When Laurence Olivier revealed the secrets behind his wax nose
I was fascinated by your report that one of Laurence Olivier’s wax noses was for sale, because I have a distant relationship with one of them (Laurence Olivier’s Richard III prosthetic nose among hundreds of actor’s items to be auctioned, 28 October).
In October 1978, I was directing an episode of the television show Crown Court, with André Morell playing the judge. By then Andre ́was a leading member of a powerful group of elderly posh actors, who decorated their profession. He had ranged from Timon of Athens directed by Tyrone Guthrie to terrifying BBC audiences playing Dr Quatermass and even more by playing Tiberius in Granada’s Caesars. During a break, we discussed some production we had seen the night before, where an actor had a false nose. I complained that the nose was paler that the rest of the face. The skin colours did not match.
André chuckled. “Let me tell you!” Years before, he had been asked to play Cyrano de Bergerac, so he had needed a false nose. Olivier was known for doing the best false noses, but no one knew how he did it. André decided to ask him.
“I’ve stopped hiding behind them, so I can tell you,” Olivier said. “Go to a mortician and buy a handful of mortician’s wax. Now to an artist shop for gum arabic. Then some blood-red lipstick. In front of a mirror, mould the wax to a nose of your liking. Fix it to your nose with the gum. Now cover it with the red lipstick. Then, dress it and your face with your usual makeup.”
Olivier rationalised the secret: there is blood-red flesh under your skin, so you need a blood-red wax nose under your makeup. André bought the materials, but did not have time to try them out before the first night, when he sat down at the mirror, made the shape, stuck it on and applied the lipstick. He looked at himself. All he could see was a red nose! Olivier was an infamous a leg-puller. What to do? The show must go on. He put the makeup on: no join. It worked.
I have tried to pass on the story to makeup artists. No, no, they say. So, it is good to see an Olivier mortician’s wax nose that is red. André had not pulled my leg and Lord Olivier had not pulled his.
A few days after we recorded, I received a note from André apologising for having had a cough. A month later, he died from “lung complications”. Here’s to posh actors and red noses.
Bill Gilmour
West Linton, Scottish Borders
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