myreveries:

victoriastation:

lifejustgotawkward:

so today in film class my professor wandered from the topic of Macbeth to a discussion of Laurence Olivier’s sexuality and his relationship with Danny Kaye. I’d already heard what he told us, but I hadn’t seen this particular photo. (Sid Field is on the right.)

for the record, I’ve always thought Danny Kaye was good-looking. The wackiness takes precedence in most people’s minds, but he was cute back in the day.

The relationship that it’s been revealed probably never happened and has been used by biographers such as Donald Spoto to try and justify Vivien Leigh’s erratic behavior since he didn’t believe she was actually mentally ill? Oh.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. I do know quite a few things about Danny and… no! He had quite a few affairs with women but I’ve never heard anything else about affairs with men. Simply because it never happened! And should this photo prove that they had an affair? That’s even more silly. I’ve seen photos like this of other men (for example Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra) (and women also for that matter!) who’s never been under suspicion of having an affair with each other. Ridiculous.

It’s been published in many Olivier biographies (starting with Spoto’s in the early 1990s), but no one I’ve talked to in my research has ever been able to back it up. I’m pretty sure it started with Michael Korda, who seems convinced it happened. But he also admitted in Spoto’s interview tapes that he didn’t know Larry very well, and that he is convinced that Vivien wasn’t actually manic-depressive, therefore his affair with kaye would definitely explain things (in Spoto’s book, he writes that this affair lasted for 10 years and that instead of rushing to Vivien in Hollywood while she was having a breakdown, he decided to shack up with Kaye in NY first, which is false). For me, his comments (and Spoto printing them) totally undermine Larry’s character in a  time of extreme trauma with Vivien. They also show how ignorant people are about Vivien Leigh and about mental illness awareness,