LAURENCE OLIVIER: His Last Chance AT HAPPINESS

AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS FAME AND CAREER, THE BRITISH ACTOR BEGAN A BRAND-NEW CHAPTER OF HIS LIFE

- Louise A. Barile

On his wife Vivien Leigh’s 46th birthday, Laurence Olivier took her out for dinner, gifted her a Rolls-Royce and asked for a divorce. It would take months before the marriage of England’s greatest acting couple was dissolved, but it was a giant first step toward a different life for Laurence.

After 20 years of marriage to the volatile Gone With the Wind beauty, Laurence longed for a simpler, less stressful existence. He believed he could create it with Joan Plowright, an actress 22 years his junior who had co-starred with him on the stage in The Entertainer. “I sometimes feel such a peacefulness come over me when I think of you,” Laurence wrote to his “Joanie” in a love letter. “A feeling devoid of all violence, passion or shattering longing...it makes me go out into the street with a smile on my face.”