Introduction

Leigh was an English actress. She won two Best Actress Academy Awards for playing "southern belles": Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she also played on stage in London's West End.

Vivien

When I come into the theatre I get a sense of security. I love an audience. I love people, and I act because I like trying to give pleasure to people-Vivien Leigh

GROWING UP
Vivien Leigh was born
Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5th, 1913 in India.

As a child, she was

encourage to read early on and became fond of authors such as Rudyard Kipling, Hans Christian Anderson, and Lewis Carroll.

She moved to England

with her family at the age of 6.

In 1920, Vivien was placed in the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Roehampton. She studied ballet, played the cello in the school orchestra, and excelled at piano. At the age of 15, she went to Paris to spend a term at a finishing school in Auteuil

In January of 1932 Vivien met Leigh Holman

On October 10th 1933, Vivien gave birth to a daughter, naming her Suzanne

A New Career
Things are Looking Up (August 1934) Look Up and Laugh (1935) The Mask of Virtue (1935)
A great success and Vivien became an overnight sensation. Alexander Korda asked her to sign a contract that would guarantee 50 thousand pounds over a 5 year period.

Meeting Olivier

Laurence Olivier was 7 years her elder and made his way to the London stage by the time he was 21.

In August 1936, he was asked to co-star in what would be Vivien's first film for Alexander Korda, Fire Over England.

To continue her contract with Alexander Korda, Vivien would now star in a second feature alongside Olivier, entitled Twenty-One Days.

On June 16th, after a brief run on stage in Hamlet, again opposite Olivier, Vivien left her husband Leigh, moving to Chelsea with her new found love

FAME AND FORTUNE

I'm reading Gone With the Wind, but if I brought it here I shouldn't be able to start working. I've never been so gripped by anything in my life. It's the finest book I've ever read, what a grand film it would make! I've cast myself for Scarlett O'Hara. What do you think? - Vivien on the set of
Twenty-One Days

After a remarkably well

timed introduction to David O. Selznick by her Hollywood agent on December 10th, the first night of location shooting, Vivien did screen tests for her dream role.

Vivien completed her work on June 27th and as they say, the rest is history. Her performance carried the film and helped create the success and popularity that would never cease, even today.

Both Selznick, and the film's director George Cukor, were impressed by her talent and beauty.

Gone With The Wind

Over 5000 items had been designed for the wardrobe Half a million feet of film shot Approximately 85 hours of raw footage 90 sets built

Winner of 10 Academy Awords

60 million people waited anxiously across the United States to see it that winter, and the book remained a consistent best-seller. A legend had been born

In May 1940, Waterloo Bridge was released in America to favorable reviews and critics were surprised to see a different side of the actress, not just another variation on Scarlett.

It was released in July 1941. Despite poor reviews, That Hamilton Woman became a box office success.

Maturing Skills
On August 31st, 1940 Vivien and Laurence finally got married. The Skin of Our Teeth opened in May of 1945 to outstanding reviews and high acclaim for Vivien's portrayal of Sabina. It was considered her finest role on stage, and her contemporaries acknowledged her as a gifted actress on stage and screen. The next year Vivien began work on Anna Karenina. In the end, the film was a disappointment, 'a beautiful failure', which added to Vivien affliction.

When the autumn of 1949 arrived, Vivien began work on yet another play, this time by a popular new playwright, Tennessee Williams, called A Streetcar Named Desire.

For many, it is Vivien's most powerful and moving performance, realistically showing the disturbing journey of a woman's disintegration into madness. The play ran for 326 performances, each leaving Vivien shaking and tense afterward.

Final Years And Death

In 1958, considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with the actor Jack Merivale. In May 1967, she was rehearsing to appear with Michael Redgrave in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance when she suffered a recurrence of tuberculosis On the night of 7 July 1967, Merivale discovered her body on the floor.

She was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium; and her ashes were scattered on the lake at her home

Analyzing her career today, it is easy to note how often her acting appeared false when she was not captured by the same excitement she felt when she played Scarlett in Gone with the Wind or Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that Vivien Leigh was at the centre of one of the most important events in film history, and at the same time, of one of the most romantic and tragic marriages in Hollywood. It was her part in both these widely read scripts that sealed her lasting fame.