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A story of romance, fame, glamour and betrayal to rival that of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. The ‘undisputed King and Queen of the English stage,’ Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh toured Australia in 1948 as an adored celebrity couple.
God and The Angel details the heights of their fame and the beginnings of the end of their ‘fairy-tale’ love story. This is the first illustrated book on the 1948 Old Vic Tour of Australia and New Zealand, led by Olivier and Leigh. Written from an Australian perspective and utilising never-before published photos from the National Library and author’s collection, God and the Angel diarises a theatrical tour amidst a tense postwar context. The book follows The Old Vic tour’s political and financial motivations and explores Olivier and Leigh’s star couple relationship, both leading up to and during their travels. This book retraces the footsteps of one of the twentieth century’s most enduring star couples through a 1948 Australian landscape, through which important architecture, socialites, artists and their impacts are rediscovered.
Author: Shiroma Perera-Nathan
Hardback Published 19 January 2024 256 pages