Laurence Olivier looked very old for a man in his 40s in the scenes from the '30s, but then again, he looked very young for a man pushing 90 in the scenes from the '70s. This was one of his more forgettable films, but nonetheless, his performance accomplished what his makeup could not.
shareHe was being injected with monkey glands. A treatment of the rich to regain vim and vigour.
shareSounds like monkey glands were the '70s version of botox. Was that true in Olivier's case, or an urban legend?
shareI was just jokingly refering to Olivier's character. But monkey gland injections, and I think sheeps as well, was big in the 60s and 70s for the elite who wanted to ward off old father time!
shareYes, I know a lot of the rich and superficial people were doing that, but I didn't think Olivier was one of them. Today they have other ways to waste their money.
Thanks for setting the record straight. It's hard to tell sometimes on these boards when people are joking.
I had read that Sinatra, and Merle Oberon (at a clinic in Switzerland) had had these shots and in her case it may have contributed to her death; because she had been born with a weak heart and when she had the injections they caused her to gain weight but they also gave her an increased energy which she used to exercise to lose that weight; and it was that increased exercising that put a strain on her heart and eventually lead to her death at 68.
shareYes, there were a lot of those "medical breakthroughs" in the '70s (as there are today) that preyed on the wealthy, vain and gullible. In the '80s and '90s, a lot of people with HIV were going for "experimental" treatments like injection with baboon bone marrow cells; I don't think anything beneficial became of this.
It reminds me of a Bizarro cartoon I saw in the paper this morning. A doctor's standing over a confused patient on an operating table and says: "I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding. The baboon is getting the heart."
Like the joke.
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