20 Facts About Laurence Olivier Awards

1. Laurence Olivier Awards's acting technique was minutely crafted, and he was known for changing his appearance considerably from role to role.

2. Laurence Olivier Awards was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 1947 Birthday Honours for services to the stage and to films.

3. Laurence Olivier Awards seems to have thrown away technique this time—his is a breathtakingly pure Lear.

4. Laurence Olivier Awards continued working in film into the 1980s, with roles in The Jazz Singer, Inchon (1981), The Bounty (1984) and Wild Geese II (1985).

5. Laurence Olivier Awards shaved his pate and wore oversized glasses to enlarge the look of his eyes, in a role that the critic David Robinson, writing for The Times, thought was "strongly played", adding that Olivier was "always at his best in roles that call for him to be seedy or nasty or both".

6. In 1969 Laurence Olivier Awards appeared in two war films, portraying military leaders.

7. Laurence Olivier Awards had intended to step down from the directorship of the National Theatre at the end of his first five-year contract, having, he hoped, led the company into its new building.

8. In 1967 Laurence Olivier Awards was caught in the middle of a confrontation between Chandos and Tynan over the latter's proposal to stage Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers.

9. In 1961 Laurence Olivier Awards accepted the directorship of a new theatrical venture, the Chichester Festival.

10. Laurence Olivier Awards had seen the play earlier in the run and disliked it, but Miller was convinced that Osborne had talent, and Olivier reconsidered.

11. Laurence Olivier Awards was set on playing Malvolio in his own particular rather extravagant way.

12. In 1948 Laurence Olivier Awards led the Old Vic company on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand.

13. In January 1947 Laurence Olivier Awards began working on his second film as a director, Hamlet, in which he took the lead role.

14. Laurence Olivier Awards played the warrior Hotspur in the first and the doddering Justice Shallow in the second.

15. Laurence Olivier Awards was tiring of Leigh's suffocating adulation, and she was drinking to excess.

16. Laurence Olivier Awards secured the casting of Leigh to replace Cherry Cottrell as Ophelia.

17. In 1912, when Laurence Olivier Awards was five, his father secured a permanent appointment as assistant rector at St Saviour's, Pimlico.

18. Laurence Olivier Awards are judged by four separate panels for theatre, opera, dance, and Affiliate.

19. Laurence Olivier Awards were first established in 1976 by the Society of London Theatre as the Society of West End Awards and were designed by artist Tom Merrifield.

20. Laurence Olivier Awards are given to individuals involved in West End productions and other leading non-commercial theatres based in London across a range of categories covering plays, musicals, dance, opera and affiliate theatre.