Laurence Olivier

In the second scene of Shakespeare's "Richard III," the play's villainous hero, succeeds in a matter of minutes in seducing Lady Anne, whose young husband he has recently murdered, over the even more recent corpse of her beloved father-in-law. When the unfortunate woman leaves the stage, Richard turns to the audience and exults:"Was ever woman in this humor woo'd?Was ever woman in this humor won?I'll have her, but I will not keep her long."When Ian McKellen spoke those lines Tuesday night at the Kennedy Center at the Washington premiere of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain production of the play, much of the audience laughed.

LAURENCE OLIVIER:A BIOGRAPHY.Donald Spoto.HarperCollins.460 pages. $23.Not to put too fine a point on it, biographer Donald Spoto -- who has given us scrupulously researched chronicles of director Alfred Hitchcock and playwright Tennessee Williams -- is the Kitty Kelley of scholars.Like his earlier books, Mr. Spoto's latest, "Laurence Olivier: A Biography," marinates dry facts in juicy gossip. Admittedly, it's a crude way to give savor to the former and meat to the latter, but who can resist his dish that Lord Olivier, the much-married king of Shakespearean tragedians, enjoyed a secret 10-year homosexual romp with American clown prince Danny Kaye?

To British actor Clive Revill, the role of Alfred Doolittle in Lerner and Lowe's perennial musical "My Fair Lady" is "all meat and no potatoes."The stage classic relates how Eliza Doolittle, a lowly Cockney flower girl, is transformed into a grand lady by noted speech specialist Henry Higgins.As Eliza's scroungy father, Revill bounces over the stage like a rubber ball doing hilarious double takes and a lot of shtick."When Alfie is on he is really on," observed the actor during an interview in his downtown hotel suite recently.

LOS ANGELES -- Hamlet is no wimp.Franco Zeffirelli, director of the new film adaptation of the classic play, is quite adamant on the point."Hamlet is a storm of a man, a volcano," Zeffirelli insisted during a recent interview. "I've always seen him as a very wild cat. All this melancholy has been added, like bad varnish on a great painting."The director, whose 1968 film of "Romeo and Juliet" introduced a generation to Shakespearean tragedy, hopes to scrape away some of that varnish with his new "Hamlet," which stars Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, Alan Bates, Ian Holm and Helena Bonham-Carter.

'Spartacus'Starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton and Jean Simmons.Directed by Stanley Kubrick.Released by Universal.Rated PG-13.*** 1/2 "Spartacus," lovingly restored from its decay and now splashed across a big screen at the Westview, has this message for our times: Freedom's just another word for everything worth dying for.It's a madly romantic celebration of the spirit of liberation, a dream-state recapitulation of an episode in...

It's true. They don't make them the way they used to. But that doesn't completely dispel the original impression that the 1960 ''Spartacus'' lumbered more than it shook. And adding an expunged five minutes (making a total of 197) to the restored version doesn't necessarily mean it is that much better.The film is big. The climactic battle scenes, employing some 8,000 soldiers, were shot in Spain, and this much is awesome. The final hour of the film, in fact, is absorbing, almost gripping, but there are those others hours to endure, and at times, they look like so much ''Hercules'' footage, despite the presence of some impressive names, among them Laurence Olivier, Kirk Douglas, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, Jean Simmons and Tony Curtis.

It has been remarked that each age invents its own Shakespeare, which is certainly true, or at least true enough. But if it follows necessarily that each age invents its own Hamlet, then brother, are we in trouble.Compare Laurence Olivier's 1948 version of the Shakespearian tragedy with the Mel Gibson/Franco Zeffirelli model opening here Friday and you get a chilling sense of what that means. It's not that Gibson is ungifted, or that he brings to his interpretation -- the word is used loosely -- a particular sense of stupidity.

The Senator Theater begins a special two-month film festival pTC Friday with the screening of the 1961 ''West Side Story.'' The musical will remain there through March 21.Other films scheduled:"The Sound of Music,'' March 22 to April 4;''Doctor Zhivago,'' April 5-18;''Ben-Hur,'' April 19 to May 2;''Spartacus,'' the restored version starring Kirk Douglas, opening May 3 and running open end.Tom Kiefaber, owner-manager of the Senator, said the titles were...

* ''One Good Cop'' A New York cop wants to adopt the three daughters of his partner who is killed in the line of duty. Michael Keaton and Anthony La Paglia star. Drama, comedy.* ''A Rage in Harlem'' A girl entrusted with a suitcase full of hot gold goes to Harlem, where everybody wants her and the gold. Gregory Hines and Robin Givens are in the cast. Comedy, drama.* ''Rich Girl'' A wealthy young woman gets a job in a club where she falls in love with the lead singer in the house band. Jill Schoelen and Don Michael Paul star.

Los Angeles--Hamlet is no wimp. Franco Zeffirelli, director of the new film adaptation of the classic play, is quite adamant on the point."Hamlet is a storm of a man, a volcano," Mr. Zeffirelli insisted during a recent interview. "I've always seen him as a very wild cat. All this melancholy has been added, like bad varnish on a great painting."The director, whose 1968 film of "Romeo and Juliet" introduced a generation to Shakespearean tragedy, hopes to scrape away some of that varnish with his new "Hamlet."

Hugh Jackman has achieved legendary success on stages in his native Australia as well as America and England, playing everyone from Curly the singing cowboy in Oklahoma! to gay entertainer Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz. On screen, he's taken a shot at everything from sleazes and sorcerers to lady-killers and superheroes. A pillar of the smash X-Men series as the team's angry, furry young man - the steel-taloned Wolverine - he's breaking off into his own Wolverine series. And in Australia, he holds down the leading-man position in a rare contemporary attempt at a sweeping national melodrama.

Shakespeare's Henry V is probably best known from the film versions starring and directed by Laurence Olivier (1944) and Kenneth Branagh (1989). The memory of these productions puts local performers at a disadvantage, and the play itself, with its heroic declamations, its scenes of pageantry and battle, offers serious challenges. The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company tackles the show boldly and comes off with credit. The outdoor production is being presented through July 6 at Patapsco Female Institute in Ellicott City, alternating with As You Like It. Does Henry V have a right to invade France?

The story, like an old VHS tape, has undoubtedly been distorted by years of repeated use, but here goes: It's 1975. Dustin Hoffman is on the set of John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, running wind sprints to prepare for a scene that calls for his character to appear flushed and out of breath. Seeing his young co-star jog up and down the street for no apparent reason, Laurence Olivier - the wizened Pharaoh of British theater - haughtily asks Hoffman to explain himself. When Hoffman obliges, Olivier shakes his head and clucks, "Why don't you try acting, my boy?"

Are you having a few film buffs over for an Oscar party? Would you like to impress them with your uncanny knowledge of Oscar trivia? Here are a few fun facts about the annual ceremony to sprinkle in amid the overdone musical numbers and the nominees for Best Documentary (short subject). The Show The shortest Oscar ceremony on record was held in 1929. Since the winners were announced three months earlier, the whole shindig ran 15 minutes. The longest Oscar telecast to date was the 2002 ceremony.

Big Ethel's out there. Pat Moran's gonna find her. Moran, Baltimore's own Emmy-winning casting director (for Homicide: Life On the Street) is in the midst of casting John Waters' latest, A Dirty Shame, a timeless comedy of sexual addiction and amnesia-induced depravity. She's filled about 20 roles so far - about 40 percent of what's required (not including some 600 extras) - but her biggest challenge remains. "We're looking for a white woman to play the role of Big Ethel, Tracey Ullman's [character's]

In the second scene of Shakespeare's "Richard III," the play's villainous hero, succeeds in a matter of minutes in seducing Lady Anne, whose young husband he has recently murdered, over the even more recent corpse of her beloved father-in-law. When the unfortunate woman leaves the stage, Richard turns to the audience and exults:"Was ever woman in this humor woo'd?Was ever woman in this humor won?I'll have her, but I will not keep her long."When Ian McKellen spoke those lines Tuesday night at the Kennedy Center at the Washington premiere of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain production of the play, much of the audience laughed.

LAURENCE OLIVIER:A BIOGRAPHY.Donald Spoto.HarperCollins.460 pages. $23.Not to put too fine a point on it, biographer Donald Spoto -- who has given us scrupulously researched chronicles of director Alfred Hitchcock and playwright Tennessee Williams -- is the Kitty Kelley of scholars.Like his earlier books, Mr. Spoto's latest, "Laurence Olivier: A Biography," marinates dry facts in juicy gossip. Admittedly, it's a crude way to give savor to the former and meat to the latter, but who can resist his dish that Lord Olivier, the much-married king of Shakespearean tragedians, enjoyed a secret 10-year homosexual romp with American clown prince Danny Kaye?

To British actor Clive Revill, the role of Alfred Doolittle in Lerner and Lowe's perennial musical "My Fair Lady" is "all meat and no potatoes."The stage classic relates how Eliza Doolittle, a lowly Cockney flower girl, is transformed into a grand lady by noted speech specialist Henry Higgins.As Eliza's scroungy father, Revill bounces over the stage like a rubber ball doing hilarious double takes and a lot of shtick."When Alfie is on he is really on," observed the actor during an interview in his downtown hotel suite recently.

It's true. They don't make them the way they used to. But that doesn't completely dispel the original impression that the 1960 ''Spartacus'' lumbered more than it shook. And adding an expunged five minutes (making a total of 197) to the restored version doesn't necessarily mean it is that much better.The film is big. The climactic battle scenes, employing some 8,000 soldiers, were shot in Spain, and this much is awesome. The final hour of the film, in fact, is absorbing, almost gripping, but there are those others hours to endure, and at times, they look like so much ''Hercules'' footage, despite the presence of some impressive names, among them Laurence Olivier, Kirk Douglas, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, Jean Simmons and Tony Curtis.

'Spartacus'Starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton and Jean Simmons.Directed by Stanley Kubrick.Released by Universal.Rated PG-13.*** 1/2 "Spartacus," lovingly restored from its decay and now splashed across a big screen at the Westview, has this message for our times: Freedom's just another word for everything worth dying for.It's a madly romantic celebration of the spirit of liberation, a dream-state recapitulation of an episode in...