STAGE TUBE: On This Day 5/22- Laurence Olivier

Welcome to BWW's ON THIS DAY Series celebrating theatrical birthdays, openings and special events that took place on this day in theatre history!

Happy Birthday, Laurence Olivier! Born in 1907, Olivier remains one of the most revered actors of the 20th century. He was the first artistic director of The National Theatre of Great Britain and its main stage is named in his honour. Olivier's career as a stage and film actor spanned more than six decades and included a wide variety of roles, from the title role in Shakespeare's Othello and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night to the sadistic Nazi dentist Christian Szell in Marathon Man and the kindly but determined Nazi-hunter in The Boys from Brazil. Olivier played more than 120 stage roles: Richard III, Macbeth, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Uncle Vanya, and Archie Rice in The Entertainer. He appeared in nearly sixty films, including William Wyler's Wuthering Heights, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake Is Missing, Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War, and A Bridge Too Far, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth, John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, Daniel Petrie's The Betsy, Desmond Davis' Clash of the Titans, and his own Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III.

In celebration of this day, we bring you a scene from the 1948 film version of HAMLET. Click below to check it out!