He was born to Lithuanian Jewish parents and emigrated to South Africa at an early age, before later settling in the United Kingdom after World War II.

Harvey was born in Joniškis, Lithuania, the youngest of three sons of Ella (née Zotnickaita) and Ber Skikne, Lithuanian Jewish parents.

[8][better source needed] As the mystery guest on the American TV show What's My Line?, screened 1 May 1960, Harvey stated that he arrived in South Africa in 1934 and moved to the UK in 1946.

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).

[16] 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).

[11] He had a small role in the Hollywood-financed The Black Rose (1950), starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, directed by Henry Hathaway.

While Basil Dearden's direction focused on honest Harry Fowler, it was Harvey's Jordie who supplied an authentic glimpse of pin-table thuggery, his clothes and hairstyle on the cusp between cosh-boy and ted and his manner redolent of a languorous sexuality no amount of National Service could quell.

He had an especially strong role in the latter, which was directed by Lewis Gilbert, and featured Hollywood actors such as John Ireland, Richard Basehart and Gloria Grahame, along with Leighton.

"[17] Harvey received an offer to play the juvenile male lead in the Hollywood spectacular King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), a medieval swashbuckler for Warner Bros starring Rex Harrison, Virginia Mayo and George Sanders.

[12] According to a contemporary interview, he turned down an offer to appear in Helen of Troy (1955) to act at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he again performed in Romeo and Juliet, this time on stage.

[21] Romulus gave Harvey another excellent chance when he was cast as the writer Christopher Isherwood in I Am A Camera (1955), with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles.

He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play Island of Goats, a flop that closed after one week, though his performance won him a 1956 Theatre World Award.

Harvey returned to Broadway in 1957 to appear alongside Julie Harris, Pamela Brown and Colleen Dewhurst in William Wycherley's The Country Wife (a production he had originally starred in at London's Royal Court Theatre).

[24] Harvey's breakthrough to international stardom came after he was cast by director Jack Clayton as the social climber Joe Lampton in Room at the Top (1959), produced by Romulus.

It was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1959 and a hit in the U.S. Harvey went to Broadway in 1958, as Shakespeare's Henry V, as part of the Old Vic company, which featured a young Judi Dench as Katherine, the daughter of the king of France.

[30] Back in Britain, Harvey was cast in the film version of The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961) in a role originally performed by Peter O'Toole during the play's West End run.

[32] In the U.S., he supported Shirley MacLaine in MGM's Two Loves (1961) and co-starred with Geraldine Page in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke (1961), directed by Peter Glenville.

[34] Harvey played the male lead in Walk on the Wild Side (1962), produced by Charles Feldman, cast alongside Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Fonda and Capucine.

"[6] The same year, he recorded an album of spoken excerpts from the book This Is My Beloved by Walter Benton, accompanied by original music by Herbie Mann.

Harvey appeared as the brainwashed US Army Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw in the Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury.

Harvey went to Japan to make A Girl Named Tamiko (1962) with France Nuyen for director John Sturges and producer Hal Wallis.

[37] Harvey played King Arthur in the 1964 London production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical Camelot at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

[11] Harvey starred in a version of The Doctor and the Devils directed by Nicholas Ray from a script by Dylan Thomas but the film was not completed.

[17] Harvey co-starred with Israeli actress Daliah Lavi in the comedy The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), a parody of the James Bond films.

Harvey's scenes were cut from the movie at Richardson's insistence except for a brief glimpse as an anonymous member of a theatre audience which, technically, still met the requirements of the legal settlement.

The critics greeted it with disdain but the plot was tailor-made for Harvey, who plays a Russian spy who has adopted an English identity so he can go undercover within British Intelligence.

[54] Harvey starred in Escape to the Sun (1972), directed by Menahem Golan and was reunited with Elizabeth Taylor in Night Watch (1973), financed by Brut Productions.

[55] The same company financed Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974), which Harvey directed and starred in; the cast also included his friend Pettet, John Ireland and Stuart Whitman.

[68] According to his obituary in The New York Times: With his clipped speech, cool smile and a cigarette dangling impudently from his lips, Laurence Harvey established himself as the screen's perfect pin-striped cad.

"[6]According to Sight and Sound, "Any young actor who delighted in pink bathroom suites and liked to compare himself favourably to Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson – preferably in the same sentence – was clearly going to find it hard to fit the mould of New Elizabethan chappism promoted by Rank and ABPC ... Harvey flaunted a cigarette holder almost as a parody of Terry Thomas' and boasted that his drainpipe trousers pre-dated the teddy boys'.