Olivier is made up as the villainous Richard III: is it his greatest role? Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
Colleagues, critics and fans have been busy paying tribute to Sir Laurence Olivier, who was born 100 years ago today. The Guardian's Michael Billington has called Olivier the "first of the moderns" and praised the great actor's "physical range and shape-shifting quality". Billington remembered being dazzled by Olivier's "staggering versatility" playing a formidable trio of parts in Stratford in 1955: the title roles of Macbeth and Titus Andronicus, and Malvolio in Twelfth Night.
Were you lucky enough to see Olivier on stage? His Stratford performances - which included an acclaimed turn as fearless Roman General Coriolanus in 1959 - are considered a purple patch on his CV. In the midst of these Shakespearean outings, he played the down-and-out vaudevillian Archie Rice in John Osborne's The Entertainer, directed by Tony Richardson at the Royal Court. The play held a special resonance for Olivier who saw the lead role as a defining part, declaring, "I am Archie Rice!" I have a battered Faber copy of the play and the shot of Olivier on the cover is indelible. Sporting a bow tie and cocked bowler hat, he's baring his teeth and flashing truly feral eyes: it's a world away from the brooding matinee idol of Wuthering Heights.
Happily, Archie Rice wasn't the only theatrical character that Olivier reprised on screen. There was also, among others: Othello, a triumphant Henry V and the "deformed, unfinished" villain Richard III in a 1955 film he also directed. For me, Olivier's impish Richard - waiting in the wings, dreaming upon his brother's crown - is his finest performance. By a nose. With that prosthetic beak, a pale face and black wig, he has a crow-like quality as he hobbles about plotting a murderous path through the film. Olivier's baddies tend to stand out: in another actor's hands, his drill-wielding Nazi in Marathon Man would be pure pantomime, but the performance is still bone-chilling no matter how many times you see it.
Olivier won a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Hamlet (1948): could the doomed Dane be his greatest role? Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca was another Oscar success, but I'd argue that the film really belongs to its female players - Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson and even the unseen Rebecca - rather than Olivier's haunted Max de Winter.
Peter Brook has called Olivier "the greatest fabricator of disguise of our time". This mastery of masks - and the sheer length of his career - has ensured a gallery of extraordinary characters that you'd be hard pushed to choose between. So, what does the name Olivier mean to you? And which of his many performances is your favourite?
