ZingB

Larry and Joan were separated during the last years of his life, the marriage was kept in name for the sake of appearance, she would show up with him only in social events and interview but other than that he was left alone/abandoned. People who met him in the 1970s and 1980s said Larry was lonely and deprived from affection. Larry is quoted by some of his friends saying " Joan expected me to die at seventy"

Richard (Olivier' youngest son) came with his new wife to live at the Malthouse. Joan was often away working. He remembered endless silent dinner tables. Later, when his father was too frail to decide how to spend his time, he and Joan would decide for him. "She would ask my advice, we would consult together at one end of the dining table, while my father became the child, helplessly looking on from the other. I remembered . . . the flashes of bitter resentment that would pass across his face as he struggled even to hear the plans we were making for him. And I remembered [added Richard, with the same instinct for guilt and remorse that had been such a curse to his father] the sadistic pleasure I had felt in not repeating them louder so he could participate, or dare to refuse. I had revelled in the opportunity to punish him, for being away, for being ill or whatever it was."

At the time they came to live in Sussex, Richard and his wife were believers in holistic medicine, and so, up to a point, was Joan. They tried to reduce his intake of steroids and to wean him off alcohol by mixing his wine, behind his back, with a nonalcoholic wine substitute called Jung, which Richard knew was horrible stuff. Sometimes his father went along with it, or seemed to. Sometimes he showed that he knew, and that he wasn't happy with it at all.

Julie-Kate later made it clear that he wasn't: "That was one of the decisions that was made for him. He hated that. He tried to go along with it for a while, because it was meant to be healthy ... I hated it, and I remember thinking, 'You're ruining the rest of his life.'

What did he see in Joan Plowwright? Was she ever attractive?

Well R1, I guess that she was 22 years younger than him and he had grown tired of Vivien Leigh's turberculosis and manic-depressive episodes. He wanted someone young who was easy to deal with, and that's what he got. Of course, that makes it just a tad bit more difficult to feel sorry for him - after all, he'd made his bed and wasn't happy when he had to lie in it.

I wonder whether he ever felt a slight pang of guilt over having unceremoniously kicked Vivien Leigh out of his life when she became a burden, during the time when his ugly younger wife and children were treating him unwell because he had become THEIR burden. Probably, we'll never know.

"Was she ever attractive?"

Never. Even as a fetus. Ugly from conception to death.

A mummer's wife, a mummer's life.

R3 Larry Olivier endured with Vivien for 10 years what no husband could have endured. He was very patient and protective of her for a very long time. As Noel Coward said in his diaries, "Larry is a saint with Vivien ", However, after 10 years of total hell with Vivien, he couldn't go on anymore. He had to get on with his life. He was relieved when Vivien settled with actor Jack Merivale, and he wrote him a long letter thanking him. Larry still worried and felt guilty about leaving Viv though he had to survive and save his sanity.

The situation with Joan and his son is totally different from the situation with Vivien.

His appearance in Derek Jarman's WAR REQUIEM at the end of his life is one of the great "SAD, LAST DAYS" in film history.

Why do people say Olivier was bisexual?

Shameless Richard Olivier talks about Hamlet

What do you want, OP? She's an actress. You want she should care about someone except herself?

Not happening. Not ever happening.

Olivier's eldest son Tarquin was more loving and sympathetic son. Larry should have stayed with him instead. Though I doubt he had a choice or saying in the matter.

He should have stuck with Danny Kaye.

R13 No kidding. Danny wouldn't have abused him or treated him like shit the way his family did.

R14 Ask the cast of "Two by Two" about that.

Olivier also wanted more kids desperately. At 50, he knew he was running out of time to enjoy them for any length of time. Plowright knew she would never be a major star. So she married a major theatrical name and gave him the kids he wanted after Tarquin, whom he had with his first wife.

It is sad reading about his last years.

I took a Shakespeare course in college in the mid 90s. In one class, the professor played the 1973 TV movie, the Merchant of Venice, starring Olivier as Shylock and Plowright as Portia. After a few minutes, the professor turned down the volume, turned to the class, and said, "The character of Portia is a young woman. Plowright was too old for the part. But I guess, if you get Olivier, you get his wife."

"Plowright was too old for the part."

Plowright came out of the womb a dowdy old lady.

Danny Kaye was a monster. He would have regularly beaten Olivier had he been given a chance.

R19 Really?? I didn't know about that. I take back what I said in R14

He was poisonous. Famously so.

Noel Coward Knew it

From his diaries:

"Thursday 2 June

The Larry and Vivien situation has now bust wide open and they are going to divorce and he is going to marry Joan Plowright.... She is a good actress and seems a nice enough girl, but I do wish Larry wouldn't marry her. However, that's his look-out. He has never been remarkable for organizing his life efficiently."

Larry must have plowed wrong one too many times, and I oughta know.

Upcoming thread: Joan Plowright is cold selfish C**t

What about Tarquiin? Didn’t he have any say in this?

Joan Plowright invented the word “dowdy”.

Joan Plowright: A Cold Selfish Cunt

R30 Karma for what?

For enduring 10 years with mentally ill disturbed wife during which he tried to protect and help her but to no avail, and when he finally found the strength to get away to survive and save himself, he married an opportunistic cold cunt. I call this bad luck in love.

I've always been a sucker for Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins, and any number of English ladies of a certain age.

Joan Plowright always left me cold. No matter how hard she tried to twinkle or charm, it never worked for me, and she never fully lost herself in any character she was playing. Never cared for her.

R32 Very True.

She's only known because of Larry Olivier. If not for Olivier, she would have faded into oblivion long time ago.

Joan Plowright, unlike the other great ladies of the British stage and screen, was not a Shakespearean tragedienne but a major player in the new English "kitchen sink drama" revolution of the 1950s. Her first big roles were the female leads in the morbidly realistic A Taste of Honey and The Entertainer, in which she met and was wooed by Olivier, who wanted to prove he could be a part of the kitchen sink, too.

Is the Joan Plowright Is a Cunt Troll new or have I just missed it? Does it troll about other celebrities, too?

Please. Joan Plowright is lucky to be still remembered well enough to have her own troll.

Baroness Olivier was not in A TASTE OF HONEY (the lead was Rita Tushingham), but she is in THE ENTERTAINER (60). She was a mousy and not especially photogenic film actress, and she only made two feature films before 1977.

She barely registers at all in TIME WITHOUT PITY (57) for Joseph Losey.

"She was a mousy and not especially photogenic"

That was kind and generous of you.

Sad. Didn't Mickey Rooney meet a similar fate?

r37, Rita Tushingham played the young lead in the film of A Taste of Honey but Joan Plowright played the role on Broadway before the film was made. And the role was actually originated on the London stage by Frances Cuka (who will never have a DataLounge thread of her own).

Joan was terrible. Her work will be forgotten.

Vivien had been to see The Entertainer during its second run at the Royal Court and had been heard to say about Plowright: "Who's the ugly girl?"

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