One lunchtime in August 1948, Peter Finch was doing Molière on the shop floor at O'Brien's glass factory in Sydney when Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh turned up.
Olivier and Leigh were the king and queen of the British theatre. He had been knighted for conspicuous enunciation in tights and she had won an Academy Award for her Scarlett O'Hara. Married since 1940, the golden couple were touring Australia to stiffen the post-war cultural sinews of the Commonwealth and raise money for the cash-strapped Old Vic theatre company.
With his...


