Editing Laurence Olivier (section)

===1944–1948: Co-directing the Old Vic===
Throughout the war Tyrone Guthrie had striven to keep the Old Vic company going, even after German bombing in 1942 left the theatre a near-ruin. A small troupe toured the provinces, with Sybil Thorndike at its head. By 1944, with the tide of the war turning, Guthrie felt it time to re-establish the company in a London base and invited Richardson to head it.{{sfn|Miller|1995|p=3}} Richardson made it a condition of accepting that he should share the acting and management in a triumvirate. Initially he proposed Gielgud and Olivier as his colleagues, but the former declined, saying, "It would be a disaster, you would have to spend your whole time as referee between Larry and me."{{sfn|Croall|2000| p=306}}{{efn|Almost everyone in theatrical circles called Olivier "Larry", but Richardson invariably addressed him as "Laurence". In contrast to this striking formality, Richardson addressed Gielgud as "Johnny".{{sfn|Miller|1995| p=32}}}} It was finally agreed that the third member would be the stage director [[John Burrell (theatre director)|John Burrell]]. The Old Vic governors approached the Royal Navy to secure the release of Richardson and Olivier; the [[Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty|Sea Lords]] consented, with, as Olivier put it, "a speediness and lack of reluctance which was positively hurtful."{{sfn|Holden|1988| p=184}}

[[File:Ralph Richardson.JPG|thumb|alt=middle-aged man, receding hair, with neat moustache|left|Co-director and co-star [[Ralph Richardson]] in the 1940s]]
The triumvirate secured the New Theatre for their first season and recruited a company. Thorndike was joined by, among others, [[Harcourt Williams]], [[Joyce Redman]] and [[Margaret Leighton]]. It was agreed to open with a repertory of four plays: ''[[Peer Gynt]]'', ''[[Arms and the Man]]'', ''[[Richard III (play)|Richard III]]'' and ''Uncle Vanya''. Olivier's roles were the Button Moulder, Sergius, Richard and Astrov; Richardson played Peer, Bluntschli, Richmond and Vanya.{{sfn|Gaye|1967|pp=1030 and 1118}} The first three productions met with acclaim from reviewers and audiences; ''Uncle Vanya'' had a mixed reception, although ''The Times'' thought Olivier's Astrov "a most distinguished portrait" and Richardson's Vanya "the perfect compound of absurdity and pathos".<ref name="times vanya"/> In ''Richard III'', according to Billington, Olivier's triumph was absolute: "so much so that it became his most frequently imitated performance and one whose supremacy went unchallenged until [[Antony Sher]] played the role forty years later".{{sfn|Billington|2004}} In 1945 the company toured Germany, where they were seen by many thousands of Allied servicemen; they also appeared at the [[Comédie-Française]] theatre in Paris, the first foreign company to be given that honour.{{sfnm|1a1=O'Connor|1y=1982|1pp=121–122|2a1=Miller|2y=1995|2p=93}} The critic [[Harold Hobson]] wrote that Richardson and Olivier quickly "made the Old Vic the most famous theatre in the Anglo-Saxon world."{{sfn|Hobson|1958|p=55}}

The second season, in 1945, featured two double bills. The first consisted of ''Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2''. Olivier played the warrior Hotspur in the first and the doddering [[Justice Shallow]] in the second.{{efn|Sources generally refer to the two parts of ''Henry IV'' as a double bill, although as full-length plays they were given across two separate evenings.<ref name="times-henry-iv-ad"/>}} He received good notices, but by general consent the production belonged to Richardson as [[Falstaff]].{{sfn|Agate|1946|p=221}} In the second double bill it was Olivier who dominated, in the title roles of ''[[Oedipus Rex]]'' and ''[[The Critic (play)|The Critic]]''. In the two one-act plays his switch from searing tragedy and horror in the first half to farcical comedy in the second impressed most critics and audience members, though a minority felt that the transformation from [[Sophocles]]'s bloodily blinded hero to [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Sheridan]]'s vain and ludicrous Mr Puff "smacked of a quick-change turn in a music hall".{{sfn|Darlington|1968|p=66}} After the London season the company played both the double bills and ''Uncle Vanya'' in a six-week run on Broadway.{{sfn|O'Connor|1982|p=129}}

The third, and final, London season under the triumvirate was in 1946–47. Olivier played King Lear, and Richardson took the title role in ''[[Cyrano de Bergerac (play)|Cyrano de Bergerac]]''. Olivier would have preferred the roles to be reversed, but Richardson did not wish to attempt Lear.{{sfn|O'Connor|1982|p=135}} Olivier's Lear received good but not outstanding reviews. In his scenes of decline and madness towards the end of the play some critics found him less moving than his finest predecessors in the role.{{sfn|Darlington|1968|p=71}} The influential critic [[James Agate]] suggested that Olivier used his dazzling stage technique to disguise a lack of feeling, a charge that the actor strongly rejected, but which was often made throughout his later career.{{sfn|Bragg|1989|pp=90–91}} During the run of ''Cyrano'', Richardson was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]], to Olivier's undisguised envy.{{sfn|O'Connor|1982|p=149}} The younger man received the accolade six months later, by which time the days of the triumvirate were numbered. The high profile of the two star actors did not endear them to the new chairman of the Old Vic governors, [[Oliver Sylvain Baliol Brett, 3rd Viscount Esher|Lord Esher]]. He had ambitions to be the first head of the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]] and had no intention of letting actors run it.{{sfn|O'Connor|1982| pp=149–153}} He was encouraged by Guthrie, who, having instigated the appointment of Richardson and Olivier, had come to resent their knighthoods and international fame.{{sfn|Miller|1995|p=126}}

In January 1947 Olivier began working on his second film as a director, ''Hamlet'' (1948), in which he also took the lead role. The original play was heavily cut to focus on the relationships, rather than the political intrigue. The film became a critical and commercial success in Britain and abroad, although Lejeune, in ''The Observer'', considered it "less effective than [Olivier's] stage work.&nbsp;... He speaks the lines nobly, and with the caress of one who loves them, but he nullifies his own thesis by never, for a moment, leaving the impression of a man who cannot make up his own mind; here, you feel rather, is an actor-producer-director who, in every circumstance, knows exactly what he wants, and gets it".<ref name="Obs: Hamlet"/> [[Campbell Dixon]], the critic for ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' thought the film "brilliant&nbsp;... one of the masterpieces of the stage has been made into one of the greatest of films."<ref name="D Tel: Hamlet"/> ''Hamlet'' became the first non-American film to win the [[Academy Award for Best Picture]], while Olivier won the Award for Best Actor.<ref name="BFI: Hamlet"/>{{sfn|Munn|2007|pp=145–147}}{{efn|The film also won Oscars for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design, and was nominated for awards for Best Actress ([[Jean Simmons]] as Ophelia), Best Score and Olivier as Best Director.<ref name="Oscar: Hamlet"/>}}

In 1948 Olivier led the Old Vic company on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand. He played Richard&nbsp;III, Sir Peter Teazle in Sheridan's'' [[The School for Scandal]]'' and Antrobus in [[Thornton Wilder]]'s ''[[The Skin of Our Teeth]]'', appearing alongside Leigh in the latter two plays. While Olivier was on the Australian tour and Richardson was in Hollywood, Esher terminated the contracts of the three directors, who were said to have "resigned".{{sfn|Miller|1995|pp=124 and 128}} [[Melvyn Bragg]] in a 1984 study of Olivier, and John Miller in the authorised biography of Richardson, both comment that Esher's action put back the establishment of a National Theatre for at least a decade.{{sfnm|1a1=Bragg|1y=1989|1p=87|2a1=Miller|2y=1995|2p=129}} Looking back in 1971, [[Bernard Levin]] wrote that the Old Vic company of 1944 to 1948 "was probably the most illustrious that has ever been assembled in this country".<ref name="levin tears"/> ''The Times'' said that the triumvirate's years were the greatest in the Old Vic's history;<ref name="times-rr-obit"/> as ''[[The Guardian]]'' put it, "the governors summarily sacked them in the interests of a more mediocre company spirit".<ref name="guardian-rr-obit"/>