Excellent piece in The Guardian by Maev Kennedy on Alec Guinness' diaries talking about Olivier, Gielgud and others.

I thought Olivier became an absolutely dreadful actor - never learning that stage required a different approach to film, and I never saw him in his (allegedly brilliant) stage performances.

Whereas Guinness became perhaps our greatest ever actor on film and TV.

heard a fascinating radio doco about Marilyn Monroe..so many theatre people thought she was in fact a superb actress with impeccable timing..and that Olivier was insanely jealous of her comedic timing and capacity to steal scenes.

Complicated people actors.

I agree, JK. Olivier was okay in his early movies, such as Rebecca, mainly because he wasn't yet powerful enough to challenge his directors, but later on he was shockingly hammy, always relying in silly props and distracting mannerisms. Some actors seem to pass through into a dimension where critical eyes and ears cease to work, so no matter how lazy and affected they are they still get praised for their supposed brilliance. Judi Dench is the latest to achieve this - she coasts through most productions, being Judi Dench, and the awards follow as a matter of right. Actually, following Olivier's death, his widow Joan Plowright, absurdly, got this treatment in Hollywood, where she made a procession of appearances using the most awful all-purpose mittel-European accent no matter whether she was playing an Italian, a Polish woman or a Spaniard.