Category: the oliviers

general discussion laurence olivier photography the oliviers vivien leigh

New Layout and Top 25

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The vivandlarry.com blog has gotten (another) facelift!  I liked this layout because it’s a bit different and has a sort of magazine feel to it…as it should since it’s called magazine.  Feel free to take  a look around; most of the info and everything is the same but there are a couple of new additions.

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Yesterday, I decided to make a new list of my top 25 favorite Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh photos.  This may seem redundant as I’ve done favorite lists before, and frankly, there really isn’t a picture of them that I don’t love, but every time I sit down and think about it, my favorites change–especially since new photos of them keep popping up.  It’s always hard to choose a favorite photo, but my favorites usually jump out at me because I find them beautiful, or silly, or a combination of both.  I also love photos in which they look happy together.  So, I hope you enjoy this little photo tribute, and I’d love to know which ones are your favorites!

25 Favorite Larry and Vivien Photos

#25 | Location: Rome | Date: 1953

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Buried Treasures (Part 5)

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One of my favorite things to do is search through piles of old things in book and antique stores. They always say one person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and it’s true! Now, I’m no dumpster diver (okay, my old roommates and I salvaged awesome and perfectly usable furniture for our old apartment. Hey, living in Southern CA ain’t cheap!), but I’ve found some really neat things going through stacks of paper goods in old, musty stores.

Here is one of my favorite finds:

This was found in a fantastic little emphemera shop in Charing Cross Road in London.  I had stumbled across this place while doing a summer abroad in Sussex; I had taken the train up to London for the day to meet a friend and had some time to kill, so I just started wandering and there I was.  I made a mental note about the place since the owner had some pretty interesting treasures, and when I went back in February 2009, I stopped in again, this time with my friend and fellow Larry and Vivien fan, Kasia.  This store is the kind of place that has books piled up everywhere, and it takes a minute for the owner to remember where he’s put things.  I started going through an old shoebox full of playbills when I came upon this white envelope.  Opening it, I found this!

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Summer Days Drifting Away

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Summer is officially upon us.  In one week I’ll be leaving Southern California, and in two months I’ll be heading overseas to start my graduate program in London.  I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by, and I know the coming year will be very busy for me.  This might mean some changes for vivandlarry.com because I know I won’t have time to update the site quite as regularly.   Focusing on and doing well in school is very important to me, as is using the opportunity of being in London to try and capitalize on a book project I’ve been working on for the past 2 years.

Over the course of the next couple of months, I plan on scanning/screencapping any photos that I have yet to upload to the gallery so that I have them to easily upload overseas, putting as many videos in the Cinema Archive as I have time to upload, scan any articles, upload pages, etc.

One thing I can promise is this: I will not abandon vivandlarry.com.

I may ask if anyone would like to be my co-webmaster, though. 🙂

Anyway, look for a lot of new things on the site in the upcoming months, and if you have any photos, articles, or videos you’d like to share with your fellow Larry and Vivien fans, please send them in to vivandlarry {at} gmail {dot} com.  While overseas, it is likely that this blog will be the most frequently updated part of the website, and if you’re going to be in London at any point over the next year, and would like to meet up to go Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier sight-seeing, be sure to get in touch.  I love meeting fellow fans!  Depending on my schedule, it might be possible to organize a larger fan meet-up next spring.

Please stay tuned!

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Old Hollywood Yard Sale!

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My departure for London is coming up fast!  In 3 weeks I’ll be moving back home, which mean I have a lot of organizing and packing to do. So, I am having a little online yard sale to downsize my collection.

I have a HUGE stack of photography books (mostly old Hollywood and fashion) that I’ve collected over the past 6 years, which I won’t have room for at my parents’, and frankly, I don’t really need them anymore.  I would love to pass these on to someone/people who will really appreciate them.  All of these contain photos of either Vivien Leigh or Laurence Olivier.

If you are interested, please email me at vivandlarry@gmail.com with the books you want and your location, and I will send you a paypal invoice.  All books will be shipped book rate.  Shipping included in listed price.

All proceeds from this little yard sale are going toward my grad school savings fund.  Thanks for looking!

*Note: I have already sold/given away some of the books in this photo.  The ones that I still have available are listed below.

+ A Japanese Vivien Leigh book (text is all in Japanese, but there are quite a lot of photos) | new | $8

+ Frankly, My Dear: GWTW Revisited by Molly Haskell | new but the dust jacket has a fold down the center of the spine | $8

+ David O. Selznick’s Gone with the Wind by Ronald Haver | used–oversize | $12

+ Life in Hollywood: 75 Years of the Academy Awards (with Liz Taylor on the cover) | used (bought new) | $7

+ The Hollywood Storyteller by Mark Drop | used | $7

+ Vanity Fair Photographs of an Age 1914-1936 | used | $14

+ In Vogue 75 Years of Style by Georgina Howell | used–great condition | $20

+ LIFE Faces by John Loengard | used | $10

+ A Photographer’s Scrapbook by Louise Dahl-Wolfe | used–rare | $12

+ The Films of Clark Gable by Gabe Essoe | used | $7

+ LIFE Classic Photographs by John Loengard | used | $10

+ Laurence Olivier Theatre and Cinema | used | $8 —SOLD

+ Hollywood Color Portraits by John Kobal | used–great condition | $17

+ Niven’s Hollywood by Tom Hutchinson | used | $8

+Vivien Leigh Paper Dolls by Tom Tierney | new | $8

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Buried Treasures (Part 3)

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Some of my favorite collectibles are vintage film star scrapbooks. Not only do they provide a rich record of (in this case) other people’s lives or careers, but they give us a glimpse into the lives of the ordinary people who assembled them.

About 5 years ago, I purchased a scrapbook on ebay that was assembled from 1944-1946 by a young British lady named Joan Still. Joan was an avid theatre-goer and a big fan of Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. She went to nearly every play they performed during this time, despite only being able to afford a standing place or stall seats (as shown in some of the ticket stubs). Along with playbills, Joan clipped stories featuring the Oliviers and other prominent British stars of the time out of newspapers and magazines. Like a lot of theatre fans today, Joan also waited by the stage door to see her favorite actors and have her playbills autographed. I found an extra Olivier signature when flipping through a Henry IV playbill!

What emerged from Joan’s hobby is a historical primary source documenting British popular culture and events that shaped the world during the 1940s. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Laurence Olivier really came to prominence on the London stage during the 1944 Old Vic season when he rocked the West End with his performance as Richard III. Along with Shakespeare, he played Sergius in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, and the Button Moulder in Henrick Ibson’s Peer Gynt. The clipping above shows Larry in another star turn as Oedipus in the 1945 season.

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