Top marks for charisma

In the delightful correspondence (1944) between the late actress Athene Seyler and the actor Stephen Haggard, she inquires of a potential professional performer:

Does he aspire to be a power in the theatre, a leader or more vulgarly a star? Then let him be prepared to devote his entire energies, thoughts and interest to his job. He must breathe, eat and dream the theatre: I have never known a successful actor do less. This will limit him as a person and as a citizen. He must of necessity be an egoist and will probably become a bore. He must give up a wider life and concentrate on his job.

This masterly description of a star player — though I’ve seldom heard him called a bore — fits Laurence Olivier perfectly. Olivier as man of the theatre as well as performer undoubtedly had the greatest charisma of any 20th-century stage actor. Gielgud certainly had the same dedication and energy and in his later years when his more extreme mannerisms had dropped away a more finely tuned vocal technique. But he could not match his contemporary’s sheer physical magnetism.

The problem with writing an actor’s biography is that, as indicated by Athene Seyler, their off-stage lives are often less than compelling. The informed reader will be interested above all in their work and their approaches to their greatest roles — difficult to evoke on the page. Hazlitt, Agate, Tynan and very few others have managed, at least partially, to make us feel that we were there as spectators.

Terry Coleman’s monumental and diligently researched biography cannot in all conscience be called definitive because he uses up too few pages analysing Olivier’s artistry. Of his many performances that I was lucky enough to see, I looked in vain for detailed descriptions.