Exciting news: A new Laurence Olivier biography is currently being penned by acclaimed British historian and biographer Philip Ziegler. Philip was kind enough to do an exclusive interview for vivandlarry.com about his work-in-progress. Many thanks, Philip, and I’m sure I can speak for everyone here when I say we’re definitely looking forward to hearing more about it as the project progresses!
Philip Ziegler was born in December 1929 and was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford where he got First Class Honours in Jurisprudence and won the Chancellor’s Essay Prize. After national service in the Royal Artillery he joined the Foreign Service and served in Vientiane, Paris, Pretoria and Bogota. By this time he had written biographies of the Duchess of Dino and the British Prime Minister, Henry Addington. In 1967 he resigned from the Foreign Service to join the publishers, William Collins. After becoming editor-in-chief in 1979 he retired to become a full-time writer. His biographies include King William IV, Lord Melbourne, Lady Diana Cooper, Lord Mountbatten, King Edward VIII, Harold Wilson, Rupert Hart-Davis and Osbert Sitwell, Edward Heath, and he is currently at work on a new biography of Laurence Olivier. He has also written a study of the Black Death and a history of Baring’s Bank. From 1979 to 1985 he was Chairman of the London Library and he has also been Chairman of the Society of Authors and of the Public Lending Right Advisory Committee. In 1991 he was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and he is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Historical Society. He lives in London and is married, with three children and ten grand-children.
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