Larry and Viv
Mark Amory
Tt must have seemed such a good idea. _L.The subtitle is One Year in the Lives of Laurence Oliver and Vivien Leigh and refers to the ten-and-a-half month tour they made of Australia and New Zealand in 1948. As Heathcliffe and Scarlett O'Hara during the war, they had taken over from Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson as the most famous and romantic lovers in the world and, though now respectably married, they were still undeniably glamor- ous and treated by (most of) the awed colonials as royalty. However, behind the scenes all was not well. O'Connor has ferretted out an eye-witness account of a row during which Viv slapped Larry's face and burst into tears. Madness and adultery are known to he on the way. Sexy Peter Finch, her future lover, was discovered on their tour. Out of the blue, Olivier re- ceived a telegram from the board of the Old Vic telling him that he was sacked. Above all, it is so neatly detached by geography, a slice of dramatic life with a defined beginning and end.
How could it be worked up? What about the three productions which were touring? The Skin of Our Teeth showed Vivien Leigh as the eternal seductress; surely there must be some ironically appropriate dialogue between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal; best of all, Richard III is discovered to be no less than the other man — Olivier loved his creation more than his wife. Then there are the memories of audiences, press cuttings, a diary kept by Olivier, surviving members of the company to be interviewed, letters one of them wrote and had fortunately had returned.
As O'Connor researched, he must have realised that it was all coming to pieces in his hands. He talked to literally dozens of Australians who had found the perform- ances unforgettable but were unable to put their memories into interesting words. The press cuttings are inept, the cartoons in- spired by the visit feeble. The company report that it was sometimes hot, some- times cold, lodgings were awful, theatres too big, Larry a wonderful leader, Vivien very pretty. Peter Finch only got to know them in England. Olivier's diary, available only in Felix Barker's extracts in his 1953 biography, I imagine, as I happened to have the original at what I take to be the relevant time, is almost a log of rehearsals and oppressive social engagements (though he quotes some questions which shed their light, such as 'Why do they call Sir Laur- ence's wife Vitamin B?' or an actor writing But how can I be soulful and louder with my back to the audience?'). Not much that is new emerges. O'Connor names an actor whom Olivier left anonymous in his auto- biography, but he doesn't know whether he was just flirting or had an affair with Vivien Leigh, and admits it does not matter. He corrects a couple of Olivier's dates and tells us that the gross takings were £226,318, which was success. On emotional matters, his unavoidable ignor- ance forces him into the hypothetical school of biography: 'In another darker mood she must have told herself . . 'Were there subconscious reasons for an actor of 41 . . .' Must she? Were there? You do not know and we do not care. Signs of panic or ineptitude abound and O'Con- nor is not inept. Irrelevant details are included only because he knows them, for instance, 'Like both Leslie Caron and Brigitte Bardot [Vivien] had been trained as a dancer'. Like a great many other actresses too. Michael Reddington, an actor, went to the dentist in Melbourne and had cocaine injected into his gum for the first time. The company's general manager had been secretary to a racing driver. These little dots of information do not build into a vivid picture. The one row that has been discovered is yanked out of its place and put at the beginning as an appetiser. Fortunately the implied promise is not fulfilled and it is merely repeated, not enlarged on.
And yet, and yet. After 14 books Olivier remains a fascinating subject. His own is naturally in a special position and has not been sufficiently praised for its courage and honesty. The fact that I did some editing, made suggestions and failed to veto a phrase here and there does not, I think, makes it improper for me to com- ment. It casts light but does not explain, it is evidence rather than a solution. The first difficulty, familiar to anyone who has interviewed actors, is that he seems less than his parts. People often fail to recog- nise him and then say that he is smaller than they expected. Some have deduced from the fact that he was unremarkable at some dinner party that he is a dull or empty man. But when you have forgiven him for not being Henry V or Astrov, he remains elusive. He has spent much of his life hiding under layers of make-up in a bril- liant spotlight, is breathtakingly bold and simultaneously canny, capable of going out to buy one car, liking the look of it and so coming home with two, but worried about the waste of leaving a light on, in the end nothing so simple as a mass of contradic- tions — and a genius. O'Connor teased a fascinating book out of the almost equally evasive, self-serving and gifted Ralph Richardson. This book should shake itself like a wet dog, shed its faults and become a chapter in a full-scale biography.
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