Olivier: The Life Of Laurence Olivier
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
He was the greatest actor of the twentieth century — a titan of stage and screen whose name became synonymous with the very art of performance itself. Thomas Kiernan's Olivier: The Life of Laurence Olivier presents a sweeping, authoritative chronicle of the extraordinary life of Lord Laurence Olivier, from his modest origins in Dorking, Surrey, to his ascent as the undisputed colossus of the English-speaking theatre. Kiernan charts Olivier's commanding interpretations of Shakespeare's greatest roles — Hamlet, Iago, Richard III — alongside his landmark film career, illuminating the fierce ambition, relentless discipline, and volcanic talent that propelled him to unrivalled greatness. Kiernan writes with a biographer's rigour and a storyteller's flair, drawing on meticulous research to paint a portrait that is both reverential and unflinching, revealing the private contradictions behind the public grandeur — the tempestuous marriages, the professional rivalries, and the crippling stage fright that haunted even this most assured of performers. Olivier stands as an essential document of cultural history, illustrating not merely the arc of one man's career, but the transformation of British theatre and cinema throughout the golden decades of the twentieth century. For anyone who has ever sat spellbound in a darkened theatre or cinema, this biography poses one irresistible question: what truly separates a great actor from an immortal one?
Author: Thomas Kiernan
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
He was the greatest actor of the twentieth century — a titan of stage and screen whose name became synonymous with the very art of performance itself. Thomas Kiernan's Olivier: The Life of Laurence Olivier presents a sweeping, authoritative chronicle of the extraordinary life of Lord Laurence Olivier, from his modest origins in Dorking, Surrey, to his ascent as the undisputed colossus of the English-speaking theatre. Kiernan charts Olivier's commanding interpretations of Shakespeare's greatest roles — Hamlet, Iago, Richard III — alongside his landmark film career, illuminating the fierce ambition, relentless discipline, and volcanic talent that propelled him to unrivalled greatness. Kiernan writes with a biographer's rigour and a storyteller's flair, drawing on meticulous research to paint a portrait that is both reverential and unflinching, revealing the private contradictions behind the public grandeur — the tempestuous marriages, the professional rivalries, and the crippling stage fright that haunted even this most assured of performers. Olivier stands as an essential document of cultural history, illustrating not merely the arc of one man's career, but the transformation of British theatre and cinema throughout the golden decades of the twentieth century. For anyone who has ever sat spellbound in a darkened theatre or cinema, this biography poses one irresistible question: what truly separates a great actor from an immortal one?