Show Business: Confessions of a Real Actor

(4 of 4)

The house, made up of two converted cottages, is bigger than it looks, with more than enough room for the Oliviers and their three children, Richard, 20, Tamsin, 19, and Julie-Kate, 16. Richard and Tamsin plan to follow their parents into the theater. Dickie, as he is called, is in his second year at the University of California at Los Angeles; Tamsin is studying acting in London; Julie-Kate, who has yet to make up her mind, attends a coeducational private school in Hampshire. Weekends are busy, and there is a constant stream of guests. "You never know who you'll find there," says one close friend, Interior Designer Kenneth Partridge. "Larry will say, 'Who's coming?' and Joan will reply, 'Whom have you invited?' 'I don't know,' he'll say, and then when someone comes by he'll say, 'Well, I must have invited him.' "

Such forgetfulness is one of Olivier's chief worries these days. He recently consulted a psychiatrist to see what could be done about it. To his dismay, he was told to give up alcohol, which he has vowed to do, except for occasional lapses, until Christmas. He is not happy with having to make a choice, however, and grumbles that "it is very reasonable to have a gin at lunchtime and two whiskies and a couple of glasses of wine at dinner as long as you don't drink anything after dinner."

"It would be terrible to discover that the psychiatrist is wrong," his visitor suggests.

"Oh, it would be awful! I should shoot him! Perhaps I should go for a second opinion. One should do that always."

On that cheerful note, goodbyes are said. Olivier prepares to return to the country, his wife and his pool, as inviting as a baby's bath. There is a final thank-you to "Lord Olivier," and he utters a sound, difficult to describe but impossible to forget, somewhere between a sorry sigh and an angry bellow. "Lord Olivier becomes a bit boring, you know." Then, as he tells everyone but delivery boys and chimney sweeps, he says: "Call me Larry." —By Gerald Clarke