
Mayflower Productions, which released through Associated British, gave Harvey his first lead, appearing alongside Eric Portman in the Egypt-set police film Cairo Road (1950). For International Motion Pictures he was in The Man from Yesterday (1949). He appeared in supporting roles in several of their lower-budget films such as Man on the Run (1949), Landfall (1949) (directed by Ken Annakin) and The Dancing Years (1950). Associated British Picture Corporation and leading man Īssociated British Picture Corporation quickly offered him a two-year contract, which Harvey accepted. Another is that Skikne was travelling on a London bus with Sid James who exclaimed during their journey: "It's either Laurence Nichols or Laurence Harvey." Harvey's own account differed over time. In choosing a British-sounding last name, Harbord thought of two British retail institutions, Harvey Nichols and Harrods. One version has it that it was the idea of talent agent Gordon Harbord who decided Laurence would be an appropriate first name.


Accounts vary as to how the actor acquired his stage name of Laurence Harvey. Harvey made his cinema debut in the British film House of Darkness (1948), but its distributor British Lion thought someone named Larry Skikne was not commercially viable. His performances in Manchester led to him being cast in his first film. He also appeared on stage at the Library Theatre in Manchester.

īilled as Larry Skikne, he appeared in the play Uprooted at the Comedy Theatre in 1947. television debuts in this production for The Alcoa Hour (1955).Īfter moving to London, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but left RADA after three months. Harvey and Diane Cilento in the television play The Small Servant.
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As the Mystery Guest on USA TV show What's My Line? screened, he states he arrived in South Africa in 1934 and moved to the UK in 1946. Sid James managed the Unit and approved his audition. He was only fifteen when he auditioned to join the Entertainment Unit of the South African Army during the Second World War. When he was five years old, his family travelled with the family of Riva Segal and her two sons, Louis and Charles Segal on the SS Adolph Woermann to South Africa, where he was known as Harry Skikne. His civil birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. Harvey was born in Joniškis, Lithuania, the youngest of three sons of Ella (née Zotnickaita) and Ber Skikne, Lithuanian Jewish parents.

Laurence Harvey (born Zvi Mosheh Skikne 1 October 1928 – 25 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born British actor and film director.
