30 Years of Brilliance: 1930-1959
Vivien Leigh struggled with alcoholism and mental illness most of her life, was a heavy smoker, and died of tuberculosis at the young age of 53. She only made 20 films. Yet she won 2 Best Actress Awards playing American Southern Belles and immortalized two of the greatest women's roles the silver screen has ever seen- Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Along the way she married, and divorced, one of the greatest actors of the century - Sir Laurence Olivier.
In January of 1932 Vivien met Leigh Holman while staying at her aunt's in Teignmouth, England. Although he was 13 years her senior, an attachment quickly developed between the two and they spent several months courting and corresponding and on December 20th 1932 they were married. Shortly after they returned from their honeymoon in Austria, Vivien began her acting studies at RADA She gave birth to a daughter on October 10th 1933, naming her Suzanne.
Her friends suggested her for a small part in the film Things Are Looking Up, which marked her film debut. She engaged an agent, John Gliddon, who believed that the name "Vivian Holman" was not suitable for an actress, and after rejecting his suggestion, "April Morn", she took first "Vivian" and then the more conventionally spelt "Vivien Leigh" as her professional name.
Cast in the play The Mask of Virtue in 1935, Leigh received excellent reviews, the play was a great success and Vivien became an overnight sensation. Alexander Korda came to see the opening night and he placed the twenty-two-year-old actress under contract to his company London Films.
She met Laurence Oliver at the Old Vic, appearing with him on-stage as Ophelia in Hamlet and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and later together on screen in 1937's Fire Over England.
Olivier and Leigh developed a strong attraction, and after filming was completed, they began an affair. At the time, both were married (Olivier to actress Jill Esmond). But young Vivien was a very determined woman, and said from the moment she set eyes on Laurence Olivier she was determined to have him.
She went to Hollywood with Olivier in 1938 and they visited the set of 'Gone With The Wind' which had started filming without a lead actress. Quite how meticulously arranged this visit was is a matter of dispute but her appearance on set while Atlanta burned secured her the coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara. Vivien gave a masterly peformance, won the Best Actress award and created a movie legend. She had also made herself world-famous.In February 1940, Jill Esmond agreed to divorce Olivier, and Holman also agreed to divorce Leigh, although they maintained a strong friendship for the rest of Leigh's life. On August 30 Olivier and Leigh were married in Santa Barbara, California.
In 1950 Leigh played the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. The play was both controversial and successful. After 326 performances, Leigh finished her run; however, she was soon engaged for the film version. Her irreverent and often bawdy sense of humour allowed her to establish a rapport with her co-star Marlon Brando.
The film won glowing reviews for her, and she won a second Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Tennessee Williams commented that Leigh brought to the role "everything that I intended, and much that I had never dreamed of," but in later years, Leigh would say that playing Blanche DuBois "tipped me over into madness." Indeed, after 1951, a year of great achievements, her life began an inexorable downhill spiral.
Affected by bipolar disorder for most of her adult life, Leigh's extreme moods were often misunderstood, and as she gained a reputation for being difficult, her career went through periods of decline. She was further weakened by recurrent bouts of tuberculosis, which was first diagnosed in the mid-1940s. In her private life, however, Leigh began developing severe emotional and health problems that would eventually damage her marriage to Olivier (whom she divorced in 1960) and seriously impede her ability to perform on-stage or before the camera.
Despite her struggles with manic depression, she managed to turn in first-rate performances in such films as The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) and Ship of Fools (1965), and maintained a busy theatrical schedule, including a 1963 musical version of Tovarich and a 1966 Broadway appearance opposite John Gielgud in Ivanov. Leigh was preparing to star in the London production of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance when she was found dead from tuberculosis in her London apartment in 1967.
In tribute to Vivien Leigh, the lights in London's theater district were blacked out for an hour.
