Knighted in 1947, made life peer in 1970, awarded the Order of Merit in 1981.
Life-long friend of Ralph Richardson, whom he met and befriended in London as a young acting student during the 1920s, he was dismayed that Richardson expected to play Buckingham in his film of Shakespeare's Richard III (1955). Olivier wanted Orson Welles, another friend, to play the role but could not deny his oldest friend. In his autobiography, Olivier says he wishes he had disappointed Richardson and cast Welles instead as he would have brought an extra element to the screen, an intelligence that would have gone well with the plot element of conspiracy.
Lord Olivier perfected an Italian accent in order to play Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972), and was signed to play the role. However, at the last moment he fell ill and was replaced by Marlon Brando.
Modelled the accent for his character of George Hurstwood, an American living in turn-of-the-last-century Chicago in Carrie (1952), on Spencer Tracy.
Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck said that Olivier's 1964 turn as Othello at the National Theatre in London was the greatest performance he had ever seen. Though Olivier received an Oscar nomination in 1966 for his performance in the film version of the National Theatre production, many critics said that the performance captured on film was merely a shadow of what they had seen on stage. Other critics trashed the performance as rubbish, both on-stage and screen, accusing Olivier of making the noble Moor (Moors are considered Caucasian, that is, white under European classification systems developed in the 19th century) into a racist caricature akin to "Old Black Joe." For his part, Olivier had wanted to give Othello "Negritude" (Sammy Davis Jr. claimed that Olivier had come to see him perform multiple times and copied some of his mannerisms in his Othello) in order to comment on racism. He wanted the audience to dislike Othello until the very end, when he is destroyed by the tragedy Iago has hatched for him. Then, the audience would be complicit in Othello's destruction (as they had despised Othello too as a "negro" rather than as the white man in black face he had always been portrayed as by British actors), and their guilt at the destroyed innocent (and their sham
Offered parts in "Coronation Street" (1960) and "Doctor Who" (1963).
Olivier delivered one of the more eccentric acceptance speeches in 1979, upon receiving an Oscar statuette for Lifetime Achievement. His rundown of thanked Academy bigwigs, colleagues and friends included kudos to "my very noble and approved good masters," a quote from Shakespeare's "Othello," Act I, Scene 3, line 77. (Olivier had received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the role in 1966, losing out to Lee Marvin.) Characterizing the acceptance speech, John J. O'Connor of the 'New York Times' wrote, " Olivier lapsed into a curiously rambling, slightly sticky, extended metaphor about stars and firmaments."
One of the 20th century's greatest orators, his last role as the Old Soldier in Derek Jarman's War Requiem (1989) had no dialogue.
Said once that he always visualized the physical appearance of a character that he was going to play before he did anything else.
The filmmakers wanted him to play Clive Candy in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) (1943), but he was prevented from being furloughed from the Navy to take the role by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who didn't want the film to be made. Churchill didn't want to bolster the production with an actor and star of Olivier's calibre as it felt the movie was critical of a type of British patriot. Olivier was allowed to take a leave from the Navy to make a film about Shakespeare's patriotic King Henry V in Henry V (1944). Roger Livesey was cast instead. A generation later he played Olivier's father Billy Rice in The Entertainer (1960), though he was less than a year older than him.
The first thespian to receive both a Best Actor Oscar (for Hamlet (1948)) and a Worst Actor Razzie (for Inchon (1981)).
The Olivier Theatre, the largest theatre in the new National Theatre complex on the south bank of the Thames, opened on 10/4/76 with Albert Finney playing Christopher Marlowe's "Tamburlaine The Grea"t, directed by Peter Hall. The Queen officially opened the National Theatre on October 25. Years later, Michael Caine met his former co-star at the theater named after him, and asked him if he could get in for free. No, he could not, answered Olivier, but he told Caine that he would work on it.
The Society of London Theatre renamed The Society of West End Theatre Awards, which had been launched in 1976, "The Laurence Olivier Awards" in his honor in 1984. The annual awards are considered the most prestigious in the London theater world.
The son of a high church Anglican, Olivier was a lifelong Conservative. In 1983 he wrote to congratulate Margaret Thatcher following her victory in that year's General Election. He declined the offer of a peerage from Harold Wilson's Labour government in 1967, despite Wilson's insistence that it was not a political honour, but later accepted a peerage from Edward Heath's Conservative government in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1970.
Turned down the role of Humbert in Lolita (1962). He originally agreed with Stanley Kubrick, his director on Spartacus (1960), to appear in his film of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial classic, but dropped out on the advice of his agent. Ironically, Kubrick shared the same agent.
Wanted desperately to stage "Guys and Dolls" in the early 1970s, as he dreamed of playing Sky Masterson, but after stringing him along for several years, the board of governors of the National Theatre vetoed any chance of a production. After years of being hamstrung by the board, Olivier resigned as artistic director in 1973 without being able to name his successor. The governors appointed Peter Hall, founder of the National Theatre's great rival, the Royal Shakespeare Company, as director to replace Olivier. The move is widely seen as an insult to Olivier, who had given up an incalculable fortune in potential earnings in the commercial theater and in motion pictures to make his dream of a National Theatre a reality. However, he was honored by having the largest auditorium in the under-construction National Theatre building named after him. "Guys and Dolls" was eventually staged by the National Theatre in 1982.
Was chosen to play Antonio in Queen Christina (1933) but was rejected by Greta Garbo after an initial meeting at the studio. The part later went to Garbo's former lover John Gilbert, whose career had hit bottom after the advent of sound. In his autobiography "Confessions of an Actor," Olivier says that he understands why she behaved the way she did, but in Felix Barker's 1953 "The Oliviers - A Biography," it was plain that Olivier and his career were hurt by being rejected by the biggest star in Hollywood. Olivier had had to sail from England to America, and then sail back, all under the harsh glare of the Hollywood publicity machine.
Was commissioned as a Lieutenant, and trained as a pilot, in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, but never called into service, and was ultimately released from his obligation in 1944. To show his solidarity with Allied servicemen, he made Henry V (1944).
Was director John Frankenheimer's first choice for the lead in Seconds (1966), but the producers did not want Olivier as he was not a box office draw. Rock Hudson was cast instead.
Was director Luchino Visconti's first choice for the Prince in The Leopard (1963), but the Italian producers wanted an international box office star to make the film more marketable. Burt Lancaster, a Top Ten Box Office star in the U.S., was cast instead.