The Real Life of Laurence Olivier

Book excerpt: "The true story of Laurence Olivier has not been told. Roger Lewis here evaluates his relationships and motives. The boigraphy probes, for the first time, the cruelties and deceptions behind the triumphant progression. Beyond the Englishman, the heroism, the bravura acting; beyond the changes in his appearance - noses, wigs, walks - what mattered was inside; the sensibility, the spirit. The key to all this was the human tragedy of Olivier's relationship with Vivien Leigh, the supreme mutually destructive love affair of the twentieth century. Lewis shows how she transformed him, how as a woman simultaneously profound - or dreamily remote and shallow -she tempted him to abandon control, how she was the only person in Olivier's life who was too much for him."