Olivier - An Authorised Biography
by Terry Coleman
Bloomsbury, $135
The scene in Spartacus where Marcus Licinus Crassus looks at his slave, Antonius, and asks if he likes oysters was cut by Universal Studios from the 1960 original over the objections of Laurence Olivier and Tony Curtis. Restored for the 1991 reissue, there was no sound. Anthony Hopkins voiced Olivier, while Curtis redid Antonius. There's nothing of this in Terry Coleman's 600-page Olivier - An Authorised Biography. Simon Callow said in The Guardian that it was inevitable things would be left out - 'but what he has left out is the man'. American reviewers liked this 2005 biography, published 16 years after Olivier's death in 1989, because it doesn't analyse his acting. British reviewers criticised it for the same reason. Olivier's third wife, Joan Plowright, gave Coleman access to diaries and letters. His relationship with manic Vivienne Leigh is well covered, as are his final years. The pictures are excellent - Olivier said Emma Sergeant's 1982 portrait made him look like the 'mean bastard' he was. Olivier makes that much clear, but those seeking insight into the art of the greatest actor of the 20th century must look elsewhere.