honorific prefix	The Right Honourable
name	The Lord Olivier
honorific suffix	OM
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	1926–88
occupation	Actor, director, producer, screenwriter
spouse	Jill Esmond (1930–40; divorced)Vivien Leigh (1940–60; divorced)Joan Plowright (1961–89; 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 190711 July 1989) was an English actor, director, and producer. One of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, he was the youngest actor to be knighted and the first to be elevated to the peerage. He married three times, to actresses Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright. Actor Spencer Tracy said that Olivier was 'the greatest actor in the English-speaking world'.

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: twelve Oscar nominations, with two awards (for Best Actor and Best Picture for the 1948 film ''Hamlet''), plus 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. Another uncle was Herbert Arnould Olivier, the artist.

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) and Puck in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', played "very well, to everyone's disgust", as Olivier noted in his diary. 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. In 1928, he was cast to play Captain Stanhope in the Apollo theatre's first production of ''Journey's End'', a play which would expand his career. He always insisted that his acting was pure technique, and he was contemptuous of contemporaries who adopted method acting popularised by Lee Strasberg. Olivier married Jill Esmond, a rising young actress, on 25 July 1930; their only son, Simon Tarquin was born on 21 August 1936. Olivier was, however, from the beginning not happy in his first marriage. Repressed, as he came to see it, by his religious upbringing, Olivier recounted in his autobiography the disappointments of his wedding night, culminating in his failure to perform sexually. He temporarily renounced religion and soon came to resent his wife, though the marriage would last for ten years. Despite this supposed resentment, Olivier remained in congenial contact with Esmond until his death (as documented by their son Tarquin in his book ''My Father Laurence Olivier''), accompanying her to Tarquin’s wedding in January 1965.

He made his film debut in ''The Temporary Widow'' and played his first leading role on film in ''The Yellow Ticket''; however, he held the film in little regard. His stage breakthrough was in Noël Coward's ''Private Lives'' in 1930, followed by Shakespeare's ''Romeo and Juliet'' in 1935, alternating the roles of Romeo and Mercutio with John Gielgud. Olivier did not agree with Gielgud's style of acting Shakespeare and was irritated by the fact that Gielgud was getting better reviews than he was. 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 production 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. 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. Olivier took flying lessons, and racked up over 200 hours. After two years of service, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Olivier RNVR, as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm but was never called to see action. Director Michael Powell wanted Olivier to play the lead in ''The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'' (1943) but Winston Churchill objected to the movie and the Fleet Air Arm refused to release Olivier.

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."

A 2007 biography of Olivier, ''Lord Larry: The Secret Life of Laurence Olivier'' by Michael Munn, claims that Olivier was recruited to be an undercover agent inside the United States for the British government by film producer and MI5 operative Alexander Korda on the instructions of Winston Churchill. Munn's main source was Hollywood producer Jesse Lasky, who believed that "Larry...was drumming up support, and doing it with the British Government's sanction".

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

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's'' The 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. This may be a reference to Leigh's affair with Australian actor Peter Finch, whom Olivier met during the tour and invited to come to England. Once Finch made the move, Olivier became his mentor and put him under a long-term contract. Finch began an affair with Leigh in 1948, which continued on and off for several years, ultimately falling apart due to her deteriorating mental condition.

The success of the Australian 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'', which was directed by Elia Kazan. Olivier accepted a starring role in ''Carrie'', director William Wyler's adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel ''Sister Carrie'' in order to accompany her to Hollywood and look after her as her mental health already was fragile. During the filming of ''Streetcar'', Kazan had to wean her away from the interpretation she had developed in London under Olivier's direction.

In 1951, as their contribution to the Festival of Britain celebrations, 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. She was performing on Broadway when she got news that she had won her second Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in ''A Streetcar Named Desire''.

In January 1953, Leigh traveled 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.

During the 1950s, Olivier had affairs with other actresses, including Claire Bloom, who was his co-star in ''Richard III''.

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 enabling Olivier to marry the actress Joan Plowright, his co-star in John Osborne's ''The Entertainer'' on both stage and screen. Olivier and Plowright would have 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 critically successful films: ''Henry V'', ''Hamlet'', and ''Richard III''. Because of the failure of ''Richard III'' to turn a profit, he was unable to secure financing for a fourth film, an adaptation of ''Macbeth'', with which he had had a great success on stage at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1955.

''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, winning Olivier Best Picture and Best Actor at the 1948 Academy Awards. It was the first British film to win Best Picture, and Olivier's only Best Actor win, a category for which he would be nominated five more times before his death. Olivier also became the first person to direct himself in an Oscar-winning performance, a feat not repeated until Roberto Benigni directed himself to Best Actor of 1998 for ''Life Is Beautiful''. Also, Olivier remains the only actor to receive an Oscar for a Shakespearean role. Olivier, however, did not win the Best Director Oscar that year.

''Richard III''

Olivier's third major Shakespeare project as director and star was ''Richard III.'' Alexander Korda initially approached Olivier to reprise on film the role he had played to acclaim at the Old Vic in the 1940s. This role had been lauded as Olivier's greatest (rivaled only by his 1955 stage production of ''Macbeth'' and his performance as the music hall performer Archie Rice in ''The Entertainer''), and is arguably his greatest screen performance. During the filming of the battle scenes in Spain, one of the archers actually shot Olivier in the ankle, causing him to limp. Fortunately, the limp was required for the part, so Olivier had already been limping for the parts of the film already shot.

The film was critically well received (Olivier would be nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for the fifth time). Korda sold the rights to the American television network NBC, and the film became the first to be aired on television and released in theatres simultaneously. Many deduce that from the enormous ratings that the NBC transmissions received, more people saw ''Richard III'' in that single showing than all the people who had seen it on stage in the play's history.

''Macbeth'' (Unrealized project)

After making ''Richard III'', Olivier wanted to make a film of ''Macbeth'', with himself in the title role and Vivien Leigh as his Lady. He was not able to obtain financing. ''Richard III'' had failed to make a profit and the death of Alexander Korda, who had agreed to make the film if production was put off until 1957, cut off that avenue.

Olivier had interested Oscar-winning producer Mike Todd in financing the film, but he too died, in 1958, and Olivier's hopes of making the film were quashed.

"I tried for nine months when I wanted to make a film out of Macbeth," Olivier said. "I was never a producer in the accepted sense, only in the more artistic sense."

Critic Pauline Kael cited Olivier's failure to make a film of what was considered one of his greatest performance to be emblematic of the perversity of Hollywood. Melvyn Bragg, in the notes of his ''Richard Burton: A Life'', says that Burton told Olivier circa 1970 that he as planning on making his own film of ''Macbeth'' with Elizabeth Taylor (who had been Mike Todd's wife when he died) as Lady Macbeth, knowing that this would hurt Olivier.

''The Entertainer''

After World War II, apart from his Shakespeare trilogy, Olivier had made only sporadic film appearances. In 1957, he directed and acted in ''The Prince and the Showgirl'' with Marilyn Monroe.

In the second half of the 1950s, British theatre was changing with the rise of the "Angry Young Men". John Osborne, author of ''Look Back in Anger'', wrote a play for Olivier entitled ''The Entertainer'', centred on a washed-up stage comedian called Archie Rice, which opened at the Royal Court on 10 April 1957. As Olivier later stated, "I am Archie Rice. I am not Hamlet."

During rehearsals of ''The Entertainer'', Olivier met Joan Plowright, who took over the role of Jean Rice from Dorothy Tutin when Tony Richardson's Royal Court production transferred to the Palace Theatre in September 1957. 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 tenure as director of the National began to unravel when a proposed production of Rolf Hochhuth's ''Soldiers'' was vetoed by the National's board of directors. The production had been championed by Olivier's dramaturg, Kenneth Tynan. Though Olivier, a great admirer of Winston Churchill (whom essentially is accused of assassinating Polish Prime Minister General Władysław Sikorski by Hochhuth) did not particularly like the play or its depiction of Churchill (whom Tynan wanted him to play), he backed his dramaturg. There was a potential problem with the Lord Chamberlain, who might not have licensed the play due to its controversy. The production was vetoed by the National board, which was headed by chairman Lord Chandos, a member of Churchill's wartime cabinet, who damned the play as "grotesque and grievous libel".

The stymying of the production was a watershed event at the National, leading to the eventual ouster of Tynan and the eventual replacement of Olivier. When the board subsequently vetoed a proposed production of ''Guys and Dolls'' (a cherished project of Olivier who longed to play Nathan Detroit) after a postponement due to his poor health, it was apparent he was on shaky ground. He tried to interest Richard Burton and Albert Finney in replacing him. Neither was interested. Burton, commenting in his diaries, balked at the proposition for many reasons, but mentioned the mistreatment of Olivier by the board. If the great Olivier, the first actor to be made a peer -- a man who had given up a fortune in earnings in the West End and in films to nurture the National could be frustrated when it came to putting on controversial and even non-controversial projects by bureaucrats -- what chance did Burton have?

Olivier never was able to choose his successor. His 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. Picking Hall, the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National's great rival, was seen by many as a calculated insult to Olivier.

''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. The film was co-directed by John Sichel.

In addition, his most fondly remembered National Theatre performances at the Old Vic were as Astrov in his own production of Chekhov's ''Uncle Vanya'', seen first in 1962 at the Chichester Festival Theatre, of which he was the founding director; his Captain Brazen in William Gaskill's December 1963 staging of George Farquhar's ''The Recruiting Officer''; Shylock in Jonathan Miller's 1970 revival of ''The Merchant of Venice''; and his definitive portrayal of James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's ''Long Day's Journey Into Night'', produced in December 1971 by Michael Blakemore. These last two were later restaged for television, and telecast both in England and in the United States.

He played a droll supporting role as the ancient Antonio in Franco Zeffirelli's 1973 production of Eduardo De Filippo's ''Saturday, Sunday, Monday'', with his wife Joan Plowright in the starring role of Rosa. His final stage appearance, on 21 March 1974, was as the fiery Glaswegian, John Tagg, in John Dexter's production of Trevor Griffiths's ''The Party''.

The only appearance he made on the stage of the new Olivier Theatre was at the royal opening of the new National Theatre building on 25 October 1976.

Later career

Olivier immersed himself even more completely in his work during his later years, reportedly as a way of distracting himself from the guilt he felt at having left his second wife Vivien Leigh. He began appearing more frequently in films, usually in character parts rather than the leading romantic roles of his early career, and received Academy Award nominations for ''Sleuth'' (1972), ''Marathon Man'' (1976; Supporting Actor) and ''The Boys from Brazil'' (1978). Having been recently forced out of his role as director of the Royal National Theatre, he worried that his family would not be sufficiently provided for in the event of his death, and consequently chose to do many of his later TV special and film appearances on a "pay cheque" basis. He later freely admitted that he was not proud of most of these credits, and noted that he particularly despised the 1982 film ''Inchon'', in which he played the role of General Douglas MacArthur.

In 1966, Olivier portrayed the Mahdi (Mahommed Ahmed), opposite Charlton Heston as General Gordon in the film ''Khartoum''. The next year, he underwent radiation treatment for prostate cancer and was also hospitalised with pneumonia. For the remainder of his life, he would suffer from many different health problems, including bronchitis, amnesia and pleurisy. In 1974, at age 67, he was found to have dermatomyositis, a degenerative muscle disorder, and nearly died the following year, but he battled through the next decade.

In 1968, he starred as Piotr Ilyich Kamenev, the Soviet Premier, in the movie version of ''The Shoes of the Fisherman'' along with Anthony Quinn, Leo McKern, John Gielgud, and Oskar Werner. The movie was nominated for two Academy awards, and was produced during the height of the Cold War. One of Olivier's enduring achievements involved neither stage nor screen. From October 1973 in the UK, Thames Television began to transmit ''The World at War'', a 26-part documentary on the Second World War, which he narrated.

His last decade did contain four notable roles for television. In 1981 he appeared in ''Brideshead Revisited'', the final episode of which revolved entirely around Olivier's character Lord Marchmain, patriarch of the Flyte family, as he came home to die. The next year Olivier was cast in the much-praised television adaptation of John Mortimer's stage play ''A Voyage Round My Father'', in the role of Clifford Mortimer, the author's blind father. In 1975 he appeared as an aging British barrister, opposite Katharine Hepburn, in a made for television film that was filmed in England, but aired in the USA, ''Love Among the Ruins''. Finally, in 1983 Olivier played his last great Shakespearean role, ''King Lear'', for Granada Television. He had played it previously at the Old Vic, in 1946, with little success, but received an Emmy Award for his television portrayal. For ''Voyage'', Olivier received a BAFTA nomination, but for the final episode of ''Brideshead Revisited'' and for King Lear he won Emmys in the Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor categories, respectively.

When presenting the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards for 1984 (held 25 March 1985), he absent-mindedly presented it by simply stepping up to the microphone and saying ''Amadeus''. He had grown forgetful, and had forgotten to read out the nominees first.

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''. In the same year he appeared in two television serial, ''Lost Empires'' opposite Colin Firth and ''Peter the Great'' with Maximilian Schell.

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. 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."

In August 2006, on the radio programme ''Desert Island Discs'', Plowright responded to the allegations of Olivier's mistresses and homosexual affairs, and at that time Plowright felt the need to defend her husband's memory stating:

And then, referring separately to Olivier's battle with his "demons" which reached a peak in the long years of illness leading up to his death Plowright stated that:

Honours

Olivier was created a Knight Bachelor on 12 June 1947 in the King's Birthday Honours, becoming the youngest actor so honored. Nominated by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, he was 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 first actor to be so honoured. 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".

Centenary

On 22 May 2007, to mark the centenary of Olivier's birth, Network Media and ITV released DVD libraries of his work: Network Media—''The Laurence Olivier Centenary Collection'' (10 discs):

''Henry V'' (1944)

''Richard III'' (1955)

''King Lear'' (1983)

''The Ebony Tower'' (1984)

''Long Day's Journey Into Night'' (1973)

''The Merchant of Venice'' (1973)

''Laurence Olivier Presents'' (complete)

''The South Bank Show: Laurence Olivier, A Life'' (1982) featuring interviews with Olivier, John Gielgud and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

ITV—''Laurence Olivier Shakespeare Collection'' (7 discs):

''King Lear'' (1983)

''Henry V'' (1944)

''Hamlet'' (1948)

''As You Like It'' (1936)

''Richard III'' (1955)

''The Merchant of Venice'' (1973)

ITV – ''The Laurence Olivier "Icon" Collection'' (10 discs):

''Henry V'' (1944)

''Richard III'' (1955)

''Hamlet'' (1948)

''21 Days'' (1940)

''That Hamilton Woman'' (1941)

''49th Parallel'' (1941)

''The Demi-Paradise'' (1943)

''The Boys from Brazil'' (1978)

''A Little Romance'' (1979)

''The Jazz Singer'' (1980)

Both DVD sets include a Michael Parkinson interview with Olivier from the 1970s.

In September 2007, the National Theatre marked the centenary of his birth with a Centenary Celebration. This told the story of Olivier's working life through film and stage extracts, letters, reminiscence and readings; the participants included Eileen Atkins, Claire Bloom, Anna Carteret, Derek Jacobi, Anne-Marie Duff, Lindsay Duncan, Charles Kay, Clive Merrison, Edward Petherbridge, Joan Plowright, Ronald Pickup, Michael Pennington, Rory Kinnear, Samuel West, Antony Sher, Billie Whitelaw and Richard Attenborough. It was directed by Nicholas Hytner. 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

Herbert Arnould Olivier

Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier

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

}}

Category:1907 births Category:1989 deaths Category:20th-century actors Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:Actors awarded British knighthoods Category:Actors awarded British peerages Category:Alumni of the Central School of Speech and Drama Category:Artistic directors Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Actor Academy Award winners Category:Best British Actor BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Drama Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Emmy Award winners Category:English film actors Category:English film directors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English theatre directors Category:Fleet Air Arm aviators Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Life peers Category:Members of the Order of Merit Category:Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Category:People educated at St Edward's School, Oxford Category:People from Dorking Category:Royal National Theatre Company members Category:Royal Navy personnel of World War II Category:Shakespearean actors

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Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer.

Making his initial impact as a critic at ''The Observer'' (1954-1958, 1960-63), he praised Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956), and encouraged the emerging wave of British theatrical talent. In 1963, Tynan was appointed as the new National Theatre Company's literary manager. An opponent of theatre censorship, he was the first person to say 'fuck' on British television, which was very controversial at the time. Later in his life he settled in California where he resumed his writing career.

Biography

Early life

He was born in Birmingham to Letitia Rose Tynan and (as he was led to believe) "Peter Tynan" (though see below). As a child, he stammered but possessed early on a high degree of articulate intelligence. By the age of six, he was already keeping a diary. At King Edward's School, Birmingham, he was a brilliant student of whom one of his masters said, "He was the only boy I could never teach anything." He played the lead as Doctor Parpalaid in an English translation of Jules Romains' farce ''Knock''. While at school he began smoking, which became a lifelong habit.

Tynan was 12 when World War II broke out, coming close to being killed at 13 when a landmine destroyed the houses on the other side of the Birmingham street where the Tynans lived, with those inhabitants losing their lives. He adopted a then outrageous set of opinions. During school debates he advocated repealing laws against homosexuality and abortion. During a school debate on the motion, "This House Thinks the Present Generation Has Lost the Ability to Entertain Itself" Tynan gave a speech on the pleasures of masturbation. By the time the war ended, he had gained a scholarship to Oxford University.

At Magdalen College, Oxford he lived flamboyantly but was already beginning to suffer from the effects of his heavy smoking. He did not discover until much too late that he had been born with a rare lung condition, which increased the damage done by smoking significantly.

The writer Paul Johnson, who was "an awestruck freshman-witness to his arrival at the Magdalen lodge" described Tynan as a "tall, beautiful, epicene youth, with pale yellow locks, Beardsley cheekbones, fashionable stammer, plum-coloured suit, lavender tie and ruby signet-ring." Unlike Johnson and Tynan, most undergraduates at the university had been through World War II, but were nevertheless "struck speechless" by Tynan's extravagant style.

Hated by some, Tynan was nevertheless an intellectual and social leader among Oxford undergraduates, often made a splash ("during the whole of his time there he was easily the most talked-of person in the city") and had groupies ("a court of young women and admiring dons"), and gave sensational parties sometimes attended by London entertainment celebrities, Johnson wrote.

He also produced and acted in plays, spoke "brilliantly" at the Oxford Union, wrote for and edited college magazines. He retained a life-long admiration for his tutor at Oxford, C. S. Lewis, in spite of their marked differences in outlook, Tynan viewed him as a father figure.

In 1948, after the death of Tynan's father - the man he had known as Peter Tynan - Tynan learned to his surprise that Peter Tynan was in reality an alias of Sir Peter Peacock, a former mayor of Warrington, who had been successfully leading a double life for more than 20 years, and who had a wife and another family back in Warrington. Tynan's mother was obliged to return Sir Peter's body to his wife and family in Warrington for burial. Tynan's discovery of his father's deception (and his mother's collusion) did long-term damage to his ability to trust others.

When Tynan was called up for National Service, he put on an act of appearing outrageously camp including wearing a floppy hat, velvet coat, painted fingernails and a great deal of Yardley scent. Perhaps partly as a result, he was rejected as 'medically unfit' for service.

Early adulthood

Three years later, on 25 January 1951, he married the author Elaine Dundy after a three-month romance. In the following year they had a daughter, Tracy (born 12 May 1952, Westminster, London), after Spencer Tracy, and asked Katharine Hepburn to be godmother, which she accepted.

Tynan's career took off in 1952 when he was hired as a theatre critic for the London ''Evening Standard''. According to Johnson, Tynan "quickly established himself as the most audacious literary journalist in London. His motto was: 'Write heresy, pure heresy.' He pinned to his desk the exhilarating slogan: 'Rouse tempers, goad and lacerate, raise whirlwinds.'" Two years later he left for ''The Observer'', and it was there that he rose to prominence.

Tynan was highly critical of what he called 'the Loamshire play', a genre of English middle-class country-house drama which he felt dominated the early 1950s British stage, and was wasting the talents of playwrights and actors. Tynan espoused a new theatrical realism, best exemplified in the works of the playwrights who became known as the "Angry Young Men". There was a significant development in the 1955-1956 British theatre season during which John Osborne's ''Look Back in Anger'' (and Samuel Beckett's English version of his own ''Waiting for Godot'') premiered. Tynan championed Osborne's play, although he identified some possible flaws, concluding his review with the comment: "I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see ''Look Back in Anger''. It is the best young play of its decade." The theatre historian Dan Rebellato asserts: "it is clear that he is set on confronting his readership, not speaking for them".

"He became a power in the London theatre, which regarded him with awe, fear and hatred", Johnson wrote. The reviewer "seemed to know all world literature" and studded his articles with such words as "esurient", "cateran", "cisisbeism" and "erethism".

Francis Bacon, a painter renowned for his grotesque (and often gory) works, once smiled warmly at Tynan's daughter Tracy and declared her to be "as pretty as a picture". This was said to be one of the few times Tynan was ever shocked into silence.

Tynan co-wrote with Harold Lang, the actor, a radio play ''The Quest for Corbett'' (1956), which was broadcast at least twice in The BBC Third Programme in the mid-fifties. From 1956 to 1958, Tynan was the script editor for Ealing Studios, and co-wrote, with Seth Holt, the film ''Nowhere to Go'' (1958). Tynan commissioned a film adaptation of William Golding's ''Lord of the Flies'' from Nigel Kneale, but Ealing Studios closed in 1959 before it could be produced.

From 1958 to 1960 he became known in the United States by contributing "some superb reviews" to ''The New Yorker''. His marriage had become increasingly difficult in spite of his success (and Dundy's: she had published her first novel in 1958). Both had extramarital affairs (though his were much more blatant than hers) and he had developed a dependence on alcohol. His sexual tastes had always favored sadomasochism, which strained the marriage as well. Dundy wrote "To cane a woman on her bare buttocks, to hurt and humiliate her, was what gave him his greatest sexual satisfaction." Johnson wrote that "women seem to have objected less to his sadism, which took only a mild form, than to his vanity and authoritarianism. [...] He treated women as possessions. [...] Tynan, while reserving the unqualified right to be unfaithful himself, expected loyalty from his spouse." On one occasion, he returned from a meeting with his mistress to find a naked man in the kitchen with his wife. He threw the man's clothes down an elevator shaft.

After his first period writing for ''The New Yorker'', he returned to ''The Observer'' in 1960 where he remained its theatre critic until mid-1963 when he joined the National Theatre.

At the National Theatre

In 1963 Laurence Olivier became the British National Theatre Company's first artistic director. Tynan had been highly dismissive of Olivier’s achievements as artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre, which had opened in 1962, but he recommended himself for the role of literary manager. Olivier was initially outraged by Tynan’s presumption but Olivier’s wife, Joan Plowright, convinced him that Tynan would be an asset at the National Theatre Company, then based at The Old Vic theatre. When he became the National Theatre's literary manager, Tynan finished as ''The Observer'' theatre critic but would stay for several more years as its film reviewer.

At the National Theatre Tynan established for himself a global reputation, Johnson wrote: "Indeed at times in the 1960s he probably had more influence than anyone else in world theatre." Tynan in particular played an important role in the National's choice of plays, pushing Olivier into more adventurous selections than his own instincts might have led him to. Altogether, some 79 plays were performed during Tynan’s period at the National Theate; 32 were his idea, and another 20 chosen with his collaboration. He also persuaded Olivier to play the title role in Shakespeare's ''Othello'', something the actor had always been reluctant to do: Olivier's Othello opened at the National Theatre in 1964 to glowing reviews, and was filmed in 1965.

On 13 November 1965, Tynan participated in a live TV debate, broadcast as part of the BBC's late-night satirical show ''BBC-3''. He was asked whether he would allow a play to be staged in which sexual intercourse was represented on the stage, and replied: “Well, I think so, certainly. I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word 'fuck' would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden. I think that anything which can be printed or said can also be seen." No recording survives of the programme, but ''Private Eye'' always maintained that Tynan’s stammer made it the first 3 syllable 4 letter word. This was the first time the word "fuck" had been spoken on British television. Johnson later called Tynan's use of the word "his masterpiece of calculated self-publicity", adding "for a time it made him the most notorious man in the country".

In response to public outcry, the BBC was forced to issue a formal apology. In the House of Commons, four separate censuring motions were signed by a total of 133 Labour Party and Tory backbenchers. Mary Whitehouse, a frequent critic of the BBC over issues of "morals and decency", wrote a letter to the Queen, suggesting that Tynan should be reprimanded by having "his bottom spanked". The irony of Whitehouse's comment has been noted, given the later revelations of Tynan's fetish for flagellation. The episode further encouraged Whitehouse in her campaign against the BBC; it also cut short Tynan's television career. Comedian Billy Connolly would later commemorate this event in his song "A Four-Letter Word".

The controversy was part of a larger, longstanding aim of Tynan's "of breaking down linguistic inhibitions on the stage and in print. No one in Britain played a bigger role in destroying the old system of censorship, formal and informal." In 1960 "after much manoeuvering", Tynan got the four-letter word into ''The Observer'' in an article about the Lady Chatterley Trial. His organization of ''Oh! Calcutta!'' in 1969 was another important victory in that campaign. Tynan was fiercely against censorship and was determined to break taboos that he considered arbitrary.

Tynan's left-wing politics and lifestyle made him something of a poster boy for Sixties Radical Chic/Champagne Socialism in London. He suffered a notable defeat in the National's internal battles over his support for the Rolf Hochhuth play ''Soldiers'', a controversial work highly critical of Winston Churchill, whose production at the National Theatre was eventually cancelled.

Meanwhile, Tynan's first marriage deteriorated to the point where he was living apart from Dundy, and they finally divorced in May 1964. In December 1962 he had met Kathleen Halton, the daughter of wartime CBC correspondent Matthew Halton and sister of contemporary CBC journalist David Halton. Tynan convinced her to leave her husband and live with him. On June 30, 1967, before a New York Justice of the Peace, he married a 6 month pregnant Halton, with Marlene Dietrich as witness. During the ceremony, Dietrich backed towards some doors to close them; the judge interrupted his oration, and without change in tone or pace said: "And do you, Kenneth, take Kathleen for your lawful-wedded--I wouldn't stand with your ass to an open door in ''this'' office lady--wife to have and to hold?"

Halton gave up her career to support Tynan politically and socially. Her writing fell by the wayside during these years as the Tynan home became something of a focus for left-wing personalities in London.

An erotic revue which Tynan co-ordinated and partially wrote, called ''Oh! Calcutta!'', debuted in 1969 and became one of the most successful theatre hits of all time. It included scenes written by various authors, including Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, and Edna O'Brien, as well as music, and featured frequent nudity. Tynan was a poor businessman, however, and the contracts he signed for the show brought him in only $250,000 out of the many millions it earned.

In 1971, Tynan co-wrote with Roman Polanski the script of an unusually grim and violent screen adaptation of ''Macbeth''. In that same year he returned to his childhood habit of keeping a journal, detailing his last few months at the Royal National Theatre, which he finally left at the end of 1973 after being out-manoeuvred by its new artistic director, Peter Hall.

Later career

In the mid-1970s he made various failed efforts to explore serious sexual themes. He researched and wrote half a book on Wilhelm Reich. His attempts to compile an anthology of masturbation fantasies foundered after being rebuffed by Vladimir Nabokov, Graham Greene, Samuel Beckett and others, and he couldn't raise enough money to finance a film about a sexual triangle. Sexual obsession and physical debility marked his last years, according to Johnson.

His diaries, which he continued until the end of his life, are a mixture of self-examination and gossip; frequently hilarious and passionate, filled with wisdom and occasional folly, they reflect a growing sense of disappointment. Tynan moved with his family to California in 1976, in hopes of easing his emphysema and to write a series of lengthy articles for ''The New Yorker''.

As his second wife found success as a screenwriter and author, they had an uneasy relationship for the last few years. This marriage produced two children: Matthew, named for Kathleen's father, and Roxana. His second marriage began falling apart, largely because of "Tynan's insistence on total sexual latitude for himself, fidelity for his wife". He formed a relationship with a woman to enact sado-masochistic fantasies, sometimes involving both of them cross-dressing, sometimes hiring prostitutes as "extras" in elaborate scenes. He told his wife he intended to continue with the sessions weekly "although all common sense and reason and kindness and even camaraderie are against it. ... It is my choice, my thing, my need ... It is fairly comic and slightly nasty. But it is shaking me like an infection and I cannot do anything but be shaken until the fit has passed."

Death

Tynan died in Santa Monica, California, of pulmonary emphysema, aged 53. He was buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.

Works

Original published works:

''He That Plays The King'' (1950)

''Persona Grata'' (photographs by Cecil Beaton, 1953)

''Alec Guinness'' (1953)

''Bull Fever'' (Longmans, 1955)

''Quest for Corbett'' (Gaberbocchus, 1960)

''Curtains'' (1961)

''Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events'' (1967 ISBN 0-689-10271-2)

''The Sound of Two Hands Clapping'' (1975)

''Show People: Profiles in Entertainment'' (1980 ISBN 0-671-25012-4)

Kathleen Tynan (ed.) ''Kenneth Tynan: Letters'' ISBN 0-517-39926-1.

John Lahr (ed.) ''The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan'', 2001 ISBN 0-7475-5418-8, ISBN 1-58234-160-5.

Selections:

Kenneth Tynan (ed.) ''A View of the English Stage'' (London: Eyre Methuen 1975) - dramatic criticism

Kathleen Tynan & Ernie Eban (ed.) ''Profiles'' 1990. Various editions: ISBN 0-06-039123-5.

Dominic Shellard (ed.) ''Kenneth Tynan: Theatre Writings'', 2007

Biographies

Kathleen Tynan ''The Life of Kenneth Tynan'' (1987 ISBN 0-688-05080-8, ISBN 0-688-08906-2, ISBN 0-413-18590-7)

William Triplett ''Man They Loved to Hate'' (1995 ISBN 0-340-59240-0)

Elaine Dundy ''Life Itself!'' (2001 ISBN 1-86049-513-3() - contains an autobiographical account of Tynan's first marriage as written by his first wife.

Dominic Shellard ''Kenneth Tynan, A Life'' (2003 ISBN 0-300-09919-3)

Notes

External links

The Guardian''">Obituary in ''The Guardian''

"When Kenneth met Lulu", ''The Guardian'', "Saturday Review", p. 4 (November 21, 1998). Discusses the story (told by Kathleen Tynan) of Kenneth Tynan's obsession with Louise Brooks. Kathleen produced a screenplay, the rights to which were bought by Martin Scorsese in 1998.

Tynan's biography on the National Theatre's website

''The Girl With the Black Helmet'', Tynan's article from a 1979 issue of ''The New Yorker'' about silent film star Louise Brooks

''Some Plays—a List Compiled for The National Theatre''. Kenneth Tynan. Referred to in the National Theatre biography mentioned above, his list is available from the National Theatre website as a Microsoft Word 97 document. Google also has a cached version of the text.

''The History of the National Theatre''. John Elsom and Nicholas Tomalin. 1978. ISBN 0-224-01340-8

''1956 and All That: The Making of Modern British Drama''. Dan Rebellato. 1999. ISBN 0-415-18939-X

The Observer'' by Peter Conrad. October 14, 2001. Review of ''The Diaries'', and a critical synopsis of Tynan's life">"Tynan the vulgarian should be a lesson to us all", in ''The Observer'' by Peter Conrad. October 14, 2001. Review of ''The Diaries'', and a critical synopsis of Tynan's life

Review of ''The Diaries'' and a critical synopsis of Tynan's life

archive of reviews and essays about Kenneth Tynan and journalism by Tynan himself for ''The New York Times''

Category:1927 births Category:1980 deaths Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:British theatre critics Category:Deaths from emphysema Category:English diarists Category:People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham Category:People from Birmingham, West Midlands

de:Kenneth Tynan ro:Kenneth Tynan zh:肯尼思·泰南

name	Sir Michael Caine
birth name	Maurice Joseph Micklewhite
birth date	March 14, 1933
birth place
occupation	Actor, author
years active	1953–present
spouse	Patricia Haines(m. 1955–1962; divorced)Shakira Baksh(m. 1973–present)
children	Dominique Caine (b. 1956)Natasha Caine (b. 1973)
relatives	Stanley Caine (brother)
website	}}

Sir Michael Caine, CBE (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor.

Caine is one of two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s, the other one being Jack Nicholson. In 2000, Caine was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his contribution to cinema.

Early life

Caine was born in St Olave's Hospital, Rotherhithe, Southwark in South East London, the son of Ellen Frances Marie (née Burchell; 1900-1989), a cook and charwoman, and Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, a fish market porter. His father had Irish and Irish Traveller ancestry and was a Catholic, though Caine was brought up in his Protestant mother's religion.

Caine grew up in Southwark, South London, and during the Second World War he was evacuated to North Runcton near King's Lynn in Norfolk. After the war, when his father was demobilised, the family was rehoused by the council in Marshall Gardens at the Elephant and Castle in a pre-fabricated house made in Canada, as much of London's housing stock had been damaged during the Blitz in 1940-41.

The prefabs, as they were known, were intended to be temporary homes while London was rebuilt, but we ended up living there for eighteen years and for us, after a cramped flat with an outside toilet, it was luxury.

In 1944, he passed his eleven plus exam, winning a scholarship to Hackney Downs Grocers' School. After a year there he moved to Wilson's Grammar School in Camberwell (now Wilson's School in Wallington, South London), which he left at sixteen after gaining a School Certificate in six subjects. He then worked briefly as a filing clerk and messenger for a film company in Victoria Street and the film producer Jay Lewis in Wardour Street. From 1952, when he was called up to do his national service, until 1954, he served in the British Army's Royal Fusiliers, first at the BAOR HQ in Iserlohn, Germany and then on active service during the Korean War. Caine has said he would like to see the return of national service to help combat youth violence, stating: "I'm just saying, put them in the Army for six months. You're there to learn how to defend your country. You belong to the country. Then when you come out, you have a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence."

Career

1950s

Caine's acting career began at the age of 20 in Horsham, Sussex when he responded to an advertisement in ''The Stage'' for an assistant stage manager who would also perform small walk-on parts for the Horsham-based Westminster Repertory Company who were performed at the Carfax Electric Theatre. Adopting the stage name "Michael Scott", In July 1953 he was cast as the drunkard Hindley in the Company's production of ''Wuthering Heights''. He moved to the Lowestoft Repertory Company in Suffolk for a year when he was 22. It was here that he met his first wife. He has described the first nine years of his career as "really, really brutal."

When his career took him to London after his provincial apprenticeship, his agent informed him that there was already a Michael Scott treading the boards in London and that he had to come up with a new name immediately. Speaking to his agent from a telephone box in Leicester Square, London, he looked around for inspiration, noted that ''The Caine Mutiny'' was being shown at the Odeon Cinema, and decided to change his name to "Michael Caine". (Humphrey Bogart was his "screen idol" and he would later play a part originally intended for Bogie in John Huston's ''The Man Who Would Be King''.) He has joked in interviews that had he looked the other way, he would have ended up as "Michael One Hundred and One Dalmatians". In 1959, he was Peter O'Toole's understudy in Lindsay Anderson's West End staging of Willis Hall's ''The Long and the Short and the Tall''. He took over the role when O'Toole left to make ''Lawrence of Arabia'' (1960) and went on to a four-month tour of Britain and Ireland. He was cast in the 1956 movie ''A Hill in Korea'' partly because of his Korean War experience, to serve as both actor and technical adviser. His co-stars included Stanley Baker and Robert Shaw.

1960s

A big break came for Caine when he was cast as Meff in James Saunders' Cockney comedy ''Next Time I'll Sing To You'', when this play was presented at the New Arts Theatre in London on 23 January 1963. Scenes from the play's performance were featured in the April 1963 issue of ''Theatre World'' magazine.

When this play moved to the Criterion in Piccadilly with Michael Codron directing, he was visited backstage by Stanley Baker, his co-star in ''A Hill In Korea'', who told him about the part of a Cockney corporal in his upcoming film ''Zulu'', a film Baker was producing and starring in. Baker told Caine to visit the director, Cy Endfield, who informed him that he already had given the part that Baker had tipped Caine for to James Booth, a fellow Cockney who was Caine's friend, because he looked more Cockney than Caine did. Endfield then told the 6'2" Caine that he did not look like a Cockney but like an officer, and offered him a screen test for the role of a snobbish, upper class officer after Caine assured him that he could do a posh accent. Caine believes Enfield offered him, a Cockney, the role of an aristocrat as, being American, he did not have the endemic British class prejudice. Though he tested poorly, Endfield gave him the part that would make him a film star.

Location shooting for ''Zulu'' took place 14 weeks in Natal, South Africa in 1963. According to his 2011 autobiography ''The Elephant to Hollywood'', Caine had been signed to a seven-year contract by Joseph E. Levine, whose Embassy Films was distributing ''Zulu''. After the return of the cast to England and the completion of the film, Levine released him from the contract, telling him, "I know you're not, but you gotta face the fact that you look like a queer on screen." Levine gave his contract to his ''Zulu'' co-star James Booth.

Subsequently, Caine's agent got him cast in the BBC production ''Hamlet at Elsinore'' (1964) as Horatio in support of Christopher Plummer's Hamlet. Horatio was the only classical role Caine, who had never received dramatic training, would ever play.

Caine wrote, "...I decided that if my on-screen appearance was going to be an issue, then I would use it to bring out all Horatio's ambiguous sexuality."

After dozens of minor TV roles, Caine finally entered the public eye as the upper class British Army officer Gonville Bromhead in ''Zulu''. This proved paradoxical, as Caine was to become notable for using a regional accent, rather than the Received Pronunciation hitherto considered proper for film actors. At the time, Caine's working class Cockney, just as with the Beatles' Liverpudlian accents, stood out to American and British audiences alike.

''Zulu'' was closely followed by two of his best-known roles: the spy Harry Palmer in ''The Ipcress File'' (1965), and the womanising title character in ''Alfie'' (1966). He went on to play Palmer in a further four films, ''Funeral in Berlin'' (1966), ''Billion Dollar Brain'' (1967), ''Bullet to Beijing'' (1995) and ''Midnight in Saint Petersburg'' (1995). Caine made his first film in the United States in 1966, after an invitation from Shirley MacLaine to play opposite her in ''Gambit.'' During the first two weeks, whilst staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he met long term friends John Wayne and agent "Swifty" Lazar.

1970s

After working on ''The Italian Job'' with Noël Coward, and a solid role as RAF fighter pilot Squadron Leader Canfield in the all-star cast of ''Battle of Britain'' (both 1969), Caine played the lead in ''Get Carter'' (1971), a British gangster film. Caine was busy with successes including ''Sleuth'' (1972) opposite Laurence Olivier, and ''The Man Who Would Be King'' (1975) co-starring Sean Connery and directed by John Huston (which he has stated will be the film he wishes to be remembered for after his death). In 1976 he appeared in the screen adaptation by Tom Mankiewicz of the Jack Higgins novel ''The Eagle Has Landed'' as ''Oberst'' (Colonel) Kurt Steiner, the commander of a Luftwaffe paratroop brigade disguised as Polish paratroopers, whose mission was to kidnap or kill the then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, alongside co-stars Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter and Donald Pleasence. Subsequently in 1978, he starred in ''The Silver Bears'', an adaptation of Paul Erdman's (1974) novel of the same name. Caine also was part of an all-star cast in ''A Bridge Too Far'' (1977).

1980s

By the end of the decade, he had moved to the United States, but his choice of roles was often criticisedhe admitted to and has since made many self-deprecating comments about taking parts, strictly for the money, in numerous films he knew to be bad, despite working with Hollywood's highly regarded directors such as Irwin Allen, Richard Fleischer, Michael Ritchie and Oliver Stone. Caine was averaging two films a year, but these included such failures as the BAFTA Award-nominated ''The Magus'' (1968), the Academy Award-nominated ''The Swarm'' (1978), ''Ashanti'' (1979) (which he claimed were the worst three films of all the other worst films he ever made), ''Beyond the Poseidon Adventure'' (1979), ''The Island'' (1980), ''The Hand'' (1981) and a reunion with his ''Sleuth'' co-star Laurence Olivier in ''The Jigsaw Man'' (1982).

Although Caine also took better roles, including a BAFTA-winning turn in ''Educating Rita'' (1983), and an Oscar-winning one in ''Hannah and Her Sisters'' (1986) and a Golden Globe-nominated one in ''Dirty Rotten Scoundrels'' (1988), he continued to appear in notorious duds like the thinly veiled skin flick ''Blame It on Rio'', the Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais comedy ''Water'' and the critical-commercial flop ''Jaws: The Revenge'' (1987) (in which he had mixed feelings about the production and the final cut) and ''Bullseye!'' (1990); his appearing in so many films that did not meet with critical or box office acclaim made him the butt of numerous jokes on the subject. Of the former, Caine famously said (primarily about ''Jaws: The Revenge'') "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." All these film failures later became cult films among his fans today. His other successful films (critically and/or financially) were the 1978 Academy Award-winning ''California Suite'', the 1980 Golden Globe-nominated slasher film ''Dressed to Kill'', the 1981 war film ''Escape to Victory'', the 1982 film ''Deathtrap'', and the 1986 Academy Award-nominated ''Mona Lisa''. He also starred in ''Without a Clue'', portraying Sherlock Holmes.

1990s

The 1990s were a lean time for Caine, as he found good parts harder to come by. A high point came when he played Ebenezer Scrooge in the critically acclaimed ''The Muppet Christmas Carol'' (1992), which he considers to be one of his most memorable roles. He played the beleaguered stage director Lloyd Dallas in the film adaptation of ''Noises Off'' (1992). He also played a villain in the Steven Seagal film ''On Deadly Ground'' (1994). He was in two straight to video Harry Palmer sequels and a few television films. However, Caine's reputation as a pop icon was still intact, thanks to his roles in films such as ''The Italian Job'' and ''Get Carter''. His performance in 1998's ''Little Voice'' was seen as something of a return to form, and won him a Golden Globe Award. Better parts followed, including ''The Cider House Rules'' (1999), for which he won his second Oscar.

2000s

In the 2000s, Caine appeared in ''Miss Congeniality'' (2000), ''Last Orders'' (2001), ''The Quiet American'' (2002), for which he was Oscar-nominated, and others that helped rehabilitate his reputation. Several of Caine's classic films have been remade, including ''The Italian Job'', ''Get Carter'', ''Alfie'' and ''Sleuth''. In the 2007 remake of ''Sleuth'', Caine took over the role Laurence Olivier played in the 1972 version and Jude Law played Caine's original role. Caine also starred in ''Austin Powers in Goldmember'' (2002) as Austin's father and in 2003 he co-starred with Robert Duvall in ''Secondhand Lions''. In 2005, he was cast as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth in the first production of the new ''Batman'' film series. In 2006, he appeared in the films ''Children of Men'' and ''The Prestige''. In 2007 he appeared in ''Flawless'', while in 2008 he reprised his role as Alfred in Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed ''Batman'' sequel, ''The Dark Knight'' as well as starring in the British drama ''Is Anybody There?'', which explores the final days of life.

It was reported by ''Empire'' magazine that Caine had said that ''Harry Brown'' (released on 13 November 2009) would be his last lead role. Caine later declared (in the ''Daily Mirror'') that he had been misquoted by the magazine.

2010s

Caine had a cameo appearance in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller, ''Inception''. He voiced Finn McMissile in Pixar's 2011 film ''Cars 2'' and also voiced a supporting role in the animation, ''Gnomeo and Juliet''. He also starred in the 2012 film ''Journey 2: The Mysterious Island'', as Josh Hutcherson's character's grandfather; the film also featured Dwayne Johnson and Vanessa Hudgens. Caine will reprise his role as Alfred Pennyworth in the Batman sequel, ''The Dark Knight Rises'', due for release in mid 2012. Filming has begun at Wollaton Hall, Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, England.

Awards and honours

Caine has been Oscar-nominated six times, winning his first Academy Award for the 1986 film ''Hannah and Her Sisters'', and his second in 1999 for ''The Cider House Rules'', in both cases as a supporting actor.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1992 Queen's Birthday Honours, and in the 2000 New Year Honours he was knighted as ''Sir Maurice Micklewhite CBE''. On 5 January 2011, he was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France's culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand.

In 2008, he was awarded the prize for Outstanding Contribution to Showbusiness at the Variety Club Awards.

In popular culture

Caine is a popular subject for impressionists and mimics, having a voice and manner of speaking that are distinctive, yet fairly easy to imitate. Most Caine impressions include the catchphrase "Not a lot of people know that." Peter Sellers initiated this when he appeared on BBC1's ''Parkinson'' show on 28 October 1972 and said: "Not many people know that. This is my Michael Caine impression. You see, Mike's always quoting from the ''Guinness Book of Records''. At the drop of a hat he'll trot one out. 'Did you know that it takes a man in a tweed suit five and a half seconds to fall from the top of Big Ben to the ground?' Now there's not many people who know that!". The line had been used earlier in Spike Milligan's script for ''The Last Goon Show of All'', performed on 5 October 1972. In 1983, Caine was given the line to say as an in-joke in the film ''Educating Rita''. The line has also been parodied, along with its impression, in the British sketch comedy show, ''Harry Enfield's Television Programme'', with Paul Whitehouse as a stalking neighbourhood character called Michael Paine, who introduced himself with the line "My name is Michael Paine, and I am a nosy neighbour." Caine himself parodied the phenomenon in an interview with Michael Parkinson, imitating others' impressions of him and including the catchphrase.

Personal life

Caine lives in Leatherhead, Surrey, and is patron to the Leatherhead Drama Festival. He has also lived in North Stoke, Oxfordshire, Clewer near Windsor, Berkshire, Lowestoft in Suffolk and Chelsea Harbour in London. In addition, Caine owns a unit at the Apogee in Miami Beach, Florida. He still keeps a small flat near where he grew up in South East London. Caine has published two volumes of memoirs, ''What's It All About?'' in 1992 and "The Elephant to Hollywood" in 2010.

He was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1955 to 1958. They had a daughter, Dominique (who was named after the heroine of the novel ''The Fountainhead'' by Ayn Rand). He dated Bianca Jagger in 1968. Caine has been married to actress and model Shakira Baksh since 8 January 1973. They met after Caine saw her appearing in a Maxwell House coffee commercial and a friend gave him her telephone number. They have a daughter, Natasha Haleema.

Some time after his mother died, Caine and his younger brother, Stanley, learned they had an elder half-brother, named David. He suffered from severe epilepsy and had been kept in Cane Hill Mental Hospital his entire life. Although their mother regularly visited her first son in the hospital, even her husband did not know the child existed. David died in 1992.

Trivia books written by Caine include ''Not Many People Know That!'', ''And Not Many People Know This Either!'', ''Michael Caine's Moving Picture Show'' and ''Not A Lot of People Know This is 1988''. Proceeds from the books went to the National Playing Fields Association (now Fields In Trust) of which Caine was a prominent supporter.

Unlike many actors who adopt their stage name for everyday use, Caine still uses his real name when he is not working.

Caine was called up for national service in the British Army in 1951 when he was aged 18 and was deployed to South Korea to help in the aftermath of the North Korean invasion. He served as part of the Royal Fusiliers. He said he had gone into it feeling sympathetic to communism, coming as he did from a poor family. But he has said the experience left him permanently repelled.

Politics

Caine has been open about his political views. He left Britain in the 1970s, citing the 82% tax levied on top earners by the Labour government of the time, but returned to Britain several years later when taxes were lowered:

"I decided not to become a tax exile, so I stayed in Britain, but they kept putting the tax up, so I'd do any old thing every now and then to pay the tax, that was my tax exile money. I realised that's not a socialist country, it's a communist country without a dictator, so I left and I was never going to come back. Maggie Thatcher came in and put the taxes back down and in the end, you know, you don't mind paying tax. What am I going to do? Not pay tax and drive around in a Rolls Royce, with cripples begging on the street like you see in some countries?"

"I voted for Maggie Thatcher because I thought we needed a change from that long period of socialism; I voted for Tony Blair because we had a great long period of Conservatism."

In 2009, Caine openly criticised the Labour government's proposed new 50% tax on top earners:

"The Government has taken tax up to 50 per cent and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America. They have reached their limit with me and that's what will happen to a lot of people. You know how much they made out of that high taxation all those years ago? Nothing. But they sent a mass of incredible brains to America. We've got 3.5 million layabouts laying about on benefits, and I'm 76, getting up at 6 am to go to work to keep them. Let's get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it on."

"You're saying to poor people, 'let's tax those rich gits' and I understand that. You slice up the cake, give everyone a chance, but don't destroy the people that are making the bloody cake! I really believe about taking care of people, I don't mind paying tax. It's how the government spends my tax that I detest, really detest, because I see the waste. More money than all our income tax is spent on benefits. Now you tell me there is nothing wrong with that system."

Caine also stated in 2009 that he was likely to vote for the Conservatives again:

"I'll probably vote Conservative. I mean, we're in a terrible state whichever way you look at it, socially, financially and politically, so just give the other guy a chance. I don't know what Cameron's going to do, but in the end you vote out of desperation. You just have to have someone new and see what happens."

Following the launch of his film ''Harry Brown'', Caine called for the reintroduction of national service in the UK to give young people "a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence".

During the run up to the 2010 General Election, Caine publicly endorsed the Conservative Party, despite claiming to have supported New Labour in 1997. He appeared with David Cameron for the Conservative leader's launch of a civilian non-compulsory 'National Service' for teenagers.

Musical career

Caine is a fan of chill-out music and has compiled a mix CD called ''Cained'', which was released in 2007 by UMTV. According to Michael Caine, he met Elton John and was discussing musical tastes, when Caine claimed that he had been creating chillout mix tapes as an amateur for years. Also in music, Caine provided vocal samples for the band Madness for their 1984 hit "Michael Caine" as his daughter was a fan. He has sung in film roles as well, including for the musical film, ''The Muppet Christmas Carol''.

Filmography, awards and nominations

References

External links

in 2010

"The Films of Michael Caine" compilation of film clips, 4 minutes

PLAY DIRTY/Caine Special on Location in Spain

Martyn Palmer, "Double act: Michael Caine and Jude Law (lunch and discussion)", ''The Times'', 17 November 2007

Charlie Rose video interview 3 February 2003

IGN.com interview 18 March 2003

200 years of Michael Caine's family tree

Category:1933 births Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:Actors awarded British knighthoods Category:Actors from London Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Actor BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actor Golden Globe winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners Category:British Army personnel of the Korean War Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Category:English film actors Category:English people of Irish descent Category:English television actors Category:Knights Bachelor Category:Living people Category:People educated at Wilson's School, Wallington Category:People from Camberwell Category:People from Leatherhead Category:People from South Oxfordshire (district) Category:People from Southwark Category:Royal Fusiliers soldiers

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