Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier,  (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century.Hodgdon, Barbara. Shakespeare Quarterly, "From the Editor", Fall, 2002 He was the youngest actor to be knighted and the first to be raised to the peerage. Olivier married English actresses Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright.

Actor Spencer Tracy said that Olivier was 'the greatest actor in the English-speaking world'.Tracy quoted in By Myself and Then Some by Lauren Bacall (Harper Paperbacks 2006), pp. 214-15. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Olivier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, at number 14 on the list.

Olivier had many awards: twelve Oscar nominations, with two wins (for Best Actor and Best Picture for the 1948 film Hamlet), plus two honorary awards including a statuette and certificate. He was awarded five Emmy Awards. He was a three-time Golden Globe and BAFTA winner. In 1976 he received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, a lifetime achievement award.

Olivier's ashes are buried in Westminster Abbey.

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Category:1907 births
Category:1989 deaths
Category:Actors from Surrey
Category:Deaths from renal failure
Category:Disease-related deaths in England
Category:English movie actors
Category:English stage actors
Category:English television actors
Category:English theatre directors
Category:Knights Bachelor
Category:Order of Merit
Category:People buried in Westminster Abbey
Category:United Kingdom Life Peers
Category:English Academy Award winning actors
Category:British Emmy Award winners
Category:Golden Globe Award winners
Category:BAFTA Award winners
Category:Cancer deaths in England