Laurence Olivier’s Son Recalls Memories With His Father: He ‘Was a Great Joy to Be Around’

For most of his adult life, stage legend and Oscar-winning actor Laurence Olivier swam daily. “He really made it a commitment,” recalls his son Richard Olivier to Closer. “He would swim 30 lengths, which he figured out was about half a mile.” Laurence kept it up though his later years, too. “Even if it took him an hour, he had that level of self-will and determination to keep going.”

Perseverance and self-confidence had taken Laurence, who was born the third son of a frugal clergyman, very far in life. He discovered acting in childhood, shortly after the death of his beloved mother, and worked hard as a youth to pay for his studies. “He’d go to drama school during the day, then work the late shift on the tube trains, opening and closing doors before they were automatic,” Richard says.

By the time Richard was born in 1961, Laurence had established himself as one of the greatest stage actors of his day, been knighted by Queen Elizabeth, and won three Oscars. (A fourth, for his lifetime achievement, would follow in 1979.) He had nothing to prove anymore, but helming the National Theatre of Great Britain in 1962 took much of his energy. “It was his greatest passion,” confides Richard, who admits “he didn’t have a huge amount of time for parenting.”

That fell to Richard’s mother, actress Joan Plowright, whom her son praises as “very grounded, sensible and practical.” She created a markedly different life for Laurence than the glamour and excess of his marriage to Gone With the Wind’s Vivien Leigh. “He’d already gone through the whole Hollywood/West End machine, so he was more interested in what life’s really about,” says Richard. “Around the holiday time, it was a great joy to be around him. He was very caring, very entertaining and very playful.”

Inside Laurence Olivier’s Later Years With His Family

In his last decade, illness forced Laurence to choose film roles over the more physically taxing stage work, but they allowed him more days at home. “We all got more time with him and appreciated him more when we were in our teens,” Richard says. “I also worked with him quite a bit, assisting him on the set for a few weeks on The Boys From Brazil and A Little Romance.

Laurence passed on in 1989 at age 82, but his legacy survives. In December, Julien’s Auctions will host a sale of the actor’s personal items, props and scripts. “It feels like it’s the right time to hopefully send a lot of it to good homes,” says Richard, founder of Olivier Mythodrama, a leadership practice inspired by the plays of Shakespeare. It, too, would never have been possible without Laurence. “Before he did films of Shakespeare, it was seen as very artsy and for upper-class people only. He brought Shakespeare to the masses.”