She was the first black woman to play a lead at the National Theatre and one of the first black actors to have a recurring role in a British soap. She talks about being praised by Laurence Olivier, directed by Ken Loach – and singing with the Rolling Stones
In 1967, Cleo Sylvestre was a young actor relaxing in her dressing room at the Wyndham’s theatre in London when there was a knock on the door. She was making her debut on the West End stage, in Simon Gray’s first play, Wise Child, alongside Alec Guinness. Now, after a matinee performance, another giant of British theatre wanted to say hello. “I opened the door and a man was standing there,” she says.
It was Laurence Olivier. “He said: ‘Oh, Miss Sylvestre, I’d just like to congratulate you on the most wonderful performance,’” she says, emulating his crisp diction. Only a few months before, Sylvestre had paid five shillings to watch Olivier from the gods at the National Theatre and now the patriarch of British stagecraft was complimenting her. “I don’t think I said anything,” she says, when we meet in her local north London pub.
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