Life & Times
2 total works
Aneurin Nye Bevan (1897-1960) was the man who created the National Health Service, the crowning achievement of post-secon-world-war Labour government. The son of a miner from Monmouthshire, Wales, he became a local trade union leader at only 19, and won a scholarship to the Central Labour College in London. In 1929, he was elected a Labour MP. Bevan believed that the war was Britain's opportunity to create a new society, a position he maintained throughout the war. When the war ended, in 1945, the landslide Labour victory gave him the chance to help create it.
In the 1930s he established himself as a wide-ranging Shakespearean actor. His marriage in 1940 to Vivien Leigh (his second wife) seemed to complete the image of the romantic star. From the mid-40s he excelled in directing himself as Shakespeare on film, such as his dramatically-shot "Henry V" (1944), with its timely excesses of patriotism. When the new wave of British drama began in the late 1950s, Olivier was immediately part of it. As an actor of such wide range, and a successful producer and director, Olivier was a natural choice to bring the National Theatre into existence in 1963. Together with his new wife Joan Plowright (they had married in 1961), he built up a brilliant company and repertoire at the Old Vic. Olivier became the first actor to be given a peerage.