Joan Plowright met the love of her life in husband Laurence Olivier. Their marriage was a tale of two thespians since they met in the theatre. Against all odds, with two decades between them in age, the couple stayed together for the remainder of Laurence’s life. And even after Baron Olivier died, Dame Joan kept both of their legacies alive in the industry, going on to win several accolades in her career including two Golden Globe Awards, a Tony Award and the Laurence Olivier Award.
After Laurence died, Joan defended her late husband during a 2003 interview with The Daily Telegraph. She acknowledged that it was her “choice because [she] was privileged to live with him.”
“When someone who has had such fame and idolatry and worship goes, then there’s bound to be a backlash which comes the other way and you get a bit sick of that,” the Scarlet Letter star explained. “Mine was really trying to put things straight.”
Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright in a scene from John Osborne’s play, ‘The Entertainer’ which opened on Broadway on 4 Feb. 1958 pic.twitter.com/4Q0RrCCJ4C
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To learn more about Joan and Laurence’s life together, keep reading.
Joan and Laurence first met in 1956. He visited her dressing room during a staging of The Country Wife. In his autobiography, Confessions Of An Actor, Laurence recalled seeing the production “and was entranced by the Margery Pinchwife of Miss Joan Plowright, whose very name was enough to make me think thoughts of love.”
The two actors fell in love but were still married to their respective ex-spouses. While they kept their affair a secret at the time, they later divorced their exes and married in 1961.
