IN 1956 Laurence Olivier directed a film, The Prince and the Showgirl. He took the role of the Regent of Carpathia who, in London in 1911 for the Coronation of George V, meets and woos an American chorus-girl, played by Marilyn Monroe.
The shoot was, for various reasons, a stressful one, but the film, when it was released in the summer of 1957, earned respectable reviews both here and in America, and little of the on-set tensions were evident.
Just three years before the film shoot, Olivier himself had directed a production of the stage play, The Sleeping Prince, on which the film was based. It had been written by Terence Rattigan. The female lead was Olivier’s then wife, Vivien Leigh. And 1953 was, of course, the year of the Queen’s Coronation.
As Donald Spoto recounts in Laurence Olivier: A Biography, Olivier had approached Rattigan in early 1953 to ask if he might have a possible vehicle for himself and Vivien. The playwright said he had written a Ruritanian trifle which would showcase them well, but was beneath their talents. Olivier, however, took to the play, and began plans for rehearsals.
“The plot”, says Spoto, “was gossamer-thin ... the conscientious, unattractive and philandering Prince Regent of Carpathia meets an American chorus girl. Reluctant to be casually seduced by a man for whom love is so perfunctory, she demands royal treatment.
“With no time to seek a more compliant conquest, the prince yields to her numerous requests ... but with too much success. The girl takes the endearments and the eventual seduction seriously, and refuses to leave the Prince”.
The Sleeping Prince toured before opening in London. In October 5, 1953, it played at the King’s, in Glasgow. The appearance of such a high-profile couple as Olivier and Leigh drew much interest from the public and the press.
It opened to a full house and was given an enthusiastic reception. “It cannot be said that ‘The Sleeping Prince’ is Rattigan at his best”, noted the Glasgow Herald’s reviewer, “yet it has many amusing situations and lines which create much genuine laughter, and it provides excellent material for Vivien Leigh. Hers is a sparkling and beautifully light performance. Perhaps Laurence Olivier’s material is not quite so good, but he has some fine moments”.
The Evening Times critic said that with the Oliviers at the King’s in the latest Rattigan comedy, Glasgow had reached the peak of the current theatrical season. “Such a peak gives us a view of unique finesse in acting, and of the rising standards of a dramatist who has already scaled considerable heights”.
In his book Spoto says the play opened in London to politely unenthusiastic notices. It ran for 34 weeks, despite some critics complaining that “so much talent should have gone into something so little”.
Read more: Herald Diary
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