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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!

cinema archive vlogs

Leigh/Olivier Q&A (#6)

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Mark Mayes and I are back with more answers to your questions about Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. In this segment, we discuss everything from what we’d bring to Notley if we were ever invited to one of the Oliviers’ dinner parties, to the famous names behind David Niven’s “Missie.”

Sadly, my laptop battery ran out before we could get to the end of the queue, so a few answers are typed out below. This is the last video Mark and I will be able to do together for a while as I’ll be leaving SoCal soon, but hopefully we’ll get to do more at some point in the future!

As always, I hope you find this informative and entertaining. 🙂

Extra Questions
Q: Did Viv and Maureen O’Sullivan remain friends after they left school? They were in ‘A Yank at Oxford’ together and I’m curious to know how they got along. I read somewhere that Viv was jealous that Maureen had a career before her.

A: I’m not sure how close they actually were while they were in school, but Mark and I discussed this, and he mentioned that it seems Vivien might have been a little jealous of Maureen because she achieved success as an actress first, despite it always being Vivien’s dream to be famous. However, I don’t think there was any animosity between them, and Maureen spoke highly of Vivien in her later years. Vivien also took Maureen’s daughter Mia Farrow under her wing and helped advance Mia’s career.

Q. I know that Laurence Olivier had met Grace Kelly (Princess Grace) after he married Joan Plowright, and I was wondering if you knew more information about his meeting with Princess Grace. What did he think of Her and does he ever mention Her death in 1982?

A. In John Mills’ book Still Memories, he mentions Grace and Prince Rainier meeting Larry at David Niven’s house in the south of France, 1963. “When they arrived, Larry was just getting out of the water without his swimming trunks. They’d come off in the bay somewhere. Rainier and the Princess were standing right in front of him as Larry emerged from the sea and bowed gracefully. Perhaps his best entrance ever!” Larry certainly had no qualms about swimming in his birthday suit, as we’ve seen from previous photos!  I don’t remember him mentioning anything about her death.

Q. If you could travel back in time to watch any of their stage performances together – what would it be? Mine would be Macbeth.

A. I think we kind of answered this in this video, but Mark’s would be Macbeth, and I’d personally give an arm to see anything they did together!

To have your questions answered in the next video, please ask them at the vivandlarry.com formspring!

cinema archive tv appearances

Laurence Olivier on “Cinema” with Michael Parkinson

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Michael Parkinson, one of Britain’s most famous TV broadcasters and journalists, had a chat series called Parkinson that started in 1971. Prior to this, he hosted Cinema on Granada television, in which he interviewed actors about their film careers. His first star interview was with Laurence Olivier in 1969. The interview was conducted in Olivier’s National Theatre office in Aquinas Street.

This is a wonderful discussion that shows how charming and intelligent Larry was. It is interesting to hear him talk about his film career, as we know cinema was not his favorite medium.

Submitted to vivandlarry.com by Chris.

[flv:http://vivandlarry.com/videos/parkinson.flv]

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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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All the World’s A Stage

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Yesterday kicked off the opening games of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a tradition that started in Uruguay in 1930. Personally, I could not be more excited! The World Cup is my favorite sporting event. There’s something so beautiful, powerful and graceful about the glorious game. I’ve always been Anti-American when it comes to soccer (or football, as everyone else on the planet calls it), simply because in Europe the pace is so much faster and exciting than in America. I’s also like to add that perhaps my enthusiasm stems from the fact that I played competitive soccer for about 13 years–through high school and college, and played in a youth tournament in the Netherlands when I was 16. I personally think our national team–though we have improved greatly in recent years–would be better if we farmed out our players to Europe (England, Spain) for the club season so they can get the experience of playing with the big boys. Tim Howard, our goalkeeper, knows where it’s at. He spends his club season at Everton in England, and lo and behold, he’s our best player.

Today, the USA faced off against England for what had to have been the most anticipated match of the first round. I was supporting England, as usual, and was a bit disappointed with the fact that they couldn’t seem to get the ball in the back of the net after Steven Gerrard’s beautiful goal in the fourth minute. And I was A LOT disappointed with Robert Green’s embarrassing fumble which allowed Clint Dempsey to get a courtesy goal. I hope you don’t get shunned upon your return to your village, Robert Green!

What does any of this have to do with Vivien Leigh or Laurence Olivier? One fan wrote in to the vivandlarry.com formspring wondering if the Oliviers had been football fans, and I’d always wondered the same thing:

I hadn’t recalled every reading anything in biographies about Larry or Vivien being fans, but I knew that England had won the World Cup back in 1966, and I had assumed that since they were British, they must have liked some sport that was popular over there.  A quick google search revealed that Laurence Olivier was indeed a football fan, and supported Chelsea FC, one of London’s best Premier League teams.  Larry would sometimes be seen hanging out with Richard Attenborough in The Shed at Stamford Bridge during the 60s and 70s.

And there we have it: Laurence Olivier was a Blues supporter.