I was fascinated by your report that one of Laurence Olivier’s wax noses was for sale, because I have a distant relationship with one of them (Laurence Olivier’s Richard III prosthetic nose among hundreds of actor’s items to be auctioned, 28 October).
In October 1978, I was directing an episode of the television show Crown Court, with André Morell playing the judge. By then Andre ́was a leading member of a powerful group of elderly posh actors, who decorated their profession. He had ranged from Timon of Athens directed by Tyrone Guthrie to terrifying BBC audiences playing Dr Quatermass and even more by playing Tiberius in Granada’s Caesars. During a break, we discussed some production we had seen the night before, where an actor had a false nose. I complained that the nose was paler that the rest of the face. The skin colours did not match.
