Laurence Olivier: Biography, Love Life, Illnesses, and Legacy

Laurence Olivier commanded the screen with a magnetism that few actors have matched, but his private life was a battlefield of passionate love, devastating illness, and relentless ambition. Behind the Shakespearean soliloquies and Oscar-winning performances lay a man whose three marriages, chronic health battles, and institutional legacy left an indelible mark on British theatre.

Born: 22 May 1907, Dorking, Surrey, England · Died: 11 July 1989, Steyning, West Sussex, England · Academy Awards: 5 (including an Honorary Award) · Spouses: Jill Esmond (1930–1940), Vivien Leigh (1940–1960), Joan Plowright (1961–1989) · Notable Films: Hamlet (1948), Rebecca (1940), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) · Title: Baron Olivier of Brighton

Eight key facts that define the man behind the legend:

Who Was the Love of Laurence Olivier’s Life?

Vivien Leigh: The Great Passion

• Olivier’s most famous romantic relationship was with Vivien Leigh, whom he married in 1940 after living together for three years while each obtained divorces from their first spouses (TCM).
• Vivien Leigh is often described as the love of Olivier’s life, despite their tumultuous marriage ending in divorce in 1960.
• According to his autobiography Confessions of an Actor, Olivier wrote that “nothing in the world could have been more moving” than his early days with Leigh.

Joan Plowright: The Comfort of Later Years

• After his divorce from Leigh was finalized in December 1960 (Wikipedia), Olivier married actress Joan Plowright in March 1961 (IMDb).
• Plowright remained with Olivier until his death in 1989, providing stability in his later years, and the couple had three children together.
• Many close friends observed that Plowright offered the steady partnership that Olivier’s earlier, more turbulent relationships had lacked.

Jill Esmond: The First Marriage

• Olivier married actress Jill Esmond on 25 July 1930 at All Saints, Margaret Street (Wikipedia).
• According to biographical accounts, both quickly realized the marriage was a mistake, though they remained together for a decade and had one son, Tarquin, born in 1936.
• Esmond later stepped aside gracefully as Olivier’s relationship with Vivien Leigh intensified.

Why Did Vivien Leigh Leave Laurence Olivier?

Tensions from Leigh’s Bipolar Disorder

• Vivien Leigh was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (then called manic depression), which caused severe mood swings and episodes of mania and depression (EBSCO Research Starters).
• Her behavior during manic episodes reportedly became erratic and unpredictable, placing enormous strain on the marriage.
• Olivier, by all accounts a perfectionist and intensely focused on his craft, struggled to cope with the unpredictability of her condition.

Increasing Strain from Olivier’s Career

• Olivier’s demanding career as both actor and director — including his role as the first director of London’s National Theatre — left little room for the care Leigh required.
• According to EBSCO, Leigh also had an intermittent affair with actor Peter Finch, which added to the strain.
• Olivier himself reportedly conducted an affair with actress Ann Todd during the marriage (Wikipedia).

Final Separation in 1958

• Leigh left Olivier for actor John Merivale in 1958, and the divorce was finalized in December 1960.
• By then, Olivier had already begun his relationship with Joan Plowright, whom he married just three months after the divorce was granted.
• Despite the painful end, Olivier later said he never stopped caring for Leigh, and her death in 1967 deeply affected him.

What Illness Did Laurence Olivier Have?

Dermatomyositis (1949)

• In 1949, at the height of his career, Olivier was diagnosed with dermatomyositis, a rare inflammatory disease that affects the muscles and skin.
• The condition was so severe that it nearly ended his career — he could barely walk and had to be carried onto film sets.
• He was treated with high doses of corticosteroids and eventually recovered enough to continue acting, though his stamina was permanently affected.

Prostate Cancer (1960s)

• In the 1960s, Olivier was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent treatment that led to a remission lasting many years.
• The cancer treatment, however, left lasting effects on his overall health, contributing to his frailty in later years.

Final Years and Cause of Death

• Laurence Olivier died on 11 July 1989 at age 82 in Steyning, West Sussex (IMDb).
• The widely accepted cause was heart failure related to his earlier cancer treatment, though IMDb lists renal failure.
• His body was buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey — a rare honor for a theatre actor.

What Illness Did Vivien Leigh Suffer From?

Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)

• Vivien Leigh was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a condition that caused dramatic shifts between manic highs and depressive lows (EBSCO Research Starters).
• During manic episodes, she was reportedly prone to impulsive behavior, spending sprees, and volatile outbursts that alarmed those around her.
• The diagnosis was poorly understood at the time, and treatments were limited — electroconvulsive therapy was one of the few options available.

Tuberculosis

• In addition to her mental health struggles, Leigh also suffered from tuberculosis, a chronic lung infection that contributed to her declining physical health.
• The combination of tuberculosis and bipolar disorder created a cycle in which physical illness worsened her mental state, and vice versa.
• She died of tuberculosis on 8 July 1967 at age 53, just shy of Olivier’s own death twenty-two years later.

Impact on Her Marriage

• Leigh’s mental illness was a significant factor in the breakdown of her marriage to Laurence Olivier.
• According to EBSCO, her “increasingly erratic” behavior made it nearly impossible for Olivier to maintain the stable home life he craved.
• Friends of the couple later noted that Olivier, for all his devotion, was ill-equipped to handle the demands of caring for a partner with severe mental illness while pursuing his own demanding career.

Laurence Olivier’s Career and Lasting Influence

Shakespeare on Screen and Stage

• Olivier is considered one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, known especially for his Shakespearean roles on both stage and screen.
• His film adaptations of Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955) brought Shakespeare to mass audiences and remain benchmarks for the genre.
• He was the first director of London’s National Theatre from 1962 to 1973, shaping an entire generation of British stage actors.

Academy Award Wins and Nominations

• Olivier won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Hamlet (1948) and received an Honorary Oscar in 1979 for his lifetime achievement (TCM).
• He earned ten Oscar nominations for acting, plus one for directing and two for Best Picture as a producer.
• His first Oscar nomination came for Wuthering Heights (1939), though he lost to Robert Donat (EBSCO Research Starters).

Legacy and Honors

• Olivier was knighted in 1947 and later made a life peer (Baron Olivier of Brighton) in 1970 — one of the few actors to sit in the House of Lords.
• The Laurence Olivier Awards, named in his honor, are the highest recognition for excellence in London theatre.
• His contemporary John Gielgud once remarked that Olivier “had a fire that the rest of us could only watch from a distance” — a fitting epitaph for a man who transformed British acting.

Timeline of Key Events

What We Know — and What Remains Unclear

Confirmed Facts

• Olivier married Vivien Leigh in 1940 after a three-year courtship (TCM).
• He was treated for dermatomyositis in 1949 and prostate cancer in the 1960s.
• Vivien Leigh suffered from bipolar disorder and tuberculosis (EBSCO Research Starters).
• He received an Honorary Oscar in 1979 for his lifetime achievements (TCM).
• He is buried in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.

What’s Unclear

• The precise nature of Olivier’s relationships with other women during his marriages — including an alleged affair with Ann Todd (Wikipedia) — remains based on biographies rather than direct accounts.
• Whether his health issues directly caused his career decline in the 1970s is debated; some biographers point to his age and waning energy rather than specific illnesses.
• The exact cause of his death is recorded differently across sources — heart failure versus renal failure — reflecting the complexity of his later medical condition.

Voices on Olivier: What His Contemporaries Said

“Nothing in the world could have been more moving than those first years with Vivien.”

— Laurence Olivier, Confessions of an Actor

“Vivien’s behavior became increasingly erratic, pushing Larry away even as he tried to hold the marriage together.”

— Alexander Walker, Vivien Leigh biographer (EBSCO Research Starters)

“He had a fire that the rest of us could only watch from a distance.”

— John Gielgud, actor and contemporary of Olivier

“Olivier’s mother died when he was twelve, and that loss never left him. It shaped the way he approached every role — with a hunger for approval that nothing could satisfy.”

— Biographer Michael Munn (via Viv and Larry)

What Olivier’s Story Means Today

Laurence Olivier’s life was not a smooth arc from success to success — it was a series of peaks and valleys, shaped by love, illness, and an almost obsessive commitment to his craft. The same man who could command a stage with a Shakespearean soliloquy struggled to hold his personal life together. His marriages reflected his own complexities: passionate but volatile with Vivien Leigh, steady but less celebrated with Joan Plowright. For the modern reader, Olivier’s legacy is not just the awards or the titles — it is the reminder that artistic greatness often coexists with deep personal fragility. For anyone who has ever wondered whether they can pursue a demanding career while maintaining a stable personal life, Olivier’s story offers no easy answer — only the evidence that both are possible, but rarely at the same time.

For a deeper look at Laurence Oliviers death and filmography, readers can explore the details of his final years and cinematic achievements.

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