The 20th century’s finest actor, Laurence Olivier, had deep religious roots that played a vital role in his craft. Over three decades since his remains were brought to Poets’ Corner, Maddy Fry explores his complex relationship with both Christianity and the Abbey.
September 2026 will see the 35th anniversary of ‘the greatest actor who ever lived’ being interred in Poets’ Corner. Yet Laurence Olivier’s remains are not marked by an ostentatious mausoleum; there is simply a grey diamond on the floor, easy to overlook. So often with the Abbey, it’s strange to think that tight geometric lines can contain lives of such richness and depth, in Olivier’s case from his glittering, troubled marriage to Vivien Leigh to his psychologically layered approach to Shakespeare’s Henry V.
It’s less well-known that the origins of this colossus of stage and screen were quietly Christian. Both London and the Church of England loomed large in his childhood, making his final resting place fitting in more ways than one. He was a star who early on had a global reach, but his vocation started in a frugal rectory on Lupus Street, only a mile down the road from Westminster Abbey.
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