Motion Picture (Aug 1940-Jan 1941)

I? Want 1* Hukth FOR DOWNRIGHT BRITISH BULLDOG DETERMINATION NOT TO BE LICKED, LAURENCE OLIVIER TOPS EVERY ENGLISHMAN IN HOLLYWOOD. SO THAT'S WHY HE'S CAST AS BRITAIN'S GREATEST HERO, LORD NELSON By DAN CAMP NOW, if you'd come up to me and ask me to choose from among all of Hollywood's Englishmen — and heaven knows, my friend, the town is CERTAINLY alive with 'em ! ! — anyway, if you'd ask me to put my finger on the one Britisher who ahove all others here in movie-town is most characteristically, utterly representatively the prototype of Johnny Bull himself, I certainly would NOT point at Ronnie Colman — ! — Nor Alan Mowbray, either. Nor yet Charlie Chaplin or Gary Grant or Boris Karloff (nee good-old Anglo-Saxon "Pratt") nor Basil Rathbone, nor Herbert Marshall, even though they're all good, solid Englishmen. Nope, noite of those for me as the symbol of Britain today. Give me Laurence Olivier. There's your man ! Not because he guzzles tea. Not because he has the accent. Not just because he was born in Dorking, Surrey. But because for sheer, downright, British bulldog and bullheaded stubbornness and determination not to be licked, come hell or high water. That's Britain today — today, yesterday and tomorrow. And that, too, has been Laurence Olivier in every facet of his public and private life. Once let an idea get into the mind of either Britain or Olivier, and it'll take entirely too much to change that idea — as Hitler and Hollywood have pretty well found out. You ask me to prove it ? Well, all right — as Al Smith used to say in those dear, gone old days, "let's look at the record" — In the first place, just like Britain, Laurence Olivier has refused to be licked. Like Britain, he's been pushed around pretty badly. Hollywood slapped him down twice — with as vicious a pair of slaps as this utterly relentless place has ever dished out to any aspirant for success. The first time, just when he got his feet on the Hollywood ladder, somebody said of Laurence : "He looks like Ronnie Colman. He acts like Ronnie Colman. He talks like Ronnie Colman. He IS a second Ronnie Colman." And that, as you Hollywood-wise readers well know, was an out-and-out defeat for Olivier, in that first battle. He had to take it, too. He had to fold up his hopes and his ambitions and his plans, and get out. He went back to England. But then, don't forget that in the Battle of the Lowlands, England had to fold up and get out, too — but she's coming back now, isn't she ? And just so, Laurence Olivier came back — fighting mad — back to the Hollywood that had walloped him. AND this time. Hollywood walloped him again — with the crafty, battle-wise Garbo captaining the campaign. It was when Olivier, still smarting under that first rebuff, was brought back by M-G-M to play opposite Garbo in Queen Christina. M-G-M wanted Laurence to play the role of the Spanish ambassador, and Olivier saw this time a chance to retrieve his previous losses in the Battle of Hollywood, and to consolidate his position afresh. But even as Britain lost again in the Battle of France, so did Olivier lose in this second phase of his Hollvwood campaign. Let's call it the Battle of Garbo. For while M-G-M DID want Olivier to play the role, Garbo had different ideas. Garbo wanted to do a big favor for John Gilbert, who had certainly done a very big favor dr two for Garbo, once upon a time. Garbo wanted Gilbert for the role, and so she loosed a Scandinavian blitzkrieg against Englisher Olivier that was just as destructive as Hitler's blitzkrieg in France. Olivier was introduced to Garbo — and Garbo refused to speak to him ! [Continued on page 55] As Lord Nelson, the hero of Trafalgar, Olivier plays opposite wife, Vivien Leigh, who has title role of Lady Hamilton in the Korda film. Nelson and her ladyship had great romance — it changed course of British Empire