--- name: "Laurence Harvey" canonical: "https://film.one/person/laurence-harvey" roles: ["Actor"] born: "1 October 1928" died: "25 November 1973" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 67 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-20T04:19:18.453817+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Laurence Harvey Actor. Born 1 October 1928 in Jonischkis, Lithuania. Died 25 November 1973. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 1 October 1928, Jonischkis, Lithuania - **Died:** 25 November 1973 - **Active:** 1958–1965 - **Also known as:** Zvi Mosheh (Hirsh) Skikne, Zvi Mosheh Skikne - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 67, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 82 (1), 1960s 60 (2) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 67 to 59 across 3 titles - **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 1 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 1 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Drama 2, Romance 2, Adventure 1, History 1, War 1, Western 1 - **Screen time:** 7 hours of reviewed films - **Box office:** $8m across 1 films with figures - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Harvey, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q374045, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002131/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/14729 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Room at the Top*](https://film.one/film/room-at-the-top.md) (82) - **The Roku Channel:** [*Darling*](https://film.one/film/darling.md) (70) - **Pluto TV:** [*The Alamo*](https://film.one/film/the-alamo.md) (50) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Laurence Harvey > Laurence Harvey brought a cold, clipped stillness to the screen and rarely anything warmer. It made him the right man for a handful of parts and a blank in the rest; even the film that made him needed a charm he did not have. Joe Lampton gets off a train in *Room at the Top* (1958) with one suitcase, looks up at the houses on the hill and asks who owns the biggest. Laurence Harvey plays that look well. He has the cheekbones and the resentment, and he can stare at a hill as if it owed him money. Then Joe has to talk his way into those houses, and Harvey cannot do it. His vowels wander, and the people who are supposed to be won over by him seem to be doing it on their own. That film is where his career turns. Born in Lithuania and raised in South Africa, he had been in British films since 1948, in supporting parts in programmers and then under contract to Romulus, before Joe Lampton got him noticed abroad. Hollywood followed: Colonel Travis in *The Alamo* (1960), then Raymond Shaw in *The Manchurian Candidate* (1962) for John Frankenheimer. Through the 1960s and into the early 1970s he worked in British and international films, directed three of his own, appeared on television, and turned up as himself in Orson Welles's *F for Fake* (1973) shortly before he died. What he could do was cold. The clipped, refined accent and the level gaze were built for the cad and the outsider, and when a script wanted a man with nothing moving behind the eyes he was exactly right. That is why *The Manchurian Candidate* is the performance people remember: Raymond Shaw is a man who has been emptied out, and Harvey's detachment stops looking like a limitation and starts looking like the point. Miles Brand in John Schlesinger's *Darling* (1965), another smooth and hollow man, is the other part critics tend to bring up in his favour. What he could not do was warmth, and most films need some. Outside those few roles he was regularly called wooden, and many of his later films were indifferent even by the standards of a working actor taking what came. In *Room at the Top* we watched a town full of people fall for Joe Lampton and could not see what they were seeing, and it kept us at arm's length from a film we otherwise admired. Simone Signoret, playing the married woman Joe actually loves, gives it the feeling he does not. He described himself as "a flamboyant character, an extrovert who doesn't want to reveal his feelings. To bare your soul to the world, I find unutterably boring." He was as good as his word. Cast him as a man with nothing underneath and you have a performance; cast him as a man people are meant to love and you have a film with a hole where its lead should be. ## Biography Laurence Harvey, born Zvi Mosheh Skikne on 1 October 1928 in Jonischkis, Lithuania, was an actor. Educated in South Africa, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before making his screen debut in the late 1940s. Harvey achieved prominence with his performance as Joe Lampton in *Room at the Top* (1958). He played Colonel William Travis in *The Alamo* (1960) and Raymond Shaw in *The Manchurian Candidate* (1962). Other notable credits include *Butterfield 8* (1960) and *Darling* (1965). He died on 25 November 1973. *Sources: screenonline.org.uk, en.wikipedia.org, oxforddnb.com.* ## On Fi1m (3) - *Darling* (1965), Fi1m 70, as Miles Brand — [page](https://film.one/film/darling.md) - *The Alamo* (1960), Fi1m 50, as Col. William Travis — [page](https://film.one/film/the-alamo.md) - *Room at the Top* (1958), Fi1m 82, as Joe Lampton — [page](https://film.one/film/room-at-the-top.md) ## Complete filmography (64) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Deep* (2007), as Hughie Warriner - *John Wayne's 'The Alamo'* (1992), as Col. William Travis - *Mission Mind Control* (1979), as Raymond Shaw (archive footage) - *Welcome to Arrow Beach* (1974), as Jason Henry · Director - *Night Watch* (1973), as John Wheeler - *Escape to the Sun* (1972), as Major Kirsanov - *Columbo* (1971), series, as Emmet Clayton — Fi1m 86, [page](https://film.one/tv/columbo.md) - *Night Gallery* (1970), series, as Steven Macy - *WUSA* (1970), as Farley - *The Magic Christian* (1969), as Hamlet - *He and She* (1969), as He - *The Fight for Rome II - The Betrayal* (1969), as Cethegus - *ITV Saturday Night Theatre* (1969), series, as Major Sergius Saranoff - *The Fight for Rome* (1968), as Cethegus - *Appointment in Beirut* (1968), as Jeff Miller - *The Winter's Tale* (1968), as King Leontes - *The Charge of the Light Brigade* (1968), as Russian Prince (Uncredited) - *A Dandy in Aspic* (1968), as Eberlin - *Dial M for Murder* (1967), as Tony Wendice - *The Spy with a Cold Nose* (1966), as Dr. Francis Trevelyan - *Life at the Top* (1965), as Joe Lampton - *Darling* (1965), as Miles Brand — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/darling.md) - *The Outrage* (1964), as Husband - *Of Human Bondage* (1964), as Philip Carey - *MGM 40th Anniversary* (1964), Actor - *The Ceremony* (1963), as Sean McKenna · Director, Additional Dialogue, Producer - *The Running Man* (1963), as Rex Black - *A Girl Named Tamiko* (1962), as Ivan Kalin - *The Manchurian Candidate* (1962), as Raymond Shaw - *The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm* (1962), as Wilhelm Grimm / Cobbler (segment "The Cobbler and the Elves") - *Noah and the Flood* (1962), as Narrator - *Walk on the Wild Side* (1962), as Dove Linkhorn - *Summer and Smoke* (1961), as John Buchanan Jr. - *Two Loves* (1961), as Paul Lathrope - *The Long and the Short and the Tall* (1961), as Pvt. 'Bammo' Bamforth - *BUtterfield 8* (1960), as Weston Liggett - *The Alamo* (1960), as Col. William Travis — Fi1m 50, [page](https://film.one/film/the-alamo.md) - *Expresso Bongo* (1959), as Johnny Jackson - *Power Among Men* (1959), as Narrator - *Room at the Top* (1958), as Joe Lampton — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/room-at-the-top.md) - *The Silent Enemy* (1958), as Lieutenant "Buster" Crabb, R.N.V.R. - *The Truth About Women* (1957), as Sir Humphrey Tavistock - *After the Ball* (1957), as Walter de Frece - *Three Men in a Boat* (1956), as George - *Storm Over the Nile* (1955), as John Durrance - *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* (1955), series, as Arthur Williams - *I Am a Camera* (1955), as Christopher Isherwood - *Romeo and Juliet* (1954), as Romeo - *King Richard and the Crusaders* (1954), as Sir Kenneth of the Leopard - *The Good Die Young* (1954), as Miles 'Rave' Ravenscourt - *Innocents in Paris* (1953), as Francois - *Women of Twilight* (1953), as Jerry Nolan - *A Killer Walks* (1952), as Ned Harsten - *I Believe in You* (1952), as Jordie Bennett - *There Is Another Sun* (1951), as Mag Maguire - *Scarlet Thread* (1951), as Freddie - *The Black Rose* (1950), as Edmond - *The Dancing Years* (1950), as Minor Role (uncredited) - *Cairo Road* (1950), as Lt. Mourad - *Sunday Night Theatre* (1950), series, as Cassio, Orlando - *Landfall* (1949), as PO Hooper - *Man on the Run* (1949), as Detective Sergeant Lawson - *The Man from Yesterday* (1949), as John Matthews - *House of Darkness* (1948), as Francis Merryman ## Gallery - ![Laurence Harvey](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-36c17379ef9c.png) Laurence Harvey — Cjiv, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Laurence_Harvey.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Laurence Harvey by his pool (1973)](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-5ead2a5f0961.jpg) Laurence Harvey by his pool (1973) — Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Laurence_Harvey_Pool.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Laurence Harvey at his home in Los Angeles. (1973)](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-a6997644d248.jpg) Laurence Harvey at his home in Los Angeles. (1973) — Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Laurence_Harvey_28_Allan_Warren.jpg/1280px-Laurence_Harvey_28_Allan_Warren.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Laurence Harvey taken in his home in Los Angeles (1973)](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-8794f8be723b.jpg) Laurence Harvey taken in his home in Los Angeles (1973) — Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Laurence_Harvey_29_Allan_Warren.jpg/1280px-Laurence_Harvey_29_Allan_Warren.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Laurence Harvey](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-3065b3b5fac7.jpg) Laurence Harvey — Image via TMDB - ![Laurence Harvey](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-27e48f386e38.jpg) Laurence Harvey — Image via TMDB - ![Carroll Baker with actor Laurence Harvey, ca. 1965](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-23dd7e894635.png) Carroll Baker with actor Laurence Harvey, ca. 1965 — Studio unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Carroll_Baker_w_Laurence_Harvey.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Jane Fonda and Laurence Harvey in the American drama film Walk on the Wild Side (1962).](https://film.one/media/person/1239969/gallery-fa0c02846a92.jpg) Jane Fonda and Laurence Harvey in the American drama film Walk on the Wild Side (1962). — Unknown photographer / Columbia Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Jane-Fonda-and-Laurence-Harvey-1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1960: Best Actor (nominated), for *Room at the Top* ### Other awards — 1 won - Theatre World Award 1956: Theatre World Award (won) *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/laurence-harvey