Legendary film and stage actor Laurence Olivier co-starred with Marilyn Monroe in ‘The Prince and the Showgirl,’ the story of an American showgirl who becomes entangled in palace intrigue when the Prince Regent of a foreign country attempts to seduce her.
From a London Telegraph review of British director and cinematographer Jack Cardiff’s 2003 autobiography: “Britain's leading actor [Olivier] regarded Hollywood's greatest star as an utter "bitch" who lacked talent and sex appeal. Lord Olivier's damning verdict of his co-star is demonstrated in a memoir of Jack Cardiff, the double Oscar-winning cinematographer, who worked with the stars on their 1957 film, The Prince and the Showgirl.”
“She was a very curious little person,” Olivier says. “There’s a proper word for it but I think it always sounds very horrid, she was a divided person, I’ll say. When I first met her I thought she was the most enchanting thing I’d ever met in my life. And it was impossible then when she was like that, and she was like that in ordinary life, it was impossible not really to fall a little in love with her absolutely on first meeting. I looking forward madly to working with her because I admired her so much.”
As much as Olivier was excited to work with Marilyn, things didn’t go well when it came time for the cameras to roll, “She was always late, always late. Sometimes 4 hours late. That obviously isn’t just being naughty. That’s obviously something that’s, sort of, something chronic.”
When she did show up to work Marilyn could be extremely difficult as Olivier explained, “She used to get rather bad tempered and people used to get rather frightened of her after a bit. I used to get rather frightened but after a while there wasn’t an assistant who would go and call her [to the set].”
These are more tempered words Olivier uses to describe his experience with Marilyn in this interview. In private, right up until his death, he referent to her as a “bitch.”
The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) Official Trailer
