[3] While her parents toured with theatre companies, Esmond spent her childhood in boarding schools until she decided at the age of 14 to become an actress.

She made her stage debut playing Wendy to Gladys Cooper's Peter Pan, but her success was short-lived.

When her father died suddenly in 1922, in Paris, due to pneumonia,[4] Esmond returned to school and at the time considered abandoning her ambition to act.

[citation needed] After reassessing her future and coming to terms with her father's death, she studied with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and returned to the West End stage in 1924.

When Bird in the Hand was being staged on Broadway, Esmond was chosen to join the American production[6] – but Olivier was not.

Olivier continued to follow Esmond, and after proposing to her several times, she agreed and the couple were married on 25 July 1930 at All Saints', Margaret Street, London.

She also appeared in two Broadway productions with Olivier, Private Lives in 1931 with Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence and The Green Bay Tree in 1933.

Olivier had discovered that Katharine Hepburn had been offered a much greater salary, and persuaded Esmond to turn down the role.

[14][15] Among the films she appeared in are Journey for Margaret, The Pied Piper and Random Harvest, all in 1942, My Pal Wolf (1944), The White Cliffs of Dover (1944) and The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946).