My friend Laurence Harbottle, who has died aged 91, was a solicitor who also made an outstanding contribution to cultural life in Britain. As chair of both the ICA and the Central School of Speech and Drama, as a significant force behind the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester and as a member of the Arts Council, he was a champion of the arts for more than 60 years.
Laurence was a founding partner of Harbottle & Lewis, a leading law firm specialising in the entertainment industry. His first client was Dirk Bogarde and he soon acquired Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and, later, other internationally known names such as David Frost, John Cleese and Bob Hoskins.
Hugely intelligent and totally trustworthy, Laurence was a rock to many of the highly strung luminaries of Shaftesbury Avenue’s theatre community and Pinewood film studios. Olivier once arrived at his office panicking that his imminent peerage would be jeopardised by a parking ticket. Bogarde sought his advice on whether he could afford a new suit. The agent Peggy Ramsay, bested by Laurence in court, hired him immediately to ensure he was on her side thereafter. With Simon Callow, he would later become a trustee of the Peggy Ramsay Foundation, awarding bursaries to struggling playwrights. On one occasion the foundation sent funds to an absent-minded writer who had put his laptop in the microwave to save it from burglars, forgotten it was there and burnt it to a crisp.
Laurence was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the elder son of George Harbottle, a coal exporter, and his wife, Winifred. He was educated at the Leys school in Cambridge, was evacuated to Scotland during the second world war and then, at 16, volunteered for the Royal Artillery. He spent most of the war in Britain as a lieutenant, arriving in Burma and India only towards the end of the conflict. He took a law degree at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, followed by training at the Guildford Law School, where he met Brian Lewis, with whom he started the firm that bears their names.
Whatever starry legal fees Laurence earned, he gave back a hundredfold in his commitment to the arts. He disliked the honours system and is believed to have declined one, but if anybody deserved a gong, he did.
His relationship with Helge Magnussen lasted for 63 happy years, and in 2006 they became civil partners. Laurence was always brimming over with outrageous stories that you were on pain of death never to repeat. His memoirs would have been riveting, but he was far too discreet for that.
Helge died two months after Laurence. Laurence’s remaining survivors include his brother, Giles, and his sisters Christine and Dorothea. He was predeceased by a third sister, Eleanor.
