Laurence Harvey

Harvey's civil birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. His Hebrew name was Zvi Mosheh. He was born in Joniškis, Lithuania, the youngest of three sons of Ella (née Zotnickaita) and Ber Skikne, Lithuanian Jewish parents.[7][8] When he was five years old, his family travelled with the family of Riva Segal and her two sons, Louis and Charles Segal on the SS Adolph Woermann to South Africa, where he was known as Harry Skikne. Harvey grew up in Johannesburg, and was in his teens when he served with the entertainment unit of the South African Army during the Second World War.[9] As the Mystery Guest on USA TV show What's My Line screened 1 May 1960, he states he arrived in South Africa in 1934 and moved to the UK in 1946.[10]

Harvey and Diane Cilento in the television play The Small Servant. Both made their U.S. television debuts in this production for The Alcoa Hour (1955).

After moving to London, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art,[11] but left RADA after three months.[12]

Billed as Larry Skikne, he appeared in the play Uprooted at the Comedy Theatre in 1947. He also appeared on stage at the Library Theatre in Manchester.[13] His performances in Manchester led to him being cast in his first film.[14]

Harvey made his cinema debut in the British film House of Darkness (1948), but its distributor British Lion thought someone named Larry Skikne was not commercially viable. Accounts vary as to how the actor acquired his stage name of Laurence Harvey. One version has it that it was the idea of talent agent Gordon Harbord who decided Laurence would be an appropriate first name. In choosing a British-sounding last name, Harbord thought of two British retail institutions, Harvey Nichols and Harrods.[15] Another is that Skikne was travelling on a London bus with Sid James who exclaimed during their journey: "It's either Laurence Nichols or Laurence Harvey." Harvey's own account differed over time.[16]

Associated British Picture Corporation quickly offered him a two-year contract, which Harvey accepted. He appeared in supporting roles in several of their lower-budget films such as Man on the Run (1949), Landfall (1949) (directed by Ken Annakin) and The Dancing Years (1950). For International Motion Pictures he was in The Man from Yesterday (1949).[17]

Mayflower Productions, which released through Associated British, gave Harvey his first lead, appearing alongside Eric Portman in the Egypt-set police film Cairo Road (1950). It was a minor success.[12]

He had a small role in the Hollywood financed The Black Rose (1950), starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, directed by Henry Hathaway. It was Harvey's first experience in a Hollywood film. He played Cassio in a version of Othello for BBC TV starring Andre Morell.[12]

Harvey starred in leading roles for two B-pictures for director Lewis Gilbert at Nettleford Films: Scarlet Thread (1951) and There Is Another Sun (1951). For Ealing, he made I Believe in You (1952), directed by Basil Dearden. According to Sight and Sound this performance gave "an indication of Harvey's true metier. While Basil Dearden's direction focused on honest Harry Fowler, it was Harvey's Jordie who supplied an authentic glimpse of pin-table thuggery, his clothes and hairstyle on the cusp between cosh-boy and ted and his manner redolent of a languorous sexuality no amount of National Service could quell."[18]

He starred in the low-budget thriller A Killer Walks (1952). In 1951 he appeared on stage in Hassan at the Cambridge Theatre.[12]

Harvey (left) with Frank Sinatra, during filming of The Manchurian Candidate

Harvey's breakthrough to international stardom came after he was cast by director Jack Clayton as the social climber Joe Lampton in Room at the Top (1959), produced by Romulus. For his performance, Harvey received a BAFTA Award[26] nomination and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.[11] Simone Signoret and Heather Sears co-starred as Lampton's married lover and eventual wife respectively. It was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1959 and a hit in the U.S.

Harvey went to Broadway in 1958, as Shakespeare's Henry V, as part of the Old Vic company, which featured a young Judi Dench as Katherine, the daughter of the king of France.[27][25]

Harvey followed it with the musical Expresso Bongo (1959), a film best remembered for introducing Cliff Richard.[28] He did The Violent Years for the ITV Play of the Week (1959).

While in the US he appeared in Arthur, an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents directed by Hitchcock himself.

The success of Room at the Top led to Hollywood offers and Harvey decided to spend the next three years focusing on films.[29] He was in John Wayne's epic The Alamo (1960), being John Wayne's personal choice to play Alamo commandant William Barret Travis. He had been impressed by Harvey's talent and ability to project the aristocratic demeanor Wayne believed Travis possessed. Harvey and Wayne later expressed their mutual admiration and satisfaction at having worked together.[30] The Alamo was a hit (although the enormous cost meant the film lost money).

Even more successful was Harvey's next Hollywood film, MGM's BUtterfield 8 (1960), which won Elizabeth Taylor her first Oscar. He was named for The Eddie Chapman Story but it was not made until years later, as Triple Cross with Christopher Plummer.[31]

Back in Britain, Harvey was cast in the film version of The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961) in a role originally performed by Peter O'Toole during the play's West End run. He clashed with Richard Todd and Richard Harris during filming but the movie was a hit in Britain.[32] He was announced for some films that were not made (The Disenchanted from the novel by Budd Schulberg, No Bail for the Judge, from Alfred Hitchcock The Lion, The Long Walk) and films made with other actors The Greengage Summer).[33]

In the U.S., he supported Shirley MacLaine in MGM's Two Loves (1961) and co-starred with Geraldine Page in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke (1961), directed by Peter Glenville.[11] He signed to appear in the film of Five Finger Exercise but was not in the eventual film.[34] His fee around this time was $300,000 a film.[35]

Harvey played the male lead in Walk on the Wild Side (1962), produced by Charles Feldman; he was cast alongside Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Fonda and Capucine. Fonda was not positive about the experience of working with him: "There are actors and actors – and then there are the Laurence Harveys. With them, it's like acting by yourself."[36] The same year, he recorded an album of spoken excerpts from the book This Is My Beloved by Walter Benton, accompanied by original music by Herbie Mann. It was released on the Atlantic label. He narrated a TV musical, The Flood (1962).

MGM cast Harvey as Wilhelm Grimm in the MGM film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), produced by George Pal. Harvey's performance earned him a nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.[37] The movie was a box office disappointment.

Harvey appeared as the brainwashed US Army Captain Raymond Shaw in the Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury.[11] Film critic David Shipman wrote unkindly: "Harvey's role required him to act like a zombie and several critics cited it as his first convincing performance".[12] The movie was a hit and has since become critically highly regarded, and is one of Harvey's better-remembered films.

Harvey went to Japan to make A Girl Named Tamiko (1962) with France Nuyen for director John Sturges and producer Hal Wallis. "I have suddenly found the gates of Hollywood opened to me," he said at the time.[29]

He followed this with The Running Man (1963), directed by Carol Reed, with Lee Remick and Alan Bates.[29]

Harvey made his directorial debut with The Ceremony (1963), in which he also starred. It was shot in Spain for United Artists.[38]

Harvey played King Arthur in the 1964 London production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical Camelot at Drury Lane.[39]

He was the male lead in an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (1964), co starring Kim Novak. Harvey had been connected to the project for several years.[40] It was a troubled shoot, with Harvey and Novak clashing, and original director Henry Hathaway leaving during the shoot and being replaced by Ken Hughes.[41] During filming, kidnap threats were made against both Harvey and Novak by student organisations.[42][43]

The Outrage (1964) was director Martin Ritt's remake of Akira Kurosawa's Japanese film Rashomon (1950). Besides Harvey, the film starred Paul Newman and Claire Bloom, but was unsuccessful critically and commercially.[44]

Harvey reprised his role as Joe Lampton in Life at the Top (1965), directed by Ted Kotcheff. This is considered one of his best later performances.[18]

Harvey had his first commercially successful film in a number of years with Darling (1965), starring Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde.[45] While Harvey's role in the film is short, his involvement enabled director John Schlesinger to raise financial backing for the project.[12] Harvey starred in a version of The Doctor and the Devils directed by Nicholas Ray from a script by Dylan Thomas but the film was not completed.[18]

Harvey co-starred with Israeli actress Daliah Lavi in the comedy The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), a parody of the James Bond films.[46] Harvey did The Winter's Tale (1967) and then Dial M for Murder (1967) for American TV.

Harvey owned the rights to the book on which John Osborne's early script for the film The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) was partially based, Cecil Woodham-Smith's book The Reason Why (1953). He intended to make his own version.[47] A lawsuit was filed against director Tony Richardson's company Woodfall Film Productions on behalf of the book's author. There was a monetary settlement, and Harvey insisted on being cast in a cameo role (being cast as Prince Radziwill) as part of the agreement for which he was paid £60,000.[48] Charles Wood was brought in to re-write the script. Harvey's scenes were cut from the movie at Richardson's insistence except for a brief glimpse as an anonymous member of a theatre audience which, technically, still met the requirements of the legal settlement.[49] John Osborne asserted in his autobiography that Richardson shot the scenes with Harvey "French", which is film jargon for a director going-through-the-motions because of some obligation, but with no film in the camera.[50]

Harvey completed direction of the spy thriller A Dandy in Aspic (1968) after director Anthony Mann died during production. The film co-stars Mia Farrow.[51] This has been called "his last effective cinema role... The critics greeted it with disdain but the plot was tailor-made for Harvey, who plays a Russian spy who has adopted an English identity so he can go undercover within British Intelligence."[18]

Harvey provided the narration for the Soviet film Tchaikovsky (1969), directed by Igor Talankin.[52]

In August 1973,it was reported Harvey had been ill, but he assured people he was busier than ever.[57] Just before he died, he was planning to star in and direct two films: one on Kitty Genovese, the other a Wolf Mankowitz comedy titled Cockatrice.[58] His death put an end to any hope that Orson Welles's The Deep would be completed. With Harvey and Jeanne Moreau in the leading roles, Welles worked on the film between his other projects, although the production was hampered by financial problems.[59]

Note: Where British Film Institute (BFI) and American Film Institute (AFI) differed on release year, or if the Wikipedia article title had a different release year, whichever source is the country of production is the year used.

• Kennedy, Dennis (2002). Looking at Shakespeare A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78548-8.
• Mullin, Michael; Gielgud, John (1996). Design by Motley. University of Delaware Press. ISBN 978-0-87413-569-5.
• Wearing, J. P. (2014). The London Stage 1940–1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8108-9305-4.
• Wright, Adrian (2012). West End Broadway: The Golden Age of the American Musical in London. Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-791-6.