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(1913-1967)
Who Was Vivien Leigh?
Vivien Leigh was convent-educated in England và throughout Europe and was inspired by her schoolmate Maureen O"Sullivan to lớn embark on an acting career. Leigh earned international popularity and an Academy Award for her unforgettable portrayal of Scarlett O"Hara in David O. Selznick"s production of Gone with the Wind.
Early Life
Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, lớn an English stockbroker và his Irish wife. The family returned to England when Hartley was six years old. A year later, the precocious Hartley announced lớn classmate Maureen O"Sullivan that she "was going to lớn be famous." She was right, though her fame would eventually come under a different name.
As a teen, Vivian Hartley attended schools in England, France, Italy & Germany, becoming fluent in both French và Italian. She went on khổng lồ study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but put her career temporarily on hold at age 19, when she married a lawyer named Leigh Holman và had his daughter. Replacing the "a" in her first name with the less commonly used "e," Hartley used her husband"s name lớn craft a more glamorous stage name, Vivien Leigh.
Film và Onstage Debuts
Leigh made both her onstage & film debuts in 1935. She starred in the play The Bash, which wasn"t particularly successful but it allowed Leigh khổng lồ make an impression on producer Sydney Carroll, who soon cast the actress in her first London play; và landed the lead role in the aptly titled movie Things are Looking Up (1935).
Although Leigh was initially typecast as a fickle coquette, she began to explore more dynamic roles by doing Shakespearean plays at the Old Vic in London, England. There, she met và fell in love with Laurence Olivier, a respected actor who, like Leigh, already happened to lớn be married. The two soon embarked on a highly collaborative và inspired acting relationship—not to lớn mention a very public love affair.
"Gone with the Wind"
Around the same time, American director George Cukor was hunting for the perfect actress to lớn play the lead role of Scarlett O"Hara in his film adaptation of Gone with the Wind. "The girl I select must be possessed of the devil và charged with electricity," Cukor insisted at the time. An impressive list of Hollywood"s đứng top actresses, including Katharine Hepburn và Bette Davis, had long been vying for the part by the time Leigh, who was on a two-week vacation in California, took & passed the screen test.
Casting a virtually unknown British theater actress in the role of a Southern belle struggling for survival during the American Civil War was risky to say the least—especially considering that Gone with the Wind was already, even in pre-production, one of the most highly anticipated Hollywood pictures of all time. However, the decision paid off as the film smashed box office records, & garnered 13 Academy Award nominations & eight wins—including one for Leigh as best actress. Gone with the Wind remains one of the most iconic pictures in cinema history.
Finally having secured divorces from their respective spouses, Leigh & Olivier married in 1940, cementing their status as a powerhouse couple in the world of show business. The pair continued to co-star in movies và plays, but tried to lớn stay out of the limelight, often taking breaks of several years between films—this was partly due khổng lồ the deteriorating state of Leigh"s mental health, as increasingly severe bouts of manic depression strained her relationship with Olivier và made it difficult for her lớn perform.
Declining Health
Tragedy struck in 1944 when Leigh fell during a rehearsal for Caesar & Cleopatra and suffered a miscarriage. Her health took a turn for the worse; she became increasingly unstable while simultaneously battling insomnia, bipolar disorder và a respiratory ailment that was eventually diagnosed as tuberculosis. Hoping for relief, Leigh underwent electroshock therapy, which was very rudimentary at the time & sometimes left her with burn marks on her temples. It wasn"t long before she began lớn drink heavily.
Her increasingly troubled personal life forced Leigh lớn take occasional breaks from work throughout the 1940s, but she continued lớn take on many high-profile roles, both on the stage và screen. None could match the critical or commercial success she had won for playing O"Hara, however.
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Continued Success
That changed in 1949 when Leigh won the part of Blanche Du Bois in a London production of Tennessee Williams"s play, A Streetcar Named Desire. After a successful run that lasted nearly a year, Leigh was cast in the same demanding role in Elia Kazan"s 1951 Hollywood film adaptation, in which she starred opposite Marlon Brando. Her portrayal of Du Bois, a character struggling lớn hide a shattered psyche behind a facade of gentility, may have drawn on Leigh"s real-life struggles with mental illness, and perhaps even contributed khổng lồ them. The actress later said that the year she spent inside the tortured soul of Du Bois tipped her "into madness."
In the judgment of many critics, Leigh"s acting in Streetcar surpassed even her star turn in Gone with the Wind; she won a second Best Actress Oscar, as well as a new york Film Critics Award and a British Academy of Film & Television Arts Award, for the part.
Soon after, Leigh made theater history by starring alongside Olivier in simultaneous London stage productions of Shakespeare"s Antony & Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw"s Caesar và Cleopatra—both of which were critical successes.
Final Years & Death
Despite these triumphs, bipolar disorder continued lớn take a heavy toll on Leigh. After another miscarriage, she had a breakdown in 1953, forcing her to lớn withdraw from the filming of Elephant Walk và earning her a reputation for being difficult to work with. Additionally, her relationship with Olivier became more và more tumultuous; in 1960, their troubled marriage ended in divorce.
After Olivier remarried & started a new family, Leigh moved in with a younger actor named Jack Merivale. The change of pace seemed to vì chưng her good, as she re-emerged khổng lồ take part in several successful performances during the 1960s. In 1963, she headlined in a musical adaptation of Tovarich & earned her a first Tony Award. Two years later, she starred in the Oscar-winning film Ship of Fools.
Just before she began rehearsing for a London production of A Delicate Balance in 1967, Leigh fell seriously ill. A month passed before she finally succumbed khổng lồ her tuberculosis, on July 8, 1967, at the age of 53, in London, England. Marking a sad & premature over to a career that was both tumultuous và triumphant, the London theater district blacked out its lights for a full hour in Leigh"s honor.
In 2013, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London purchased her personal archives, which includes her personal diaries & previously unseen photographs. The museum"s director Martin Roth told UPI that the archive "not only represents Vivien Leigh"s career, but is also a fascinating insight into the theater & social world that surrounded her."
QUICK FACTSName: Vivien Birth Year: 1913Birth date: November 5, 1913Birth City: DarjeelingBirth Country: India
Gender: Female
Best Known For: Vivien Leigh was a British actress who achieved film immortality by playing two of American literature"s most celebrated Southern belles, Scarlett O"Hara and Blanche Du
Bois.Industries
Comedy
Theater và Dance
Drama
Astrological Sign: Scorpio
Schools
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Death Year: 1967Death date: July 8, 1967Death City: London, England
Death Country: United Kingdom
Fact Check
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CITATION INFORMATIONArticle Title: Vivien Leigh BiographyAuthor: Biography.com Editors
Website Name: The Biography.com website
Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/vivien-leigh
Access Date: Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
Last Updated: April 19, 2021Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
It was the movie that mix Hollywood and Atlanta on fire. But for Vivien Leigh, who played Southern belle Scarlet O’Hara, the making of “Gone With the Wind” was hell on earth.
The film would go on khổng lồ become the đứng top grossing movie of all time (adjusted for inflation, it boasted ticket sales of $1.823 billion), winning ten Academy Awards in 1939. But it took a significant toll on its 25-year-old female lead. Exhaustion & pressure from long days and nights on the movie mix had her taking sedatives to calm her hysteria until one day, she accidentally overdosed.
At the time, Leigh was involved in an affair with English actor Laurence Olivier. The two had fallen head over heels on the movie set “Fire Over England” two years before her starring role as Scarlett. Leigh had abandoned her husband, lawyer Herbert Leigh Holman, & their baby girl for Olivier — who had left his wife, actress Jill Esmond, & their young son.
“Howdareyou takefourpills like that, you hysterical little ninny,” Olivier wrote to lớn Leigh in a letter, having heard of her overdose. He also enjoyed penning her sexy letters, including one that read, “Urrgh! Bend over — Yes, take your drawers down – no, lift your skirt up –nowthen: Smack! Smack! Smack!,” according khổng lồ “Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and the Romance of the Century,” (Grand Central Publishing), out now, by Stephen Galloway.
The role of Scarlett, Leigh hoped, would make her a legitimate actress — and equal to Olivier, who was soaring creatively as a Shakespearean stage and film actor.
Almost as soon as filming began in December 1938, the problems started with the actress, who had undiagnosed bipolar disorder. In addition to lớn sudden crying và mood swings, she was plagued by other random maladies. Her eyes itched, and her skin was peeling from an allergy khổng lồ the red dirt that had been imported from Georgia to recreate the look of the South on the Hollywood set.
To make matters worse, her period was late — & she feared she would need an abortion, as neither she nor Olivier had planned on having children together. During down time on the set, Leigh invented a vile new trò chơi called “Ways lớn Kill a Baby.” Pretending she was holding a baby in her arms while driving, she would coo sweetly khổng lồ the infant before hurling it out the window.
Meanwhile Olivier, who was back on the East Coast testing for a film, was imploring her to lớn send him her underwear. “I am sitting naked with just my parts wrapped in your panties,” he wrote to lớn her. “My longing for you is so intense…”
“I’m so grateful to you,” Leigh told Selznick on her return to the set. “Larry met me in the hotel lobby, & we went upstairs, and we f–ked, & we f–ked, and we f–ked the whole weekend.”
Leigh wasn’t the only one on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The whole staff was suffering exhaustion from 3 a.m. Wake-up calls & long days.
Co-star Clark Gable arrived on phối with his own issues, because he had no say in the role, having been lent out by another studio. He feared he wouldn’t master the southern accent, and Leigh’s sophistication made him feel lượt thích a rube, insecure over his small-town upbringing in eastern Ohio. His mood softened when he received a knitted sock from his newest wife to keep his genitals warm. The instructions: “Don’t let it get cold. Bring it home hot for me.”
Instead, “Gone With The Wind” changed Leigh’s life forever và made her a superstar, but the exhaustion and dark moods that overwhelmed her on phối were only the beginning.
