Benedict Cumberbatch proves a superb villain in The Hollow Crown's Richard III

THE GUARDIAN
Michael Billington
@billicritic
Saturday 21 May 2016 18.10 EDT

 The camera is a close bosom friend … Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III. Photograph: Robert Viglasky/BBC/Carnival Film & Television Ltd


Richard III brings the BBC’s Hollow Crown cycle to a fine climax. It also confirms that Benedict Cumberbatch is a highly physical, as well as a natural Shakespearean, actor. Watching him wrestle his way into his clothes in the opening soliloquy, I was reminded of his superb performance as the creature in the National Theatre’s Frankenstein. On stage, we witnessed the tortured birth of a monster; here we see Richard acquiring a new identity as he gets laboriously dressed.



Cumberbatch starts with two great advantages. The previous episode enabled him to lay the ground for Richard’s throne-hungry mania. Like Olivier in the film of Richard III, he also uses the camera as a close bosom friend. Having wooed Phoebe Fox’s Lady Anne – an episode that here takes place in a forest glade – he confides to the camera, and thereby to us, his rasping astonishment at her pliability.

In fact, Cumberbatch takes us stage by stage through Richard’s systematic progress to power. The dominant image of the production is of Cumberbatch’s index finger tapping a chessboard, as he works out how to remove the pieces that stand between him and the crown. But it is a mark of Shakespeare’s progress that the dramatist also allows us to see inside Richard’s soul: Cumberbatch is especially good in the eve-of-battle soliloquy, where a character who might simply be a murdering monster pathetically realises “there is no creature loves me”.

Although Cumberbatch dominates the screen, this is far from a one-man show. Judi Dench brings all her clarity of speech and matchless sincerity to Richard’s mother, who views her son with undisguised horror: when she asks “What comfortable hour canst thou name / That ever graced me in thy company?” you totally believe her. Sophie Okonedo’s Queen Margaret stalks the action, right up to the climactic battle, like a vengeful ghost. Keeley Hawes turns Queen Elizabeth into a helpless pawn in Richard’s power games. Anyone who has seen the previous episodes will also understand – in a way that is tricky when the play is seen in isolation – just what the women are talking about when they catalogue Richard’s endless crimes.

READ MORE: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2016/may/21/benedict-cumberbatch-the-hollow-crown-richard-iii

Kenneth Branagh on The Entertainer: 'I've been bending Rob Brydon's ear about standup'

THE GUARDIAN
Interview by Chris Wiegand
9 May, 2016

You’re playing music-hall performer Archie Rice in a revival of John Osborne’s The Entertainer. Can you talk through the look for your character (seen, below, for the first time)?

The play is being directed by Rob Ashford, with whom I’ve now collaborated three times, and he comes from a choreographic background. He wanted me to very much concentrate on Archie as a hoofer, not to feel that he was someone who regarded himself as being on the skids. The problem for Archie is not, in Rob’s view, so much that he is troubled about the possibility that his career and talent are second-rate, but he is terrified that his soul might be. What Rob wanted to see was a sort of theatrical grafter, a hoofer, so we maybe see more of the sacrifices Archie has to go through in order just to get on – or even be as good as he hopes will keep an audience’s attention. I think there may be just a little more dancing, more of that backstage graft and a sense of the sweat on the guy than people may be expecting.



The role was first played by Laurence Olivier, who famously sported a bowler hat and a bow tie and so on …

We’re trying to get away from very strong images like that. What goes with that image is this sense of the play as a certain kind of classic with maybe a few cobwebs around it … But you could argue that this is perhaps a more revolutionary play than, say, Look Back in Anger. And I think it gives voice to what you might call the angry young woman in [Archie’s daughter] Jean Rice. I’m trying to come at it from a different kind of place. Despite Archie being at the centre of things, there’s a youthful fire in the play. It gives the greatest kind of pragmatism and idealism and intelligence to the women of the play, not just Jean Rice – who is in many ways the voice of the call to arms in the play for political engagement. It feels very contemporary. She is someone who is articulating this questioning of the idea that one does follow state and government without question. She encourages participation and demonstration and agitation. … The play is sometimes thought of as a lament, a minor-key wind-down, end-of empire, with an elegiac quality that is in line with Archie’s decline. But what it feels like to us is much more of the usual and youthful Osborne theatrical grenades going off.

READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW HERE

The Entertainer is at the Garrick theatre, London, from 20 August to 12 November, with a worldwide cinema broadcast on 27 October. Romeo and Juliet is at the Garrick theatre from 12 May to 13 August, with a cinema broadcast on 7 July

Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Derek Jacobi: National Theatre's 50th: the best shows from 1963-1973

THE TELEGRAPH

MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2013

By Dominic Cavendish

11:30AM BST 14 Oct 2013

The hope for a National Theatre stretches right back to the Victorian age but it wasn't until 1962 that the theatre's story officially began. After protracted discussions over funding, and a dismally slow construction pace, the decision was made to establish a National Theatre company without waiting for the theatre to be opened. In the interim, the company would perform at the Old Vic and in August 1962, the National's first artistic director was named as Laurence Olivier. The company's first performance (Hamlet) followed on 22 October 1963, and the National Theatre was born.



The Old Vic episode, though protracted, was in many ways glorious. Directors included William Gaskill, Franco Zeffirelli, Jonathan Miller and Olivier himself. The list of actors collected for Zeffirelli’s production of Much Ado about Nothing alone spelt magnificence – among them Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Albert Finney, Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen. Having an actor-manager of Olivier’s stature at the helm made the National a base for the best of British theatre, as it was intended to be.To select 10 productions from that first decade is an invidious task – the choices are open to challenge. But to try and measure the scale of the National Theatre's achievement one must identify those shows it’s still worth talking about and summon them up from the dusty vaults of national memory. Away we go…

Although the National Theatre Company launched in its temporary home at the Old Vic in 1963 with a Hamlet starring Peter O’Toole and directed by Laurence Olivier, its first hour was not its finest. Far more significant was when Olivier, the company’s artistic director, stepped into the title role of Othello (in black-face) to electrifying effect the following year. “Nowhere else in the world could a more completely realised performance than his have been seen,” Simon Callow observed in his history of the NT, published in 2007. The production, which also starred Maggie Smith as Desdemona, was rendered into a film the following year.

As You Like It, directed by Clifford Williams, starring Ronald Pickup, Anthony Hopkins and Derek Jacobi; 1967

This all-male production was a box-office hit and a sign of more liberated times, although the revival had a troubled history. John Dexter initially proposed a more sexually provocative approach but his vision was so diluted at Olivier’s insistence that he resigned. Ronald Pickup starred as Rosalind, other cast members included Anthony Hopkins, Robert Stephens, Derek Jacobi and Jeremy Brett. The New York Times was effusive: "As You Like It is fantastic, one of the most dazzling, sheerly enjoyable Shakespearean productions I have ever seen." He praised Pickup: "Within a minute or two you forget that this lanky, touching figure is a man (although he makes no effort to disguise his voice) and you see him as a soul in love.”

The National Health, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Tom Baker and Jim Dale; 1969
Peter Nichols’s play collided the grim experience of those reaching the end of life in an NHS ward with a pastiche TV soap opera (Nurse Norton’s Affair); the result, shaped and directed by Blakemore, was a sensation that won the Evening Standard Best Play award. As Blakemore records in his memoir Stage Blood: “On one side of the stage… challenges were bravely met and tragedy averted; on the other death made its random and monotonous progress through the ward… Both Peter and I began to realise that we were on to something that maybe hadn’t been done on stage before.” The show marked a return to the NT’s popular health, after a slight dip in fortunes.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directed by Michael Blakemore, starring Laurence Olivier, 1971
Michael Billington in the Guardian was spellbound by this account of Eugene O’Neill's posthumously published autobiographical masterpiece, dominated as it was by the fading grandeur of Laurence Olivier in his last major role for the company: “Olivier’s James Tyrone is a massive performance moving from an initial nervy jocularity to a throttled, brick-red despair at his wife’s relapse to a thrilling, soul-baring intensity in his cups… For a genuinely great actor to play a nearly-great actor is the hardest technical feat of all: Olivier does it to perfection.” Of this highly popular production he added: “Such is the quality of acting and direction we seem to be not merely watching great drama but to be eavesdropping on life itself.”



READ MORE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/10361968/National-Theatres-50th-the-best-shows-from-1963-1973.html

Mr. Darcy in the Digital Age

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wVwimP8ADM

Kenneth Branagh: lost Shakespearean? Kenneth Branagh seemed to give up on Shakespeare. But now he's come back to the playwright who made his name, says Dominic Cavendish. (TELEGRAPH)

By Dominic Cavendish, Theatre Critic 7:10AM BST  04 Jul 2013



The other day I found myself spending a fruitless hour pacing the backstreets of Manchester in the hope of stumbling across the as-yet-undisclosed deconsecrated church where Kenneth Branagh (Sir Kenneth since last November) will present his Macbeth as part of the city’s biennial International Festival, which is almost upon us.

The reason wasn't so much journalistic as nostalgic. I hadn't managed to bag a ticket in advance – all availability went in nine minutes – and the fancy possessed me that perhaps if I laid eyes on the building I’d get closer to the spirit of the project.

Closer, if I’m honest, to Ken. Almost unwittingly I found myself succumbing to something I hadn’t experienced for 25 years: what was once known as Branagh-mania. The reflex action whirled me back to my teenage self, queuing outside the Phoenix Theatre, fresh out of school – an age when to be young was pretty groovy but to see the talk of the town giving his Hamlet was very heaven.

In 1988, when you thought of Branagh, you thought of the Bard – and marveled at how sexy, exciting and fresh-minted he had made the “sweet swan of Avon” seem. The Belfast-born boy-wonder, who blazed a self-radicalized trail out of Reading, where his family moved after the start of the Troubles, made those of us half in love with theatre fully smitten, and rather doting on him, too.

Aged 23 and barely out of the swaddling clothes of drama school, he had seized the crowning role of Henry V at the RSC, bestriding its stages like the proverbial colossus – even daring to consult Prince Charles about the role – only to decide afterwards that it would be better if he could run his own company, and lead from the front.

Such certainty, such vigour, such chutzpah! He was the model of the new can-do age while harking back to the mythical world of Olivier (with whom he was ceaselessly compared) and all the great knights fighting the good fight for immortal nights out with every syllable of perfectly enunciated, rapier-sharp Shakespearean utterance.

He hung out with the right crowd – Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Richard Briers, Geraldine McEwen. In fact he did more than just hang out with them, he incorporated them into his gang, the Renaissance Theatre Company. The company started its 1988 campaign in Birmingham before sweeping into the West End. Critics and audiences alike adored the company’s Much Ado – in which he twinkled mischievously as Benedick opposite Samantha Bond’s foxy Beatrice.

They delighted at As You Like It, in which he dazzled as the fool Touchstone – the Guardian’s Michael Billington declaring “Mr Branagh actually makes you wait impatiently for every appearance of Shakespeare’s unfunniest clown”. And they kissed the hem of his Hamlet, in which his dazzling Great Dane, as the Financial Times’ reviewer wryly noted, “went to his death with a sardonic dash worthy of Douglas Fairbanks, blond hair kept at bay by the sword-free hand”.




READ MORE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/william-shakespeare/10120995/Kenneth-Branagh-lost-Shakespearean.html

Why Judi Dench told me she lusted after lobsters more than sex By PETER LEWIS (MAIL ON LINE)

Judi Dench on stage as Ophelia in Hamlet at the Old Vic in September 1957

When I first met Judi Dench, she was 26, small, chubbily attractive and as nervous as an electric eel. 

She was playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard under the awesome director and Chekhov expert, Michel Saint-Denis. ‘I am absolutely terrified,’ she told me. ‘I don’t think he likes me or my work.’ 

Nowadays, with an Oscar, a damehood and so many hits under her belt, it’s odd to remember that Judi had a bumpy take-off. It was fraught with obstacles — such as her diminutive height, barely 5ft 2in. 

She could disguise it amazingly. ‘You looked 6ft on your entrance last night,’ I once remarked, quite sincerely. 

‘Go on! Go on! This is music!’ she cried.

There was also a problem with weight. It was so easy for her to put on and at our lunches she rarely did more than toy with lettuce leaves. Yet she loves food. 

‘Tell me what you had for lunch,’ she implored one day when I visited her at a health farm in Hampshire. 

‘I want to hear every detail. Did you have lobster? Why not? We dream of lobster here. We talk of nothing but the food we long for — much more than sex!’

Her features are too strong to be pretty, though they are marvellously adaptable. She left her first and only screen test with no expectation of a film career.

‘This American said: “Miss Dench, you have every single thing wrong with your face,” ’ she told me.

It was in her first summer at Stratford that her talent came blazing out as Titania, a dazzling firework of a Fairy Queen with streaming wild hair and unrestrained libido.

When her career took off, that of her actor husband Michael Williams, whom she married at the age of 36, was inevitably overshadowed.

One day in a pub at Wasp Green, Surrey, where she’d bought a 17th-century house and small estate, I raised this delicate subject with them. Had her success made their relationship difficult to maintain?

Michael answered by expressing his admiration for acting that was, he said, well out of his league.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Judi ferociously ironing out the silver paper wrappings that had held our after-lunch mints with the back of a spoon.

She said nothing. But it was clear that she found the disparity in their fame more awkward than he did.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2342914/Memoirs-Mr-Showbiz-Peter-Lewis-Why-Judi-Dench-told-lusted-lobsters-sex.html#ixzz2WfnIVSvC 
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Mr Darcy through the ages (RADIO TIMES)

From Colin Firth's famous lake scene to Laurence Olivier's romantic declaration, we take a trip down memory lane to revisit our favourite portrayals of Austen's brooding hero

Susanna Lazarus

6:27 PM, 28 May 2013

The sight of Colin Firth in his white shirt, breeches and enviable sideburns, emerging from Pemberley's lake certainly stirred the heart of Elizabeth Bennet, not to mention the pulses of countless female viewers across the globe. But while his Mr Darcy remains one of the most iconic in TV history, his portrayal was not the first and is certainly not the last, with the recent announcement that Matthew Rhys will become the latest actor to step into the brooding bachelor's shoes in new BBC serial, Death Comes to Pemberley.

So to celebrate the upcoming three-part adaptation of PD James's Austen spin-off, we thought we'd indulge in a run-through of the finest Mr Darcy's in TV and film history. From Laurence Olivier's 1940s incarnation to Martin Henderson's Bollywood inspired Bride and Prejudice turn, not to mention Matthew Macfadyen's starring role opposite Keira Knightley, here is an essential reminiscence of the very best Mr Darcys...

Laurence Olivier

Even in black and white, Laurence Olivier smoulders as Lizzie Bennet's dashing suitor. After seeing to her sister Lydia's predicament – following her scandalous elopement with deceptive soldier Mr Wickham – Darcy returns to the Bennet household bearing news of Mr Bingley's imminent proposal. But the gallant gent has a surprise of his own up his voluminous sleeve – a second proposal to Lizzie, the outspoken object of his affections. This Mr Darcy has none of the awkward stuttering of latter portrayals – Olivier's smooth delivery and bushy sideburns make for a easy-on-the-eye romantic hero as he shares a smooch with his "dear, beautiful Lizzie".


David Rintoul



Fast-forward to 1980 and David Rintoul was telling Lizzie Bennet "how much I ardently admire and love you" in Darcy's cringe-worthy first proposal. A note to any rich, comely gentlemen readying himself to ask for his loved one's hand in marriage: do not first berate her for "the inferiority of her family, the miserable connection, the degradation and the lack of judgement" she displays. It doesn't go down too well, as can be seen in the following clip...


Matthew Macfadyen


Matthew Macfadyen's turn in Mr Darcy's shoes opposite Hollywood A-lister Keira Knightley was much anticipated – and his frosty presence did not disappoint. Directed by Atonement's Joe Wright, this 2005 silver screen production saw Pride and Prejudice adapted for a 21st century audience, with Macfadyen's brooding presence a rare depiction capable of rivalling Firth's. While his ill-concealed regard for Lizzie emerges later in the film, the following scene sees the pair fire barbed comments back and forth as they dance together during Mr Bingham's Netherfield Ball.

SEE MORE DARCYS:  http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-05-28/mr-darcy-through-the-ages

Sir Laurence Olivier - Happy Birthday!!!

Laurence Olivier

Actor

 He is an actor who many consider to be the greatest in the English-speaking world during the twentieth century. Though Sir Laurence Olivier was based mostly in England, he made a significant number of Hollywood films. He was nominated for Academy Awards as either an actor, producer or director twelve times, winning twice, while also being honored with two special Oscars. In his long and versatile career, Olivier appeared in more than 120 stage roles, nearly 60 films and more than 15 television productions.

The son of a clergyman, he was well educated, and introduced to the arts at an early age. He made his acting debut at the age of fifteen at the all-boys, All Saints Choir School. He continued playing Shakespearean and other classical roles while in training. Olivier's next big step was joining The Birmingham Repertory company in 1926. He had also acted on Broadway and was recognized by the American film industry. He had his chance at early Hollywood stardom when he played the lead in Yellow Ticket. By the time he made Fire Over England, he was a hot commodity, made even hotter by his well-publicized affair with his costar, the beautiful and talented Vivien Leigh. Tongues wagged wilder than usual because both Olivier and Leigh were married to other people at the time. They later freed themselves in order to marry each other, a union that lasted for more than 20 years.

As a sought after actor, Olivier heeded the call to Hollywood again and was considerably more successful. He starred as Heathclifff in the scintillating romance, Wuthering Heights (1939), and became an international matinee idol. He followed that hit with several others, including Rebecca and That Hamilton Woman. Olivier's most productive period came from directing and producing. He did this, while also starring in Henry V (1944) and Hamlet (1948). He won Best Film and Best Actor awards for Hamlet from the Academy. No matter what country has produced his films, Olivier remains an international star whose talent belongs to all nations.

Burdened by ill health for more than a decade, Olivier fought cancer and other ailments while working at a furious pace. He was knighted in 1947, and in 1970 he was made "Baron Olivier of Brighton," for services to the theater, which allowed him to sit in the House of the Lords. If that wasn't enough, in 1981 he was given the Order of Merit. In America, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed its version of knighthood on "Lord Larry," awarding him a special Oscar "for the full body of his work, the unique achievement of his entire career and his lifetime of contribution to the art of film.

Born: May 22, 1907, Dorking

Died: July 11, 1989, Ashurst

Spouse: Joan Plowright (m. 1961–1989), Vivien Leigh (m. 1940–1960), Jill Esmond (m. 1930–1940)

Children: Tarquin Olivier, Tamsin Olivier, Richard Olivier, Julie Kate Olivier

THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE FOR SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER

Tom Hardy to become neighbour to rock icons (XPOSE)

Tom Hardy has bought a £2 million mansion in the same neighborhood as Sir Mick Jagger and Richard Ashcroft.

The 'Dark Knight Rises' star is said to be in ''good company '' with his rock and roll neighbours - with The Rolling Stones and The Verve musicians living ''just up the road'' from his new south west London property.

A source said: ''Tom's going to keep good company among the rock elite - Mick and Richard are literally both just up the road.

''He'll have his work cut out before any entertaining starts, though, as it needs a fair bit of work. It's a stunning property with a huge ballroom, which he's up for renovating.''

The 35-year-old actor has plans to renovate the property for his and fiancee Charlotte Riley's son Louis, four, when he's older.

He also reportedly wants to call it Manderley after the manor in 'Rebecca', the thriller staring Tom's ''hero'' Sir Laurence Olivier.

READ MORE: http://www.tv3.ie/entertainment_article.php?locID=1.803.810&article=103153

Helen Mirren reigns at London's Olivier awards April 28, 2013 | 11:22 pm JILL LAWLESS Associated Press The Washington Examiner

LONDON (AP) -- Helen Mirren was crowned queen of the London stage at the Olivier Awards Sunday, while compelling, canine-titled teen drama "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" emerged as best in show with seven trophies.

Mirren, 67, was a popular and expected best actress choice for her regal yet vulnerable Queen Elizabeth II in "The Audience," Peter Morgan's behind-palace-doors drama about the relationship between Britain's queen and its prime ministers.

The actress, who won an Academy Award in 2007 for playing Britain's monarch in "The Queen," quipped that it was 87-year-old Elizabeth who deserved an award, "for the most consistent and committed performance of the 20th century, and probably the 21st century."

Backstage, it turned out she wasn't kidding. Mirren, who has been Olivier-nominated three times before, said that finally winning "doesn't mean that I was the best actor. There were so many incredible performances out there."

"I was making a joke about the queen winning, but I think actually it is a reflection of the kind of respect the queen is held in," she said.

Her "Audience" co-star, Richard McCabe, who won the supporting actor trophy for playing 1960s and 70s Prime Minister Harold Wilson, said Mirren was a joy to work with.

"It's important as an actor to be absolutely fearless, and she is," he said.

While the queen herself hasn't been to see the Stephen Daldry-directed show -- rumored to be Broadway-bound -- McCabe said "a lot of people in the royal household have been coming in and watching incognito, and they must be reporting back."

The surprise of the awards ceremony at London's Royal Opera House was "Curious Incident," an adaptation of Mark Haddon's best-selling young-adult novel about a teenage math prodigy with Asperger's Syndrome who sets out to find the killer of his neighbor's dog, with destabilizing results.

The show, which premiered at the state-subsidized National Theatre last year before transferring to a commercial West End playhouse, has won praise for its creative use of movement and technology to make the leap from page to stage.

The Simon Stephens-scripted drama was named best new play, and 28-year-old Luke Treadaway was crowned best actor, beating a strong list of contenders including Rupert Everett, Mark Rylance and James McAvoy.


READ MORE: http://washingtonexaminer.com/helen-mirren-reigns-at-londons-olivier-awards/article/2528386

Laurence Olivier: The outrageous confessions of an upper-class Lolita (MAIL ON LINE)

Laurence Olivier, Robin Day, Lord Lambton ... as a teenager, PETRONELLA WYATT was groped by a bevy of her famous father’s friends. Here, in an article that will justifiably enrage many, she says society must be less censorious of such behaviour. Even more controversially, she argues young women can be terribly manipulative

A PROVOCATIVE PERSONAL VIEW By PETRONELLA WYATT PUBLISHED: 20:17 EST, 11 March 2013 | UPDATED: 07:20 EST, 12 March 2013

As the sun beat down on the Mediterranean villa, I found myself dazzled not by the brightness of the day but by the fame of the elderly man sitting beside me.

The legendary actor Laurence Olivier was an acquaintance of my father’s, who had rented a holiday house not far from where Olivier was staying.

My father and I had been invited to lunch that day. The others had gone swimming, leaving Olivier and I alone. He asked me how old I was, and I told him I was 15.

‘ “San Quentin quail” as they used to say in Hollywood,’ he replied.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, puzzled, blissfully ignorant of his reference to the notorious jail.

‘Forbidden fruit, my dear. What a pity. You have such a lovely little figure.’


It is true that I was very curvaceous, and often passed for 18.

Olivier was undaunted. ‘Come and sit on my lap,’ he instructed. Awestruck, it did not occur to me not to comply.

Once I was perched on his lap, Olivier planted a wet kiss on my lips. It was not a pleasant experience, since his breath smelt like a starving coyote’s. He complimented me on my breasts, touching one of them with his hand. Then he sighed and released me, thanking me for being ‘kind to an old man’.


No doubt many people will be offended by this, arguing that as Olivier had suborned me, he might have suborned others. They will assume I was traumatised, my innocence lost. How full of righteous vengeance must my father — the politician and journalist Woodrow Wyatt — have felt, his precious child having been violated.

In fact, I had never felt more flattered in my life and, on the journey home, I burst out gleefully: ‘He groped me! Laurence Olivier groped me!’

Did my father choke on my words and threaten vengeance? No, he laughed.

‘The old devil! Did he do anything else?’

When I said Olivier had also kissed me, my father asked: ‘Did you enjoy it?’ Many will argue that my father should have been thrown into jail with Olivier. But when I was growing up, so many of my father’s friends made passes at me that if I had sued each one, I would still be in court to this day.

As well as Olivier, there was broadcaster Robin Day, the actor Albert Finney and Lord Lambton, the notorious Conservative minister who was secretly photographed smoking cannabis in bed with two prostitutes.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2291904/The-outrageous-confessions-upper-class-Lolita.html#ixzz2NMl3KNjz 
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Alec Guinness personal letters and diaries acquired by British Library Archive of theatre knight, famed for Ealing comedies, reveal Pooterish moments and brickbats for Sir Laurence (THE GUARDIAN)

Maev Kennedy
The Guardian,

Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai. Photograph: Allstar/COLUMBIA/Sportsphoto

On July 12 1989, one of the greatest actors of his generation was reflecting in his diary on the death of another. If Sir Alec Guinness's thoughts/words of praise for Sir Laurence Olivier were extracted, as theatre promoters routinely do with critics' write-ups, it could read as a rave review.

The full text, revealed for the first time in the actor's personal archive just acquired by the British Library, tells a different story. In his impeccably neat tiny script, Guinness wrote of Olivier: "I greatly admired his extraordinary courage … as a comedian he was superb … technically brilliant … he was a great actor."

But he also wrote: "Like so many people whose ambition drive them to great eminence, he had a cruel and destructive streak. Side by side with his generosity, he could be unpleasant, possibly even vindictive. Consciously or not, he made attempts to destroy John G [Gielgud], [Michael] Redgrave, [Paul] Scofield and if he had been given the chance, me."

The theatre knights meet again in the library. The vaults also hold the archives of Olivier, Gielgud, and an actor of whom Guinness writes with uncomplicated affection, Ralph Richardson.

Olivier and Guinness were near contemporaries, born respectively in 1907 and 1914, and met constantly on stage and elsewhere over more than half a century.

Guinness said: "There was a touch of pretension about him, and his public speeches were fulsome and awful. I first met him in 1935, in Romeo and Juliet. We all thought he looked and behaved like the leader of a dance band. But his Romeo was as arresting and beautiful as his Mercutio was vulgar and gimmicky."

That production was famous for the fact that Olivier and Gielgud opened as Romeo and Mercutio respectively, and then swapped roles.

Guinness conceded: "Many of us were … too admiring of John to value Larry's qualities fairly." However, he then added a snide line recalling: "The sniggers that went round when he said, during a rehearsal I think, of the procession at George V's jubilee … 'I had a wonderful view of the whole corsage'."

Guinness was unforgettable in a string of classic Ealing comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters, and for his long collaboration with the director David Lean, including with the film The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957, for which he won an Oscar.

He was also acclaimed as John le Carre's spy George Smiley, in the television adaptation of the novels. However to fans of a certain age his true stardom came in the 1970s, as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.


READ MORE:http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/07/alec-guinness-letters-british-library

MOST HANDSOME HERO FROM PERIOD DRAMAS Our favourite gents from film and TV (STYLIST)

Richard Armitage

***The Winner***

When it comes to escapism, there's nothing quite like a period drama - especially when that drama features a handsome brooding hero who knows his way around a horse and wears a pair of breeches particularly well.

With a new series of Downton Abbey back on our screens (ITV1, Sundays at 9pm), we've taken a look at our favourite leading men from period dramas past and present in the gallery below. Prepare to imagine yourself at a debutante ball or running across some moody moors...

(people were asked to vote for their favorite and Richard Armitage was the winner!  See how your favorite star fared...to my eyes, they are all winners!)

MOST HANDSOME PERIOD DRAMA HEROS

Richard III: DNA confirms twisted bones belong to king

 Skeleton found beneath Leicester car park confirmed as that of Richard III, as work begins on new tomb near excavation site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0PFH5K59gg

The last English King to die in battle (I think) Definitely the last Plantagenet. (and doesn't Laurence Oliver look a bit like Richard Armitage?)

Detailed Drafts Of Laurence Olivier's Unmade 'Macbeth' Movie Script Found NEWS BY INDIA ROSS

Remember that time when Indiana Jones found the Ark of the Covenant? This is a bit like that.

In the rural university town of Exeter, England, an academic has uncovered thirteen versions of a lost screenplay for Laurence Olivier’s "Macbeth." Exploring the library’s Laurence Olivier Archive (probably a good bet when hoping to come across such documents), the lecturer discovered a final shooting script adorned with intricate set designs and technical instructions, despite the theatrical icon’s life-long protestations that a mere “sketch” was all that remained.

While eighteen screen versions of Macbeth have been produced to date, Olivier’s was never made. Financially beleaguered, the project, which was to star Olivier and his then-wife Vivien Leigh, and would have seen them reprise what were widely believed to be their finest roles of the English stage, was derailed and abandoned. Things get a bit Da Vinci Code when one looks into the history of the Scottish Play. Shrouded in theatrical lore – a mystique which Olivier wielded with particularly public vigor after the ignominious loss of his own adaptation – "Macbeth" has haunted its prospective re-tellers with the kind of morbid revenge last seen from Banquo’s ghost. Its run on stage and screen has been beset with cast fatalities, financial ruin, and a notable severing of Macduff’s thumbs in a production of 1794. Abraham Lincoln himself purportedly read passages from Duncan’s assassination in the week prior to his death.

READ MORE: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/detailed-drafts-of-laurence-oliviers-unmade-macbeth-movie-script-found-20130131

‘Pride and Prejudice’ bicentenary: Who’s your favorite Darcy? (poll) By Marama Whyte at 1:00 pm, January 29, 2013 - @maramawhyte (HYPABLE)

VOTE (CLICK HERE) FOR YOU FAVORITE DARCY !!!

It’s the role of a lifetime – the chance to steam up the screen as Regency heart-throb Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. We’ve seen many Darcys over the years, but who was the best? Now you get to decide.

Yesterday was the bicentenary of the publication of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. There’s no need to be scandalised by our blatant objectification of these leading men, we did the literary appreciation and analysis part yesterday, so now we can get to the really important matter – who was the hottest Mr. Darcy? Ladies and gentlemen, get your votes ready.

First, straight to the source. What did Austen have to say about Darcy in Pride and Prejudice?

“…Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year.

The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. DARCY!!!

Famous Actors Behind William Darcy of ‘Pride & Prejudice’ (ABC NEWS)

By Jennifer Abbey

Laurence Olivier

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of “Pride & Prejudice,” a story retold dozens of times in novels, films, TV shows and now a popular Internet video series.

Colin Firth has played Darcy three times

It’s often said that women like Jane Austen because they LOVE Mr. Darcy, the unlikely romantic hero of “Pride and Prejudice.”

Matthew Macfadyen

He’s the opposite of an action hero.  The anti-James Bond.

Brooding.  Aloof.  And socially awkward.  A rich, slightly finicky, older man, imprisoned by good manners.   But inside lurks a smoldering romantic flame others just don’t notice.

Martin Henderson

For the past 200 years, Fitzwilliam Darcy has been the Thinking Woman’s Dream Guy, stealing the heart not just of  Austen’s heroine Elizabeth Bennet but generations of young women.

So…. who’s your favorite Mr. Darcy?

READ MORE; http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/famous-actors-behind-william-darcy-of-pride-prejudice/

Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen: What is the ultimate Pride and Prejudice cast? From Colin Firth and Keira Knightley to Laurence Olivier and Alison Steadman, which actors would you hand pick for the ultimate Pride and Prejudice screen adaptation? Vote now...

Ellie Walker-Arnott
3:12 PM, 25 January 2013

Jane Austen's sunniest novel Pride and Prejudice celebrates its 200th anniversary on Monday. And it's got us thinking...

The iconic love story has sparked numerous adaptations, from the classic Laurence Olivier version to the 2005 romantic blockbuster starring Keira Knightly and Rosamund Pike. (It even inspired Helen Fielding to pen Bridget Jones's Diary...) But if you could hand pick actors from across the best-loved film and TV adaptations to make an ultimate cast of characters, who would you choose?

Do you firmly believe no other Darcy could beat Colin Firth emerging from that lake in a wet shirt? Is Keira Knightley's pouty performance in the 2005 your favourite Lizzie Bennet? Maybe Alison Steadman's shrieking Mrs Bennet strikes you as the best? Or perhaps bare-chested Johnny Wickham in the upbeat Bollywood adaptation Bride and Prejudice is your favourite?

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!  

Happy Birthday, Mr. Darcy!! (HEROLD SCOTLAND) Barry Didcock Senior features writer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0ArRWExbbM

One of English literature's most enduring characters – thanks in part to his embodiment on screen by that troika of male totty Colin Firth, Laurence Olivier and Matthew Macfadyen – Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy celebrates his 200th birthday this month.

He is, of course, the romantic lead in Jane Austen's novel Pride And Prejudice, first published in three hard cover volumes on January 28 1813. But you probably knew that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVChdOFevEo

You may not have known that Austen was paid only £110 for the copyright, miserly when you consider the effect her creation would have on generations of readers, particularly those on the distaff side. In a 2004 poll for the Orange Prize for Fiction, Darcy was voted the romantic icon women would most like to date and the fictional character most women would like to invite to a dinner party.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHv4eHp_gUM

Men tend to look a little less favorably on him, however. "I never met a man who likes Darcy, though most women seem to," wrote literary critic John Carey. Olivier himself was unmoved by Darcy too. "I was very unhappy with the picture," he wrote in his autobiography of his 1940 film portrayal. "It was difficult to make Darcy into anything more than an unattractive-looking prig."

Maybe that's the appeal of Darcy, however. He isn't obvious, or easy or even particularly likeable. But, in the words of Martin Amis, he exhibits the ability of men to be "chastened, deepened, and finally democratized by the force of love."

READ MORE: http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/in-praise-of/in-praise-of-mr-darcy.19779751

The 100 British Actors and Actresses of All Time by The_Etiquette created 22 Jan 2011 | last updated - 23 Jan 2011

Agree with most of these, perhaps not this order however.  AND, where is Benedict Cumberbatch? Tom Hiddleston? Matthew Macfadyen?  Sir Kenneth Branagh??? and so many more...


HERE ARE THE FIRST TEN, ACCORDING TO IMDB:

1.

Laurence Olivier
Actor, Rebecca
He could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Laurence Olivier in 1927. One of Olivier's earliest successes as a Shakespearean actor on the London stage came in 1935 when he played "Romeo" and "Mercutio" in alternate performances of "Romeo and Juliet" with John Gielgud...

2.
Maggie Smith
Actress, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her father was a teacher at Oxford University and her mother worked as a secretary. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974...

3.
Judi Dench
Actress, Casino Royale
Attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and at Old Vic Theatre. She is a ten-time BAFTA winner including Best Actress in a Comedy Series for A Fine Romance in which she appeared with her husband...

4.
Ian McKellen
Actor, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
On May 25th, 1939, in the town of Burnley, Lancashire, in the north of England, Ian Murray McKellen was born. His parents, Denis and Margery, soon moved with Ian and his sister Jean to the mill town of Wigan. It was in this small town that young Ian rode out World War II. He soon developed a fascination with acting and the theater...

5.
Michael Caine
Actor, The Dark Knight
Born Maurice Micklewhite in London, Michael Caine was the son of a fish-market porter and a charlady. He left school at 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War, where he saw combat. Upon his return to England he gravitated toward the theater and got a job as an assistant stage manager...

6.
John Gielgud
Actor, Gandhi
Sir John Gielgud is a highly distinguished and prolific performer who is considered to be one of the finest actors of his generation. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, Gielgud played his first Hamlet in 1930 and quickly established himself as one of the most eminent Shakespearean interpreters of his time...

7.
Helen Mirren
Actress, The Queen
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlote Hospital, in North London to Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda Rogers and Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many titles, all the way up to Broadway.

8.
Michael Gambon
Actor, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
After joining the National Theatre, under the Artistic Directorship of Sir Laurence Olivier, Gambon went on to appear in a number of leading roles in plays written by Alan Ayckbourn. His career was catapulted in 1980 when he took the lead role in John Dexter's production of "Galileo". Since then...

9.
Peter Ustinov
Actor, Spartacus
Peter Ustinov was two times Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist, and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions. He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov on April 16, 1921, in Swiss Cottage, London...

10.
David Niven
Actor, The Pink Panther
David Niven was named after the Saint's Day on which he was born, St. David, patron Saint of Wales. He attended Stowe School and Sandhurst Military Academy and served for two years in Malta with the Highland Light Infantry. At the outbreak of World War II, although a top-line star, he re-joined the army (Rifle Brigade).

SEE THE REST - WHAT NAMES ARE MISSING IN YOUR OPINION?
http://www.imdb.com/list/JCunN7-wkME/