Heathcliff, a foundling raised on the Yorkshire moors, loves Cathy Earnshaw with a passion that outlasts class, marriage and death itself.
In Wuthering Heights (1939), directed by William Wyler, Laurence Olivier plays Heathcliff, who is brought as a child to Wuthering Heights, the home of the Earnshaw family. He grows up with Cathy, played by Merle Oberon, and their childhood bond becomes an adult love that Cathy betrays by marrying Edgar Linton, played by David Niven, for status. Heathcliff leaves, returns wealthy, and takes revenge on those who wronged him.
Olivier plays Heathcliff with a fierce, brooding intensity that made him a star in America. He is not a polite hero but a man driven by a single feeling, and the film’s moorland setting, with its wind and darkness, matches his performance.
Wuthering Heights is a classic of romantic melodrama, and Olivier’s Heathcliff remains one of his most famous early roles: a lover who cannot be tamed, and who cannot be forgotten.