When the young English actor Laurence Olivier went to Hollywood in the
early 1930s, studio executives wanted him to change his name to "Larry
Oliver." Olivier said that later on in his highly successful career, he
would muse with his friends about what might have become of him, what
kind of career he would have had, if he had changed his name to "Larry
Oliver" as that name connoted a different type of actor. The American
actor with that name appeared six times on Broadway between 1930 and
1965, most notably in Garson Kanin's "Born Yesterday." The "real" Larry
Oliver repeated his Broadway performance as the politician Norval
Hedges in the 1950 movie version of the play, his only movie
appearance. (A senator on Broadway, Larry Oliver's character had been
demoted to a Congressman for the film, but he was again bumped up to
the Senate in the 1956 "Hallmark Hall of Fame" teleplay.)
