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As the '30s drew to a close, it became clear that there were three great actors in England: the triumvirate of Gielgud, Richardson and Laurence Olivier that has now ruled the British theatrical world for 50 years. "Larry is the lion, the hero who can play Oedipus, Henry V and Lear," says Derek Granger, the producer of Brideshead Revisited, who has worked with all of them. "Ralph is the transmuted common man, Peer Gynt and Falstaff. John is the poet, the one with the finest and most aristocratic sensibility. He is Hamlet, Richard II and Prospero. It is an amazing coincidence that we have got all three at once. It is something that will go down in theatrical history."
Olivier and Gielgud played many of the same parts, however, and a rivalry developed. In one famous 1935 production of Romeo and Juliet they went so far as to alternate parts, Gielgud playing Romeo while Olivier played Mercutio, then reversing roles. "I thought John's extraordinary, darting imagination made him the better Mercutio," recalls Peggy Ashcroft, who was Juliet to both of them, "but Larry was the definitive Romeo, a real, vigorous, impulsive youth. There is the most charming story about John. He once said, talking about Othello, 'I don't really know what jealousy is.' Then he caught himself. 'Oh, yes. I do! I remember! When Larry had a success as Hamlet, I wept.' "
The two are mannerly toward each other, but there are hints that the rivalry is not altogether friendly these days. "I saw a few extracts from Larry's memoirs (Confessions of an Actor)," says Gielgud, "and I wouldn't read any more. I couldn't bear what he said about Vivien Leigh [Olivier's late wife]. People are very shocked by the book. They all say it's very ungenerous." With Richardson, on the other hand, there has been not only friendship, but collaboration in memorable productions of David Storey's Home (1970) and Harold Pinter's No Man's Land (1975).
Gielgud had his share of flops, including a notable Othello, but by the '40s he had portrayed so many kings in blank verse that, as he puts it, "my old management would say: 'Just stick a crown on his head and send him onstage.'" Then in 1950, under the inspired direction of Peter Brook, he found a new interpretation of Angelo in Measure for Measure. Instead of portraying him as an extravagant sensualist, as others had done, he played him as a repressed Puritan under a veneer of sanctimony. The role revitalized a career that, reversing the usual rule, has grown larger as he has grown older. "I always did pretty well financially," he says, "but I never made very big money, the way movie stars do, until about 15 years ago. Thank God it happened. I only wonder how long it will last. One dreads the moment when nothing is offered."