Laurence Harvey (born Zvi Mosheh Skikne; 1 October 1928 – 25 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born British actor and film director. He was born to Lithuanian Jewish parents and immigrated to South Africa at an early age, before later settling in the United Kingdom after World War II. In a career that spanned a quarter of a century, Harvey appeared in stage, film and television productions primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Harvey was known for his clipped, refined accent and cool, debonair screen persona. His performance in Room at the Top (1959) resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. That success was followed by the roles of William Barret Travis in The Alamo and Weston Liggett in BUtterfield 8, both films released in the autumn of 1960. He also appeared as the brainwashed Sergeant Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He made his directorial debut with The Ceremony (1963), and continued acting into the 1970s until his early death in 1973 of cancer.
Harvey was born in Joniškis, Lithuania, the youngest of three sons of Ella (née Zotnickaite) and Ber Skikne, Lithuanian Jewish parents. His civil birth name was Larushka Mischa Skikne, and his Hebrew name was Zvi Mosheh (Yiddish: צבי משה סקיקנה). When he was five years old, his family travelled with the family of Riva Segal and her two sons, Louis and Charles Segal on the SS Adolph Woermann to South Africa, where he was known as Harry Skikne. Harvey grew up in Johannesburg. He was only fifteen when he auditioned to join the Entertainment Unit of the South African Army during the Second World War. Sid James managed the Unit and approved his audition. They became lifelong friends. As the mystery guest on the American TV show What's My Line?, screened 1 May 1960, Harvey stated that he arrived in South Africa in 1934 and moved to the UK in 1946.
After moving to London, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but left RADA after three months.
Billed as Larry Skikne, he appeared in the play Uprooted at the Comedy Theatre in 1947. He also appeared on stage at the Library Theatre in Manchester. His performances in Manchester led to him being cast in his first film.
Harvey made his cinema debut in the British film House of Darkness (1948), but its distributor British Lion thought someone named Larry Skikne was not commercially viable. Accounts vary as to how the actor acquired his stage name of Laurence Harvey. One version has it that it was the idea of talent agent Gordon Harbord who decided Laurence would be an appropriate first name. In choosing a British-sounding last name, Harbord thought of two British retail institutions, Harvey Nichols and Harrods. Another is that Skikne was travelling on a London bus with Sid James who exclaimed during their journey: "It's either Laurence Nichols or Laurence Harvey." Harvey's own account differed over time.
Associated British Picture Corporation and leading man
Associated British Picture Corporation quickly offered him a two-year contract, which Harvey accepted. He appeared in supporting roles in several of their lower-budget films such as Man on the Run (1949), Landfall (1949) (directed by Ken Annakin) and The Dancing Years (1950). For International Motion Pictures he was in The Man from Yesterday (1949).
Mayflower Productions, which released through Associated British, gave Harvey his first lead, appearing alongside Eric Portman in the Egypt-set police film Cairo Road (1950). It was a minor success.
He had a small role in the Hollywood-financed The Black Rose (1950), starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, directed by Henry Hathaway. It was Harvey's first experience in a Hollywood film. He played Cassio in a version of Othello for BBC TV starring Andre Morell.
Harvey starred in leading roles for two B-pictures for director Lewis Gilbert at Nettleford Films: Scarlet Thread (1951) and There Is Another Sun (1951). For Ealing, he made I Believe in You (1952), directed by Basil Dearden. According to Sight and Sound this performance gave "an indication of Harvey's true metier. While Basil Dearden's direction focused on honest Harry Fowler, it was Harvey's Jordie who supplied an authentic glimpse of pin-table thuggery, his clothes and hairstyle on the cusp between cosh-boy and ted and his manner redolent of a languorous sexuality no amount of National Service could quell."
He starred in the low-budget thriller A Killer Walks (1952). In 1951 he appeared on stage in Hassan at the Cambridge Theatre.
Harvey's career gained a boost when he appeared in Women of Twilight (1952); this was made by Romulus Films run by brothers John and James Woolf, who signed Harvey to a long-term contract. James Woolf in particular was a big admirer of Harvey and played an important role in turning the actor into a star.
In 1953 he played Orlando on a BBC TV version of As You Like It, opposite Margaret Leighton, whom he would later marry.
Romulus put him in two ensemble films: a comedy, Innocents in Paris (1953) and a crime thriller, The Good Die Young (1954). He had an especially strong role in the latter, which was directed by Lewis Gilbert, and featured Hollywood actors such as John Ireland, Richard Basehart and Gloria Grahame, along with Leighton. This has been called his "first performance of note."
Harvey received an offer to play the juvenile male lead in the Hollywood spectacular King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), a medieval swashbuckler for Warner Bros starring Rex Harrison, Virginia Mayo and George Sanders. It was a box-office disappointment, although Harvey's performance was well received.
Harvey played Romeo in Renato Castellani's adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1954), narrated by John Gielgud. His performance was generally not well received. According to a contemporary interview, he turned down an offer to appear in Helen of Troy (1955) to act at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he again performed in Romeo and Juliet, this time on stage.
Romulus gave Harvey another excellent chance when he was cast as the writer Christopher Isherwood in I Am A Camera (1955), with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles. He and Leighton starred in an adaptation of A Month in the Country for ITV Play of the Week (1955). He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play Island of Goats, a flop that closed after one week, though his performance won him a 1956 Theatre World Award. While in the US he appeared on TV in an episode of The Alcoa Hour called The Small Servant , co-starring Diane Cilento.