, he staged Les vêpres siciliennes (1969), From the House of the Dead (1972), Billy Budd (with Richard Stilwell, 1972), Boris Godunov (in the Shostakovich edition, 1972), and Un ballo in maschera (with Luciano Pavarotti and Sherrill Milnes, 1973). For Sadler's Wells, he produced The Devils of Loudon, in 1973.

At the Metropolitan Opera (where he was Director of Production from 1974 to 1981, then Production Advisor from 1981 to 1984), Dexter mounted new productions of Les vêpres siciliennes (with Montserrat Caballé, 1974), Aïda (with Leontyne Price, 1976), Le prophète (with Marilyn Horne, 1977), Dialogues des Carmélites (1977), Lulu (1977), Rigoletto (with Cornell MacNeil and Plácido Domingo, 1977), Billy Budd (with Sir Peter Pears, 1978), The Bartered Bride (with Teresa Stratas and Jon Vickers, 1978), Don Pasquale (with Beverly Sills, 1978), Don Carlos (with Renata Scotto, 1979), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (with Edda Moser, later Zdzisława Donat, 1979), Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1979), and the triple-bills (both designed by David Hockney) of "Parade" (Parade/Les mamelles de Tirésias/L'enfant et les sortilèges, 1981) and "Stravinsky" (Le sacre du printemps/Le rossignol/Œdipus rex, 1981).

For the Paris Opéra, he staged Les vêpres siciliennes (1974) and La forza del destino (1975).

In Zurich, he produced Nabucco, in 1986.

John Dexter died in London, during heart surgery; he had also been afflicted with poliomyelitis and diabetes. His acerbic and witty autobiography, The Honourable Beast, was published posthumously, in which he wrote of his "Fury for perfection...."

Broadway productions

The Threepenny Opera (1989 revival)

M. Butterfly (1988)

The Glass Menagerie (1983 revival)

One Night Stand (1980, "never officially opened")

The Merchant (1977)

The Misanthrope (1975 revival)

Equus (1974)

The Unknown Soldier and His Wife (1967)

Black Comedy/White Lies (1967)

''The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1965)

Do I Hear a Waltz? (1965)

Chips With Everything (1963)

Awards and nominations

;Awards

1975: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play – Equus

1975: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play – Equus

1988: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play – M. Butterfly

1988: Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play – M. Butterfly

;Nominations

1967: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play – Black Comedy/White Lies

Notes

References

Dexter, John. (1993). The Honourable Beast: A Posthumous Autobiography. London: Nick Hern Books. 10-ISBN 1854590391/13-ISBN 9781854590398; OCLC 28642052

Fiedler, Johanna. (2003). Molto Agitato: the Mayhem Behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera. New York : Doubleday. 10-ISBN 038548187X/13-ISBN 9780385481878; OCLC 45879574

Hiley, Jim. (1981). Theatre at work: The story of the National Theatre's production of Brecht's "Galileo". London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 10-ISBN 0710008155/13-ISBN 9780710008152; 10-ISBN 0710008597/13-ISBN 9780710008596; OCLC 7883761

External links

Category:1925 births Category:1990 deaths Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:English film directors Category:English theatre directors Category:Opera directors Category:People from Derby Category:Tony Award winners

Caption	John Lithgow in 2007
Birth date	October 19, 1945
Birth place	Rochester, New York,United States
Birthname	John Arthur Lithgow
Occupation	Actor, musician, poet, author
Yearsactive	1972–present
Spouse	Phoebe Jean Taynton (1966–1980) Mary Yeager (1981–present)

John Arthur Lithgow (, ; born October 19, 1945) is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio. He also has written and published several books of poetry and children's literature.

He appeared in the films The World According to Garp (1982) and Terms of Endearment (1983), receiving the Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for each. Lithgow is known for his roles as the Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose, Dick Solomon on the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, the voice of Lord Farquaad in Shrek, and The Trinity Killer on Showtime's Dexter for which he won Golden Globe and Emmy awards.

On the stage, he appeared in the musical adaptation of Sweet Smell of Success, winning the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He again appeared in a musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, again receiving the Tony nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

He has also recorded music, such as the 1999 album of children's music, Singin' in the Bathtub, and has written poetry and short stories for children, such as Marsupial Sue.

Early life

Lithgow is of English and Welsh descent and was born in Rochester, New York, USA. His mother, Sarah Jane (née Price), was a retired actress, and his father, Arthur Lithgow, was a theatrical producer and director who ran the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Because of his father's job, the family moved frequently during Lithgow's childhood, including teenage years in Akron and Lakewood, Ohio.

Lithgow attended Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1967. He lived in Dunster House as an undergraduate, across the hall from roommates former Vice President Al Gore and actor Tommy Lee Jones. Lithgow later served on Harvard's Board of Overseers. Lithgow credits a performance at Harvard of Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia Limited with helping him decide to become an actor. After graduation, Lithgow won a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Stage career

In 1973, Lithgow debuted on Broadway in David Storey's The Changing Room, for which he received both the Tony and Drama Desk Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play. The following year he starred opposite Lynn Redgrave in My Fat Friend and in 1976 played opposite Meryl Streep in Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays. He was nominated for two Best Actor Tonys for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985) and M. Butterfly (directed by John Dexter, 1988).

In 2002, Lithgow won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of J.J. Hunsecker in the Broadway adaptation of the 1957 film Sweet Smell of Success. In 2005, Lithgow was elected into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for his work on Broadway. He was also nominated for a Best Leading Actor in a Musical Tony for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

In 2008 through 2009, Lithgow played Joe Keller in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

Lithgow starred alongside Jennifer Ehle in the production of Douglas Carter Beane's comedy Mr & Mrs Fitch presented Off-Broadway by Second Stage Theatre from February 22, 2010, closing April 4, 2010.

Film career

In 1979, Lithgow portrayed the role of Lucas Sergeant in Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical movie All That Jazz. The character was loosely based on the real-life director/choreographer Michael Bennett, best known for his work on Dreamgirls and A Chorus Line.

In 1983 and 1984, Lithgow was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances as Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp and as Sam Burns in Terms of Endearment. Both films were screen adaptations of popular novels. Lithgow originated the character of Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin, a psychotic Italian physicist inhabited by an evil alien, which he played in the 1984 cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. In 1984, Lithgow also played the moralistic anti-dancing, anti-rock pastor in Footloose and later the role of American space engineer Walter Curnow in 2010, the sequel to the science fiction classic .

In 1983, Lithgow played John Valentine in a remake of the classic Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" in as the paranoid passenger once made famous on the television show by William Shatner. In 1991 he starred in the movie Ricochet opposite Denzel Washington as Earl Talbot Blake, a vengeful criminal that seeks revenge after Washington's character Nicholas Styles becomes famous after arresting him. In 1992, he starred as the main role in Brian De Palma's film Raising Cain, and in 1993, starred as Eric Qualen in the Sylvester Stallone movie Cliffhanger.

In 1987, Lithgow starred in the Bigfoot-themed family comedy Harry and the Hendersons. In 2002, he narrated Life's Greatest Miracle, a sex education film, while in 2004, he portrayed the moralistic, rigid father of Alfred Kinsey in that year's biopic Kinsey. In 2006, Lithgow had a small role in the Academy Award-winning film, Dreamgirls, as Jerry Harris, a film producer offering Deena Jones (Beyoncé Knowles) a film role. He is set for the lead role in the upcoming science fiction film Rise of the Apes.

As a voice actor, Lithgow is well-known for his role as the evil Lord Farquaad in the Shrek movie franchise. His appearances as Farquaad include Shrek, Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party, Shrek 4-D which was originally Shrek 3-D and used as an amusement park attraction, and Shrek the Third.

Television career

Lithgow is probably most widely known for his starring role as Dick Solomon in the 1996–2001 NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in each of the program's six seasons and won three times, in 1996, 1997, and 1999. In 1986, Lithgow received a Primetime Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series for his appearance in an episode of the Amazing Stories anthology show. His son Ian Lithgow regularly appeared alongside him as Leon, one of his physics students.

Additionally, Lithgow has been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Special for The Day After (1983), and two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for Resting Place (1986) and My Brother's Keeper (1995). Lithgow was approached about playing Dr. Frasier Crane on Cheers, but turned it down. Lithgow starred with Jeffrey Tambor in the NBC sitcom Twenty Good Years.

Since 2006 he has starred in Campbell Soup Company's commercials advertising their Campbell's Select premium soup brand.

On March 5, 2009, Lithgow made a cameo on NBC's 30 Rock, in the episode "Goodbye, My Friend", with several references to his role in Harry and the Hendersons.

In September 2009, Lithgow joined the cast of Dexter as Arthur Mitchell, a serial killer. He won a Golden Globe Award for this role, and won an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series.

Children's entertainment

Lithgow is also dedicated to his work for children, including several books and albums geared towards children. Some of his book titles are Marsupial Sue, Marsupial Sue Presents "The Runaway Pancake", Lithgow Party Paloozas!: 52 Unexpected Ways to Make a Birthday, Holiday, or Any Day a Celebration for Kids, Carnival of the Animals, A Lithgow Palooza: 101 Ways to Entertain and Inspire Your Kids, I'm a Manatee, Micawber, The Remarkable Farkle McBride, Mahalia Mouse Goes to College and I Got Two Dogs. He also appeared as a guest on the Canadian children's program, Ants in Your Pants.

Lithgow launched into a career as a recording artist with the 1999 album of children's music, Singin' in the Bathtub. In June 2002, Lithgow released his second children's album Farkle and Friends. It was the musical companion to his book The Remarkable Farkle McBride, which tells the story of a young musical genius. Farkle and Friends features the vocal talents of Lithgow and Bebe Neuwirth backed by the Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra. In August 2006, Lithgow released The Sunny Side of the Street, his third children's album and first with Razor & Tie. This album features versions of classic songs from The Great American Songbook including “Getting to Know You” and “Ya Gotta Have Pep,” with decidedly animated performances geared towards children. Produced by JC Hopkins (Victoria Williams, JC Hopkins Biggish Band featuring Norah Jones), the album features guest appearances by Madeleine Peyroux, Wayne Knight (Seinfeld's Newman), Broadway's Sherie Rene Scott (Aida, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and cabaret star Maude Maggart. Lithgow also makes occasional appearances on stage and television singing children's songs and accompanying himself on guitar.

Podcasts

On 1 October 2010, Lithgow appeared on Doug Benson's podcast 'Doug Loves Movies' with other guests Paul F. Tompkins and Jimmy Pardo.

Other appearances

Lithgow voiced the character of Yoda in the National Public Radio adaptations of and . He provided narration for the IMAX film . He hosts Paloozaville, a children's Video on Demand program on Mag Rack based on his best-selling children's books. He appeared in the most recent Campbell's SelectSoups commercials, portraying a restaurant waiter serving 'customers' in their own household. He often delivers commencement addresses at American universities. Lithgow also appears in Books By You, a children's computer game, and guides them through the steps to finish a pre-designed book.

In 2005, he became the first actor ever to deliver a commencement speech at Harvard University. He was featured at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on December 4–6, 2009 for performances of the Mozart Requiem with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He narrated some letters of Mozart, some poems, and sections from the Book of Revelation in certain parts of the performance.

Awards and nominations

Lithgow has won five Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, an American Comedy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for his appearance as Arthur Mitchell on Dexter.

Work

Filmography

Stage

1973 The Changing Room (Tony Award – Best Featured Actor in a Play)

1974 My Fat Friend

1975 Trelawny of the \"Wells\" (revival)

1976 A Memory of Two Mondays

1976 Boy Meets Girl (revival)(Director) and Secret Service (revival)

1976 Comedians

1977 Anna Christie (revival)

1978 Once in a Lifetime (revival)

1979 Spokesong

1980 Division Street

1982 Beyond Therapy

1985 Requiem for a Heavyweight (Tony Nomination – Best Actor in a Play)

1986 ''The Front Page (revival)

1988 M. Butterfly (Tony Nomination – Best Actor in a Play)

2002 (Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical)

2003 The Retreat From Moscow

2005 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Tony Nomination – Best Actor in a Musical)

2008 All My Sons

2010 Mr. &Mrs.; Fitch, Second Stage Theatre

Discography

Singin' in the Bathtub (1999, Sony Wonder)

The Sunny Side of the Street (2006, Razor & Tie)

Bibliography

Remarkable Farkle Mcbride (2000, Simon & Schuster)

Marsupial Sue (2001, Simon & Schuster)

Micawber (2002, Simon & Schuster)

I'm a Manatee (2003, Simon & Schuster)

A Lithgow Palooza (2004, Simon & Schuster)

Carnival of the Animals, (2004, Simon & Schuster)

Lithgow Party Paloozas!: 52 Unexpected Ways to Make a Birthday, Holiday, or Any Day a Celebration for Kids, (2005, Simon & Schuster)

Marsupial Sue Presents "The Runaway Pancake", (2005, Simon & Schuster)

Mahalia Mouse Goes to College, (2007, Simon & Schuster)

I Got Two Dogs, (2008, Simon & Schuster)

References

External links

John Lithgow at FEARnet

Profile of John Lithgow – Downstage Center

American Theatre Wing – 2005 interview

2006 bio article on Lithgow

Razor and Tie Artist Page

Razor and Tie Media Page

TonyAwards.com Interview with John Lithgow

John Lithgow speaks at the Oxonian Society November 15, 2007

Category:Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Category:American film actors Category:American musical theatre actors Category:Actors from New York Category:American radio actors Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:American Theatre Hall of Fame inductees Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American Christians Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (television) winners Category:Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:Gilbert and Sullivan performers Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Fulbright Scholars Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members Category:People from Rochester, New York Category:Tony Award winners Category:1945 births Category:Living people

Name	William Shakespeare
Caption	The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Birthdate	Baptised 26 April 1564 (birth date unknown)
Birthplace	Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Deathdate	23 April 1616 (aged 52)
Deathplace	Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England
Spouse
Children	Susanna HallHamnet ShakespeareJudith Quiney
Relations	John Shakespeare (father)Mary Shakespeare (mother)
Occupation	Playwright, poet, actor
Signature	William Shakepeare Signature.svg
Movement	English Renaissance theatre}}

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. In the 20th century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Life

Early life

William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, a successful glover and alderman originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual birthdate remains unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April, St George's Day. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholar's mistake, has proved appealing to biographers, since Shakespeare died 23 April 1616. He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.

Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Shakespeare was probably educated at the King's New School in Stratford, a free school chartered in 1553, about a quarter-mile from his home. Grammar schools varied in quality during the Elizabethan era, but the curriculum was dictated by law throughout England, and the school would have provided an intensive education in Latin grammar and the classics.

, in Stratford-upon-Avon.]] At the age of 18, Shakespeare married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. The consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence 27 November 1582. The next day two of Hathaway's neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage. The ceremony may have been arranged in some haste, since the Worcester chancellor allowed the marriage banns to be read once instead of the usual three times, and six months after the marriage Anne gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, baptised 26 May 1583. Twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596.

After the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592, and scholars refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as Shakespeare's "lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many stories. Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare’s first biographer, recounted a Stratford legend that Shakespeare fled the town for London to escape prosecution for deer poaching in the estate of local squire Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is also supposed to taken his revenge on Lucy by writing a scurrilous ballad about him. Another 18th-century story has Shakespeare starting his theatrical career minding the horses of theatre patrons in London. John Aubrey reported that Shakespeare had been a country schoolmaster. Some 20th-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will. No evidence substantiates such stories other than collected after his death, and Shakeshafte was a common name in the Lancashire area.

London and theatrical career

{| class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:23em; max-width: 25%;" cellspacing="5" | style="text-align: left;" | "All the world's a stage,

and all the men and women merely players:

they have their exits and their entrances;

and one man in his time plays many parts..." |- | style="text-align: left;" | As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42. |} It is not known exactly when Shakespeare began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the London stage by 1592. He was well enough known in London by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Robert Greene in his Groats-Worth of Wit:

...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.

Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words, but most agree that Greene is accusing Shakespeare of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe and Greene himself (the "university wits"). The italicised phrase parodying the line "Oh, tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide" from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, along with the pun "Shake-scene", identifies Shakespeare as Greene's target. Here Johannes Factotum—"Jack of all trades"— means a second-rate tinkerer with the work of others, rather than the more common "universal genius".

Greene's attack is the earliest surviving mention of Shakespeare’s career in the theatre. Biographers suggest that his career may have begun any time from the mid-1580s to just before Greene's remarks. From 1594, Shakespeare's plays were performed only by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, a company owned by a group of players, including Shakespeare, that soon became the leading playing company in London. After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the company was awarded a royal patent by the new king, James I, and changed its name to the King's Men.

In 1599, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the River Thames, which they called the Globe. In 1608, the partnership also took over the Blackfriars indoor theatre. Records of Shakespeare's property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man. In 1597, he bought the second-largest house in Stratford, New Place, and in 1605, he invested in a share of the parish tithes in Stratford.

Some of Shakespeare's plays were published in quarto editions from 1594. By 1598, his name had become a selling point and began to appear on the title pages. Shakespeare continued to act in his own and other plays after his success as a playwright. The 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's Works names him on the cast lists for Every Man in His Humour (1598) and Sejanus His Fall (1603). The absence of his name from the 1605 cast list for Jonson’s Volpone is taken by some scholars as a sign that his acting career was nearing its end. The First Folio of 1623, however, lists Shakespeare as one of "the Principal Actors in all these Plays", some of which were first staged after Volpone, although we cannot know for certain which roles he played. In 1610, John Davies of Hereford wrote that "good Will" played "kingly" roles. In 1709, Rowe passed down a tradition that Shakespeare played the ghost of Hamlet's father. Later traditions maintain that he also played Adam in As You Like It and the Chorus in Henry V, though scholars doubt the sources of the information.

Shakespeare divided his time between London and Stratford during his career. In 1596, the year before he bought New Place as his family home in Stratford, Shakespeare was living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, north of the River Thames. He moved across the river to Southwark by 1599, the year his company constructed the Globe Theatre there. By 1604, he had moved north of the river again, to an area north of St Paul's Cathedral with many fine houses. There he rented rooms from a French Huguenot called Christopher Mountjoy, a maker of ladies' wigs and other headgear.

Later years and death

Rowe was the first biographer to pass down the tradition that Shakespeare retired to Stratford some years before his death; but retirement from all work was uncommon at that time, and Shakespeare continued to visit London. In March 1613 he bought a gatehouse in the former Blackfriars priory; and from November 1614 he was in London for several weeks with his son-in-law, John Hall.

in Stratford-upon-Avon.]] After 1606–1607, Shakespeare wrote fewer plays, and none are attributed to him after 1613. His last three plays were collaborations, probably with John Fletcher, who succeeded him as the house playwright for the King’s Men.

Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and was survived by his wife and two daughters. Susanna had married a physician, John Hall, in 1607, and Judith had married Thomas Quiney, a vintner, two months before Shakespeare’s death.

In his will, Shakespeare left the bulk of his large estate to his elder daughter Susanna. The terms instructed that she pass it down intact to "the first son of her body". The Quineys had three children, all of whom died without marrying. The Halls had one child, Elizabeth, who married twice but died without children in 1670, ending Shakespeare’s direct line. Shakespeare's will scarcely mentions his wife, Anne, who was probably entitled to one third of his estate automatically. He did make a point, however, of leaving her "my second best bed", a bequest that has led to much speculation. Some scholars see the bequest as an insult to Anne, whereas others believe that the second-best bed would have been the matrimonial bed and therefore rich in significance.

Shakespeare was buried in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Church two days after his death. The epitaph carved into the stone slab covering his grave includes a curse against moving his bones, which was carefully avoided during restoration of the church in 2008:

::Good frend for Iesvs sake forbeare, ::To digg the dvst encloased heare. ::Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones, ::And cvrst be he yt moves my bones.

Modern spelling: ::"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear," ::"To dig the dust enclosed here." ::"Blessed be the man that spares these stones," ::"And cursed be he who moves my bones." In 1623, in conjunction with the publication of the First Folio, the Droeshout engraving was published. Some attributions, such as Titus Andronicus and the early history plays, remain controversial, while The Two Noble Kinsmen and the lost Cardenio have well-attested contemporary documentation. Textual evidence also supports the view that several of the plays were revised by other writers after their original composition.

The first recorded works of Shakespeare are Richard III and the three parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590s during a vogue for historical drama. Shakespeare's plays are difficult to date, however, and studies of the texts suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona may also belong to Shakespeare’s earliest period. His first histories, which draw heavily on the 1587 edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, dramatise the destructive results of weak or corrupt rule and have been interpreted as a justification for the origins of the Tudor dynasty. The early plays were influenced by the works of other Elizabethan dramatists, especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama, and by the plays of Seneca. The Comedy of Errors was also based on classical models, but no source for The Taming of the Shrew has been found, though it is related to a separate play of the same name and may have derived from a folk story. Like The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which two friends appear to approve of rape, the Shrew's story of the taming of a woman's independent spirit by a man sometimes troubles modern critics and directors.

, c. 1786. Tate Britain.]] Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate comedies, containing tight double plots and precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and comic lowlife scenes. Shakespeare's next comedy, the equally romantic Merchant of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful Jewish moneylender Shylock, which reflects Elizabethan views but may appear derogatory to modern audiences. The wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing, the charming rural setting of As You Like It, and the lively merrymaking of Twelfth Night complete Shakespeare's sequence of great comedies. After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. His characters become more complex and tender as he switches deftly between comic and serious scenes, prose and poetry, and achieves the narrative variety of his mature work. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of sexually charged adolescence, love, and death; and Julius Caesar—based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives—which introduced a new kind of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar "the various strands of politics, character, inwardness, contemporary events, even Shakespeare's own reflections on the act of writing, began to infuse each other".

, 1780–5. Kunsthaus Zürich.]] In the early 17th century, Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays" Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well That Ends Well and a number of his best known tragedies. Many critics believe that Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the peak of his art. The titular hero of one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, Hamlet, has probably been discussed more than any other Shakespearean character, especially for his famous soliloquy "To be or not to be; that is the question". Unlike the introverted Hamlet, whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of the tragedies that followed, Othello and King Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement. The plots of Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such fatal errors or flaws, which overturn order and destroy the hero and those he loves. In Othello, the villain Iago stokes Othello's sexual jealousy to the point where he murders the innocent wife who loves him. In King Lear, the old king commits the tragic error of giving up his powers, initiating the events which lead to the murder of his daughter and the torture and blinding of the Earl of Gloucester. According to the critic Frank Kermode, "the play offers neither its good characters nor its audience any relief from its cruelty". In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne, until their own guilt destroys them in turn. In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure. His last major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's finest poetry and were considered his most successful tragedies by the poet and critic T. S. Eliot.

In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors. Some commentators have seen this change in mood as evidence of a more serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion of the day. Shakespeare collaborated on two further surviving plays, Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen, probably with John Fletcher.

Performances

It is not clear for which companies Shakespeare wrote his early plays. The title page of the 1594 edition of Titus Andronicus reveals that the play had been acted by three different troupes. After the plagues of 1592–3, Shakespeare's plays were performed by his own company at The Theatre and the Curtain in Shoreditch, north of the Thames. Londoners flocked there to see the first part of Henry IV, Leonard Digges recording, "Let but Falstaff come, Hal, Poins, the rest...and you scarce shall have a room". When the company found themselves in dispute with their landlord, they pulled The Theatre down and used the timbers to construct the Globe Theatre, the first playhouse built by actors for actors, on the south bank of the Thames at Southwark. The Globe opened in autumn 1599, with Julius Caesar one of the first plays staged. Most of Shakespeare's greatest post-1599 plays were written for the Globe, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear.

, London.]] After the Lord Chamberlain's Men were renamed the King's Men in 1603, they entered a special relationship with the new King James. Although the performance records are patchy, the King's Men performed seven of Shakespeare's plays at court between 1 November 1604 and 31 October 1605, including two performances of The Merchant of Venice. After 1608, they performed at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre during the winter and the Globe during the summer. The indoor setting, combined with the Jacobean fashion for lavishly staged masques, allowed Shakespeare to introduce more elaborate stage devices. In Cymbeline, for example, Jupiter descends "in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle: he throws a thunderbolt. The ghosts fall on their knees."

The actors in Shakespeare's company included the famous Richard Burbage, William Kempe, Henry Condell and John Heminges. Burbage played the leading role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. The popular comic actor Will Kempe played the servant Peter in Romeo and Juliet and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing, among other characters. He was replaced around the turn of the 16th century by Robert Armin, who played roles such as Touchstone in As You Like It and the fool in King Lear. In 1613, Sir Henry Wotton recorded that Henry VIII "was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and ceremony". On 29 June, however, a cannon set fire to the thatch of the Globe and burned the theatre to the ground, an event which pinpoints the date of a Shakespeare play with rare precision. Many of the plays had already appeared in quarto versions—flimsy books made from sheets of paper folded twice to make four leaves. No evidence suggests that Shakespeare approved these editions, which the First Folio describes as "stol'n and surreptitious copies". Alfred Pollard termed some of them "bad quartos" because of their adapted, paraphrased or garbled texts, which may in places have been reconstructed from memory. Where several versions of a play survive, each differs from the other. The differences may stem from copying or printing errors, from notes by actors or audience members, or from Shakespeare's own papers. In some cases, for example Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida and Othello, Shakespeare could have revised the texts between the quarto and folio editions. In the case of King Lear, however, while most modern additions do conflate them, the 1623 folio version is so different from the 1608 quarto, that the Oxford Shakespeare prints them both, arguing that they cannot be conflated without confusion.

Poems

In 1593 and 1594, when the theatres were closed because of plague, Shakespeare published two narrative poems on erotic themes, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. He dedicated them to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. In Venus and Adonis, an innocent Adonis rejects the sexual advances of Venus; while in The Rape of Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped by the lustful Tarquin. Influenced by Ovid's Metamorphoses, the poems show the guilt and moral confusion that result from uncontrolled lust. Both proved popular and were often reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime. A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of the Sonnets in 1609. Most scholars now accept that Shakespeare wrote A Lover's Complaint. Critics consider that its fine qualities are marred by leaden effects. The Phoenix and the Turtle, printed in Robert Chester's 1601 Love's Martyr, mourns the deaths of the legendary phoenix and his lover, the faithful turtle dove. In 1599, two early drafts of sonnets 138 and 144 appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim, published under Shakespeare's name but without his permission.

Sonnets

Published in 1609, the Sonnets were the last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to be printed. Scholars are not certain when each of the 154 sonnets was composed, but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote sonnets throughout his career for a private readership. Even before the two unauthorised sonnets appeared in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, Francis Meres had referred in 1598 to Shakespeare's "sugred Sonnets among his private friends". Few analysts believe that the published collection follows Shakespeare's intended sequence. He seems to have planned two contrasting series: one about uncontrollable lust for a married woman of dark complexion (the "dark lady"), and one about conflicted love for a fair young man (the "fair youth"). It remains unclear if these figures represent real individuals, or if the authorial "I" who addresses them represents Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworth believed that with the sonnets "Shakespeare unlocked his heart". The 1609 edition was dedicated to a "Mr. W.H.", credited as "the only begetter" of the poems. {| class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:23em; max-width: 25%;" cellspacing="5" | style="text-align: left;" | "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate..." |- | style="text-align: left;" | Lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. |} It is not known whether this was written by Shakespeare himself or by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, whose initials appear at the foot of the dedication page; nor is it known who Mr. W.H. was, despite numerous theories, or whether Shakespeare even authorised the publication. Critics praise the Sonnets as a profound meditation on the nature of love, sexual passion, procreation, death, and time.

Style

Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama. The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in The Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.

Soon, however, Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes. The opening soliloquy of Richard III has its roots in the self-declaration of Vice in medieval drama. At the same time, Richard’s vivid self-awareness looks forward to the soliloquies of Shakespeare's mature plays. By the time of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare had begun to write a more natural poetry. He increasingly tuned his metaphors and images to the needs of the drama itself.

by William Blake, 1795, Tate Britain, is an illustration of two similes in Macbeth: "And pity, like a naked new-born babe, / Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd / Upon the sightless couriers of the air".]] Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones. It is often beautiful, but its sentences tend to start, pause, and finish at the end of lines, with the risk of monotony. Once Shakespeare mastered traditional blank verse, he began to interrupt and vary its flow. This technique releases the new power and flexibility of the poetry in plays such as Julius Caesar and Hamlet. Shakespeare uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Hamlet's mind:

:Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting :That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay :Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly— :And prais'd be rashness for it—let us know :Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well...

:Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, 4–8 In the last phase of his career, Shakespeare adopted many techniques to achieve these effects. These included run-on lines, irregular pauses and stops, and extreme variations in sentence structure and length. In Macbeth, for example, the language darts from one unrelated metaphor or simile to another: "was the hope drunk/ Wherein you dressed yourself?" (1.7.35–38); "...pity, like a naked new-born babe/ Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd/ Upon the sightless couriers of the air..." (1.7.21–25). The listener is challenged to complete the sense.

Shakespeare combined poetic genius with a practical sense of the theatre. Like all playwrights of the time, he dramatised stories from sources such as Plutarch and Holinshed. He reshaped each plot to create several centres of interest and to show as many sides of a narrative to the audience as possible. This strength of design ensures that a Shakespeare play can survive translation, cutting and wide interpretation without loss to its core drama. As Shakespeare’s mastery grew, he gave his characters clearer and more varied motivations and distinctive patterns of speech. He preserved aspects of his earlier style in the later plays, however. In Shakespeare's late romances, he deliberately returned to a more artificial style, which emphasised the illusion of theatre.

Influence

, 1793–94. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington.]]

Shakespeare's work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterisation, plot, language, and genre. Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy. Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events; but Shakespeare used them to explore characters' minds. His work heavily influenced later poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with little success. Critic George Steiner described all English verse dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson as "feeble variations on Shakespearean themes."

Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens. The American novelist Herman Melville's soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by King Lear. Scholars have identified 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare's works. These include two operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Otello and Falstaff, whose critical standing compares with that of the source plays. Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend of William Blake, even translated Macbeth into German. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature.

In Shakespeare's day, English grammar, spelling and pronunciation were less standardised than they are now, and his use of language helped shape modern English. Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type. Expressions such as "with bated breath" (Merchant of Venice) and "a foregone conclusion" (Othello) have found their way into everyday English speech.

Critical reputation

{| class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 2em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 25%;" cellspacing="0" | style="text-align: left;" | "He was not of an age, but for all time." |- | style="text-align: right;" | Ben Jonson |} Shakespeare was not revered in his lifetime, but he received his share of praise. In 1598, the cleric and author Francis Meres singled him out from a group of English writers as "the most excellent" in both comedy and tragedy. And the authors of the Parnassus plays at St John's College, Cambridge, numbered him with Chaucer, Gower and Spenser. In the First Folio, Ben Jonson called Shakespeare the "Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage", though he had remarked elsewhere that "Shakespeare wanted art". , typical of many created in the 19th and early 20th century.]] Between the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. Thomas Rymer, for example, condemned Shakespeare for mixing the comic with the tragic. Nevertheless, poet and critic John Dryden rated Shakespeare highly, saying of Jonson, "I admire him, but I love Shakespeare". For several decades, Rymer's view held sway; but during the 18th century, critics began to respond to Shakespeare on his own terms and acclaim what they termed his natural genius. A series of scholarly editions of his work, notably those of Samuel Johnson in 1765 and Edmond Malone in 1790, added to his growing reputation. By 1800, he was firmly enshrined as the national poet. In the 18th and 19th centuries, his reputation also spread abroad. Among those who championed him were the writers Voltaire, Goethe, Stendhal and Victor Hugo. In the 19th century, critical admiration for Shakespeare's genius often bordered on adulation. "That King Shakespeare," the essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1840, "does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying signs; indestructible". The Victorians produced his plays as lavish spectacles on a grand scale. The playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw mocked the cult of Shakespeare worship as "bardolatry". He claimed that the new naturalism of Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare obsolete.

The modernist revolution in the arts during the early 20th century, far from discarding Shakespeare, eagerly enlisted his work in the service of the avant-garde. The Expressionists in Germany and the Futurists in Moscow mounted productions of his plays. Marxist playwright and director Bertolt Brecht devised an epic theatre under the influence of Shakespeare. The poet and critic T. S. Eliot argued against Shaw that Shakespeare's "primitiveness" in fact made him truly modern. Eliot, along with G. Wilson Knight and the school of New Criticism, led a movement towards a closer reading of Shakespeare's imagery. In the 1950s, a wave of new critical approaches replaced modernism and paved the way for "post-modern" studies of Shakespeare. By the eighties, Shakespeare studies were open to movements such as structuralism, feminism, New Historicism, African American studies, and queer studies.

Speculation about Shakespeare

Authorship

Around 150 years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to be expressed about the authorship of the works attributed to him. Proposed alternative candidates include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Several "group theories" have also been proposed. Only a small minority of academics believe there is reason to question the traditional attribution, but interest in the subject, particularly the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, continues into the 21st century. Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, certainly came from a pious Catholic family. The strongest evidence might be a Catholic statement of faith signed by John Shakespeare, found in 1757 in the rafters of his former house in Henley Street. The document is now lost, however, and scholars differ as to its authenticity. In 1591 the authorities reported that John Shakespeare had missed church "for fear of process for debt", a common Catholic excuse. In 1606 the name of William's daughter Susanna appears on a list of those who failed to attend Easter communion in Stratford.

Sexuality

Few details of Shakespeare's sexuality are known. At 18, he married the 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, who was pregnant. Susanna, the first of their three children, was born six months later on 26 May 1583. However, over the centuries readers have pointed to Shakespeare's sonnets as evidence of his love for a young man. Others read the same passages as the expression of intense friendship rather than sexual love. At the same time, the 26 so-called "Dark Lady" sonnets, addressed to a married woman, are taken as evidence of heterosexual liaisons.

Portraiture

There is no written description of Shakespeare's physical appearance and no evidence that he ever commissioned a portrait, so the Droeshout engraving, which Ben Jonson approved of as a good likeness, Two plays not included in the First Folio, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, are now accepted as part of the canon, with scholars agreed that Shakespeare made a major contribution to their composition. These plays and the associated Two Noble Kinsmen are marked with an asterisk (*) below. In 1896, Frederick S. Boas coined the term "problem plays" to describe four plays: All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet. "Dramas as singular in theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies", he wrote. "We may therefore borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of today and class them together as Shakespeare's problem plays." The term, much debated and sometimes applied to other plays, remains in use, though Hamlet is definitively classed as a tragedy. The other problem plays are marked below with a double dagger (‡).

Plays thought to be only partly written by Shakespeare are marked with a dagger (†) below. Other works occasionally attributed to him are listed as apocrypha.

Works

; Comedies

All's Well That Ends Well ‡

As You Like It

The Comedy of Errors

Love's Labour's Lost

Measure for Measure ‡

The Merchant of Venice

The Merry Wives of Windsor

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Much Ado About Nothing

Pericles, Prince of Tyre *†

The Taming of the Shrew

The Tempest *

Twelfth Night

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Noble Kinsmen *†

The Winter's Tale *

; Histories

King John

Richard II

Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 2

Henry V

Henry VI, Part 1 †

Henry VI, Part 2

Henry VI, Part 3

Richard III

Henry VIII †

; Tragedies

Romeo and Juliet

Coriolanus

Titus Andronicus †

Timon of Athens †

Julius Caesar

Macbeth †

Hamlet

Troilus and Cressida ‡

King Lear

Othello

Antony and Cleopatra

Cymbeline *

; Poems

Shakespeare's sonnets

Venus and Adonis

The Rape of Lucrece

The Passionate Pilgrim

}}

References

Bibliography

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cercignani, Fausto, Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation, Oxford, University Press (Clarendon Press), 1981.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

External links

Open Source Shakespeare complete works, with search engine and concordance

Open Shakespeare complete works, search engine, stats and more all as open content/open source

Internet Shakespeare Editions

First Four Folios at Miami University Library, digital collection

Shakespeare's Will from The National Archives

==Related information==

Category:English dramatists and playwrights Category:English poets Category:English Renaissance dramatists Category:People from Stratford-upon-Avon Category:People illustrated on sterling banknotes Category:People of the Tudor period Category:Sonneteers Category:1564 births Category:1616 deaths Category:16th-century actors Category:16th-century English people Category:17th-century English people

Name	The Right Honourable The Lord Olivier OM
Caption	Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1939
Birth name	Laurence Kerr Olivier
Birth date	May 22, 1907
Birth place	Dorking, Surrey,United Kingdom
Death date	July 11, 1989
Death place	Steyning, West Sussex,United Kingdom
Years active	1926–1988
Occupation	Actor, director, producer, screenwriter
Spouse	Jill Esmond (1930–1940; divorced)Vivien Leigh (1940–1960; divorced)Joan Plowright (1961–1989; his death)
Children	2 sons, 2 daughters
Relatives	Sydney Olivier (uncle, deceased)Noel Olivier (cousin, deceased)
Website	http://www.laurenceolivier.com/

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (; 22 May 1907 11 July 1989) was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright.

Olivier played a wide variety of roles on stage and screen from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare and Restoration comedy to modern American and British drama. He was the first artistic director of the National Theatre of Great Britain and its main stage is named in his honour. He is regarded by some to be the greatest actor of the 20th century, in the same category as David Garrick, Richard Burbage, Edmund Kean and Henry Irving in their own centuries. Olivier's AMPAS acknowledgments are considerable: fourteen Oscar nominations, with two awards (for Best Actor and Best Picture for the 1948 film Hamlet), and two honorary awards including a statuette and certificate. He was also awarded five Emmy awards from the nine nominations he received. Additionally, he was a three-time Golden Globe and BAFTA winner.

Olivier's career as a stage and film actor spanned more than six decades and included a wide variety of roles, from the title role in Shakespeare's Othello and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night to the sadistic Nazi dentist Christian Szell in Marathon Man and the kindly but determined Nazi-hunter in The Boys from Brazil. A High church clergyman's son who found fame on the West End stage, Olivier became determined early on to master Shakespeare, and eventually came to be regarded as one of the foremost Shakespeare interpreters of the 20th century. He continued to act until the year before his death in 1989. Olivier played more than 120 stage roles: Richard III, Macbeth, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Uncle Vanya, and Archie Rice in The Entertainer. He appeared in nearly sixty films, including William Wyler's Wuthering Heights, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing, Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War, and A Bridge Too Far, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth, John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, Daniel Petrie's The Betsy, Desmond Davis' Clash of the Titans, and his own Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III. He also preserved his Othello on film, with its stage cast virtually intact. For television, he starred in The Moon and Sixpence, John Gabriel Borkman, Long Day's Journey into Night, Brideshead Revisited, The Merchant of Venice, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and King Lear, among others.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Olivier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, at number 14 on the list.

Early life

Olivier was born on 22 May 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, England. He was raised in a severe, strict, and religious household, ruled over by his father, Gerard Kerr Olivier (1869–1939), a High Anglican priest whose father was Henry Arnold Olivier, a rector. Olivier took solace in the care of his mother, Agnes Louis (née Crookenden; 1871–1920, and herself the younger sister of High Anglican vicar George Pelham Crookenden), and was grief-stricken when she died (at 48) when he was only 12. Gerard Dacres "Dickie" (1904–1958) and Sybille (1901–1989) were his two older siblings. His uncle was Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier, a career civil servant and Fabian who ended up as a Governor of Jamaica and as Secretary of State for India in the first government of Ramsay MacDonald.

In 1918 his father became the new church minister at St. Mary's Church, Letchworth, Hertfordshire and the family lived at the Old Rectory, now part of St Christopher School. He was educated at the choir school of All Saints', Margaret Street, London. He played Brutus in his school's production of "Julius Caesar" at the age of 9, where Ellen Terry noted he was "already a great actor". At 13 he went to St Edward's School, Oxford again appearing in school drama productions: he was a "bold" Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew (selected for a schools' drama festival at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford) After his brother, Dickie, left for India, it was his father who decided that Laurence—or "Kim", as the family called him—would become an actor.

Early career

Olivier, 17 years old, attended the Central School of Speech and Drama, tutored by Elsie Fogerty. In 1926, he joined The Birmingham Repertory Company. At first he was given only minor tasks at the theatre, such as bell-ringing; however, his roles eventually became more significant, and in 1927 he was playing Hamlet and Macbeth. His tension towards Gielgud came to a head in 1940, when Olivier approached London impresario Binkie Beaumont about financing him in a repertory of the four great Shakespearean tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear. However, Beaumont would only agree to the plan if Olivier and Gielgud alternated in the roles of Hamlet/Laertes, Othello/Iago, Macbeth/Macduff, and Lear/Gloucester and that Gielgud direct at least one of the productions, a proposition Olivier bluntly declined.

In 1939, Olivier starred in a production of No Time for Comedy, by S.N. Behrman in a Katharine Cornell with them both in leading roles. It was his first prominent role on Broadway.

The engagement as Romeo resulted in an invitation by Lilian Baylis to be the star at the Old Vic in 1937/38. Olivier's tenure had mixed artistic results, with his performances as Hamlet and Iago drawing a negative response from critics and his first attempt at Macbeth receiving mixed reviews. But his appearances as Henry V, Coriolanus, and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night were triumphs, and his popularity with Old Vic audiences left Olivier as one of the major Shakespearean actors in England by the season's end.

Olivier continued to hold his scorn for film, and though he constantly worked for Alexander Korda, he still felt most at home on the stage. He made his first Shakespeare film, As You Like It, with Paul Czinner, however, Olivier disliked it, thinking that Shakespeare did not work well on film.

Laurence Olivier saw Vivien Leigh in The Mask of Virtue in 1936, and a friendship developed after he congratulated her on her performance. While playing lovers in the film Fire Over England (1937), Olivier and Leigh developed a strong attraction, and after filming was completed, they began an affair. in Old Vic production of Hamlet, 1938]] Leigh played Ophelia to Olivier's Hamlet in an Old Vic Theatre production, and Olivier later recalled an incident during which her mood rapidly changed as she was quietly preparing to go on-stage. Without apparent provocation, she began screaming at him, before suddenly becoming silent and staring into space. She was able to perform without mishap, and by the following day, she had returned to normal with no recollection of the event. It was the first time Olivier witnessed such behaviour from her.

The move to Hollywood

Olivier travelled to Hollywood to begin filming Wuthering Heights as Heathcliff. Leigh followed soon after, partly to be with him, but also to pursue her dream of playing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Olivier found the filming of Wuthering Heights to be difficult but it proved to be a turning point for him, both in his success in the United States, which had eluded him until then, but also in his attitude to film, which he had regarded as an inferior medium to theatre. The film's producer, Samuel Goldwyn was highly dissatisfied with Olivier's overstated performance after several weeks of filming and threatened to dismiss him. Olivier had grown to regard the film's female lead, Merle Oberon, as an amateur; however, when he stated his opinion to Goldwyn, he was reminded that Oberon was the star of the film and already a well-known name in American cinema. Olivier was told that he was dispensable and that he was required to be more tolerant of Oberon. Olivier recalled that he took Goldwyn's words to heart, but after some consideration realised that he was correct; he began to moderate his performance to fit the more intimate film medium and began to appreciate the possibilities it offered.

The film was a hit and Olivier was praised for his performance, with a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Leigh won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Gone with the Wind, and the couple suddenly found themselves to be major celebrities throughout the world. They wanted to marry, but at first both Leigh's husband and Olivier's wife at the time, Jill Esmond, refused to divorce them. Finally divorced, they were married in simple ceremony on 31 August 1940 with only Katharine Hepburn and Garson Kanin as witnesses. Olivier's American film career flourished with highly regarded performances in Rebecca and Pride and Prejudice (both 1940).

Olivier and Leigh starred in a theatre production of Romeo and Juliet in New York City. It was an extravagant production, but a commercial failure. Brooks Atkinson for The New York Times wrote, "Although Miss Leigh and Mr Olivier are handsome young people they hardly act their parts at all." The couple had invested almost their entire savings into the project, and its failure was a financial disaster for them.

They filmed That Hamilton Woman (1941) with Olivier as Horatio Nelson and Leigh as Emma Hamilton. With Britain engaged in World War II, the Oliviers returned to England, and in 1944 tuberculosis was diagnosed in Leigh's left lung, but after spending several weeks in hospital, she appeared to be cured. In the spring, she was filming Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) when she discovered she was pregnant, but suffered a miscarriage. She fell into a deep depression which reached its nadir when she turned on Olivier, verbally and physically attacking him until she fell to the floor sobbing. This was the first of many major breakdowns related to manic-depression, or bipolar mood disorder. Olivier came to recognise the symptoms of an impending episode—several days of hyperactivity followed by a period of depression and an explosive breakdown, after which Leigh would have no memory of the event, but would be acutely embarrassed and remorseful.

War

When World War II broke out, Olivier intended to join the Royal Air Force, but was still contractually obliged to other parties. He apparently disliked actors such as Charles Laughton and Cedric Hardwicke, who would hold charity cricket matches to help the war effort. but was never called to see action.

In 1944 he and fellow actor Ralph Richardson were released from their naval commitments to form a new Old Vic Theatre Company at the New Theatre (later the Albery, now the Noël Coward Theatre) with a nightly repertory of three plays, initially Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man and Shakespeare's Richard III, rehearsed over 10 weeks to the accompaniment of German V1 'doodlebugs'. The enterprise, with John Burrell as manager, eventually extended to five acclaimed seasons ending in 1949, after a prestigious 1948 tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The second New Theatre season opened with Olivier playing both Harry Hotspur and Justice Shallow to Richardson's Falstaff in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, in what is now seen as a high point of English classical theatre. The magic continued with one of Olivier's most famous endeavours, the double bill of Sophocles' Oedipus and Sheridan's The Critic, with Olivier's transition from Greek tragedy to high comedy in a single evening becoming a thing of legend. He followed this triumph with one of his favourite roles, Astrov in Uncle Vanya.

Kenneth Tynan was to write (in He Who Plays the King, 1950): "The Old Vic was now at its height: the watershed had been reached and one of those rare moments in the theatre had arrived when drama paused, took stock of all that it had learnt since Irving, and then produced a monument in celebration. It is surprising when one considers it, that English acting should have reached up and seized a laurel crown in the middle of a war."

In 1944, Olivier filmed Henry V, which—in view of the patriotic nature of the story of the English victory—was viewed as a psychological contribution to the British war effort.

In 1945 Olivier and Richardson were made honorary Lieutenants with ENSA, and did a six-week tour of Europe for the army, performing Arms and the Man, Peer Gynt and Richard III for the troops, followed by a visit to the Comédie-Française in Paris, the first time a foreign company had been invited to play on its famous stage. When Olivier returned to London the populace noticed a change in him. Olivier's only explanation was: "Maybe it's just that I've got older."

According to an article in The Telegraph, David Niven, a good friend of Olivier's, is said to have told Michael Munn, "What was dangerous for his country was that (Olivier) could have been accused of being an agent. So this was a danger for Larry because he could have been arrested. And what was worse, if German agents had realised what Larry was doing, they would, I am sure, have gone after him."

Post-war years

, Australia, June 1948]] In 1947 Olivier was made a Knight Bachelor and by 1948 he was on the Board of Directors for the Old Vic Theatre, and he and Leigh embarked on a tour of Australia and New Zealand to raise funds for the theatre. During their six-month tour, Olivier performed Richard III and also performed with Leigh in Richard Brinsley Sheridan'sThe School for Scandal and Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. The tour was an outstanding success, and although Leigh was plagued with insomnia and allowed her understudy to replace her for a week while she was ill, she generally withstood the demands placed upon her, with Olivier noting her ability to "charm the press". Members of the company later recalled several quarrels between the couple, with the most dramatic of these occurring in Christchurch when Leigh refused to go on stage. Olivier slapped her face, and Leigh slapped him in return and swore at him before she made her way to the stage. By the end of the tour, both were exhausted and ill, and Olivier told a journalist, "You may not know it, but you are talking to a couple of walking corpses." Later he would comment that he "lost Vivien" in Australia. The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first West End appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, Antigone, included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a tragedy.

Leigh next sought the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and was cast after Williams and the play's producer, Irene Mayer Selznick, saw her in The School for Scandal and Antigone, and Olivier was contracted to direct. Leigh would go on to star as Blanche in the 1951 film version of A Streetcar Named Desire, earning her second Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1951, Leigh and Olivier performed two plays about Cleopatra, William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, alternating the play each night and winning good reviews. They took the productions to New York, where they performed a season at the Ziegfeld Theatre into 1952. The reviews there were also mostly positive, but the critic Kenneth Tynan angered them when he suggested that Leigh's was a mediocre talent which forced Olivier to compromise his own. Tynan's diatribe almost precipitated another collapse; Leigh, terrified of failure and intent on achieving greatness, dwelt on his comments, while ignoring the positive reviews of other critics.

In January 1953, Leigh travelled to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk with Peter Finch. Shortly after filming commenced, she suffered a breakdown, and Paramount Pictures replaced her with Elizabeth Taylor. Olivier returned her to their home in England, where between periods of incoherence, Leigh told him that she was in love with Finch, and had been having an affair with him. She gradually recovered over a period of several months. As a result of this episode, many of the Oliviers' friends learned of her problems. David Niven said she had been "quite, quite mad", and in his diary, Noël Coward expressed surprise that "things had been bad and getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts."

Leigh recovered sufficiently to play The Sleeping Prince with Olivier in 1953, and in 1955 they performed a season at Stratford-upon-Avon in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Titus Andronicus. They played to capacity houses and attracted generally good reviews, Leigh's health seemingly stable. Noël Coward was enjoying success with the play South Sea Bubble, with Leigh in the lead role, but she became pregnant and withdrew from the production. Several weeks later, she miscarried and entered a period of depression that lasted for months. She joined Olivier for a European tour with Titus Andronicus, but the tour was marred by Leigh's frequent outbursts against Olivier and other members of the company. After their return to London, her former husband Leigh Holman, who continued to exert a strong influence over her, stayed with the Oliviers and helped calm her.

In 1958, considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with the actor Jack Merivale, who knew of Leigh's medical condition and assured Olivier he would care for her. She achieved a success in 1959 with the Noël Coward comedy Look After Lulu, with The Times critic describing her as "beautiful, delectably cool and matter of fact, she is mistress of every situation."

In December 1960 she and Olivier divorced, and Olivier married the actress Joan Plowright, with whom he later had three children: Richard Kerr (b. 1961), Tamsin Agnes Margaret (b. 1963), and Julie-Kate (b. 1966).

In his autobiography he discussed the years of problems they had experienced because of Leigh's illness, writing, "Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness—an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."

Shakespeare trilogy

After gaining widespread popularity in the film medium, Olivier was approached by several investors (namely Filippo Del Giudice, Alexander Korda and J. Arthur Rank), to create several Shakespearean films, based on stage productions of each respective play. Olivier tried his hand at directing, and as a result, created three highly successful films: Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III.

Henry V

During the Second World War, Olivier made his directorial debut with a film of Shakespeare's Henry V. At first, he did not believe he was up to the task, instead trying to offer it to William Wyler, Carol Reed, and Terence Young. The film was shot in Ireland (because it was a neutral country), with the Irish plains serving for the fields of Agincourt and the Irish army providing extras for the battle scenes. During the shooting of one of the battle scenes, a horse collided with a camera that Olivier was operating. Olivier had had his eye to the viewfinder; and, when the horse crashed into his position, the camera smashed into him, cutting his lip and leaving a scar that would be visible in later roles.

The film opened to rave reviews; it was the first widely successful Shakespeare film, and was considered a work of art. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor, but the Academy, in Olivier's opinion, did not feel comfortable in giving out all of their major awards to a foreigner, so they gave him a special Honorary Award. Olivier disregarded the award as a "fob-off".

Hamlet

Olivier followed up on his success with an adaptation of Hamlet. He had played this role more often than he had Henry, and was more familiar with the melancholy Dane. However, Olivier was not particularly comfortable with the introverted role of Hamlet, as opposed to the extroverts that he was famous for portraying. The running time of Hamlet (1948) was not allowed to exceed 153 minutes, and as a result Olivier cut almost half of Shakespeare's text, excising Rosencrantz and Guildernstern completely. He was severely criticised for doing so by purists, most notably Ethel Barrymore; Barrymore stated that the adaptation was not nearly as faithful to the original text as her brother John's stage production from 1922. Ironically, Ethel presented the Best Picture Oscar that year—and was visibly shaken when she read,"Hamlet".

The film became another resounding critical and commercial success in Britain and abroad, Later, in 1960, Tony Richardson also directed the screen version with Olivier and Plowright repeating their stage roles. Olivier received his fifth Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for The Entertainer.

Olivier married Plowright on St. Patrick's Day, 1961.

National Theatre

Olivier was one of the founders, and the inaugural director, of the National Theatre. He became first NT Director at the Old Vic before the South Bank building was constructed with his opening production of Hamlet in October 1963.

During his directorship he appeared in twelve plays (taking over roles in three) and directed nine, enjoying particularly remarkable personal successes for his performances in Othello (1964), The Dance of Death (1967) and Long Day's Journey into Night (1971). Reportedly, some felt that his tenure as the director of the NT was marred by his jealousy towards other performers when he manoeuvred to block famous names like John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson from appearing there, although young actors like Michael Gambon, Robert Lang, Maggie Smith, Sheila Reid, Christopher Timothy, Alan Bates, Frank Finlay, Derek Jacobi and Anthony Hopkins (both of whom understudied Olivier) made their names there during the period. Olivier's career at the National ended, in his view, in betrayal when the theatre's governorship decided to replace him with Peter Hall in 1973 without consulting him on the choice and not informing him of the decision until several months after it had been made.

Othello

Olivier underwent a transformation, requiring extensive study and heavy weightlifting, to get the physique needed for the Moor of Venice. It is said that he bellowed at a herd of cows for an hour to get the deep voice that was required. John Dexter's 1964 stage production of the play was filmed in 1965, securing Olivier his sixth Oscar nomination for Best Actor. The production was a huge public success as it also was with most of the critics. Franco Zeffirelli said of Olivier's acting: "It's an anthology of everything that has been discovered about acting in the past three centuries." Even so, it has not gone without criticism: in 1997, director Jonathan Miller called it "a condescending view of an Afro Caribbean person".

Three Sisters

Olivier's final film as director was the 1970 film Three Sisters, based on the Chekhov play of the same name, and his 1967 National Theatre production. It was, in Olivier's opinion, his best work as director.

One of Olivier's last feature films was Wild Geese II (1985), in which, aged 77, he played Rudolf Hess in the sequel to The Wild Geese (1978). According to the biography Olivier by Francis Becket (Haus Publishing, 2005), Hess's son Wolf Rüdiger Hess said Olivier's portrayal of his father was "uncannily accurate". In 1986, Olivier appeared as the pre-filmed holographic narrator of the West End production of the multimedia Dave Clark rock musical Time.

On 31 May 1987 the National Theatre put on a 80th birthday tribute pageant, with Olivier, and his family in attendance. It was held in the National’s Olivier theatre with Alec McCowen as Richard Burbage, Edward Petherbridge as David Garrick, Ben Kingsley as Edmund Kean and Anthony Sher as Henry Irving. Peter Hall as Shakespeare, Peggy Ashcroft as Lillian Baylis, Maureen Lipman, Albert Finney, Julia McKenzie and Imelda Staunton.

In 1988 Olivier gave his final performance, aged 81, as a wheelchair-bound old soldier in Derek Jarman's film War Requiem (1989).

Family and death

Olivier died at his home in Steyning, West Sussex, England, from renal failure on 11 July 1989. He was survived by his son Tarquin from his first marriage, as well as his wife Joan Plowright and their three children. He was cremated and his ashes interred in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, London. Olivier is one of only a few actors, along with David Garrick, Henry Irving, Ben Jonson and Sybil Thorndike to have been accorded this honour. Olivier is buried alongside some of the people he portrayed in theatre and film, for example King Henry V, General John Burgoyne and Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding.

Fifteen years after his death, Olivier once again received star billing in a film. Through the use of computer graphics, footage of him as a young man was integrated into the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in which Olivier "played" the villain.

Sexuality

Since Olivier's death, multiple biographers have produced books about him, several of which include the claim that Olivier was bisexual. Biographer Donald Spoto claimed that Danny Kaye and Olivier were lovers. Joan Plowright, Olivier's widow, denies the affair with Kaye in her memoir but does not deny that Olivier may have been bisexual. Terry Coleman's authorised biography of Olivier suggests a relationship between Olivier and an older actor, Henry Ainley, based on correspondence from Ainley to Olivier although the book disputes that there is any evidence linking Olivier sexually to Kaye. Olivier's son Tarquin disputed these rumours as 'unforgivable garbage' and sought to suppress them.

In her 2001 autobiography, Joan Plowright wrote, "Larry tended to shower almost everyone he knew with endearments and demonstrative terms of address. In the same way as the macho Sean Kenny had to put up with ‘Shawnie, darling’, and our son Richard had to endure 'Dickie-Wickie' for a short time, there is a published letter addressing his supposed arch-enemy, Peter Hall, as 'My dear Peterkins'. And Larry could say, 'I adored Danny Kaye', in exactly the same way as he said, 'I adored old Ralphie', without anyone suspecting Ralph Richardson of harbouring carnal desires for his own sex. — No man, alive or dead, has ever claimed to have slept with Larry, though the kiss-and-tell merchants of the female sex have tumbled over themselves to boast of a night or two, here or there."

However, in August 2006, on the radio program Desert Island Discs, Plowright responded to the question of Olivier's alleged bisexuality by stating:

Honours

Olivier was created a Knight Bachelor on 12 June 1947 in the King's Birthday Honours, and created a life peer on 13 June 1970 in the Queen's Birthday Honours as Baron Olivier, of Brighton in the County of Sussex, the first actor to be accorded this distinction. He was admitted to the Order of Merit in 1981. The Laurence Olivier Awards, organised by The Society of London Theatre, were renamed in his honour in 1984.

Though he was a knight, a life peer, and one of the most respected personalities in the industry, Olivier insisted he be addressed as "Larry", which he made clear he preferred to "Sir Laurence" or "Lord Olivier". Prior to the evening celebration, a new statue of Olivier as Hamlet, created by the sculptor Angela Conner and funded by private subscription, was unveiled on the South Bank, next to the National's Theatre Square.

Awards and nominations

Theatre credits and filmography

See also

AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars

References

Works cited

Further reading

Hall, Lyn, editor (1989). Olivier at Work: The National Years. Nick Hern Books/National Theatre. ISBN 1-85459-037-5

External links

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