Jeremy backstage, January 1969

Jeremy's road to the National Theatre Company began in 1963 at the Chichester Theatre Festival. There, Sir Laurence Olivier was preparing the National Theatre Company's repertoire for its opening season.

Jeremy had adored Olivier as a youth, and as he worked for him, his admiration only grew. Olivier was demanding, stretching Jeremy to his limit: "I expect every young actor who works with me to have the body of a god and the vocal range of a full orchestra!" When he forgot to trill his Rs, Olivier would snap at him: "Come on, boy, that's enough of that. Move your tongue, move it, sound it!" Jeremy would work on it, then Olivier would bark at him over something else -- how he held his arms, the way he walked, the look on his face.

At Chichester, Jeremy's first role was Dunois in Saint Joan opposite Robert Stephens and Joan Plowright. But it was his role in The Workhouse Donkey that earned him critical acclaim and prompted Olivier to ask him to become the National Theatre's juvenile lead.

But having starred as Hamlet in the West End, Jeremy was unwilling to accept Olivier's offer of the secondary role of Laertes. "That hurt," he told the BBC much later. Jeremy had another offer -- a role in My Fair Lady -- and he opted for Hollywood. "If I can't play Hamlet, then I will play Freddie, even if he is a bit of a chinless wonder," Jeremy said.

Joan Plowright, who was Olivier's wife at the time scolded her husband for his treatment of Jeremy: "Larry, you've sold this so badly to Jeremy that if Eliza Doolittle had a sister, I would go with him."

Eventually, Jeremy would return to the National Theatre for what he called "the happiest four years of my life," rejoining friend Robert Stephens and his hero Sir Laurence Olivier. During that time Jeremy said Olivier "stretched me beyond belief. He was very strong ... a dangerous, intuitive leader. He had magnetism. He was not Herculean in size, but he had a Herculean feel about him. And he gave me these wonderful parts."

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