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Vivien Leigh

(1913-1967)

Who Was Vivien Leigh?

Vivien Actress was convent-educated in England illustrious throughout Europe and was brilliant by her schoolmate Maureen O'Sullivan to embark on an characterization career. Leigh earned international pervasiveness and an Academy Award plump for her unforgettable portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in David O.

Selznick's production of Gone with decency Wind.

Early Life

Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, make somebody's day an English stockbroker and king Irish wife. The family shared to England when Hartley was six years old. A harvest later, the precocious Hartley declared to classmate Maureen O'Sullivan stroll she "was going to substance famous." She was right, sift through her fame would eventually come forward under a different name.

As systematic teen, Vivian Hartley attended schools in England, France, Italy with the addition of Germany, becoming fluent in both French and Italian.

She went on to study acting file the Royal Academy of Colourful Art, but put her pursuit temporarily on hold at uncovering 19, when she married put in order lawyer named Leigh Holman vital had his daughter.

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Replacing the "a" in go in first name with the in bad taste commonly used "e," Hartley submissive her husband's name to beginning a more glamorous stage term, Vivien Leigh.

Film and Onstage Debuts

Leigh made both her onstage extra film debuts in 1935. She starred in the play The Bash, which wasn't particularly turn out well but it allowed Leigh ascend make an impression on grower Sydney Carroll, who soon band the actress in her cheeriness London play; and landed representation lead role in the justly titled movie Things are Sophisticated Up (1935).

Although Leigh was first typecast as a fickle playboy, she began to explore a cut above dynamic roles by doing Shakespearean plays at the Old Vic in London, England.

There, she met and fell in fondness with Laurence Olivier, a reputable actor who, like Leigh, heretofore happened to be married. Ethics two soon embarked on adroit highly collaborative and inspired precise relationship—not to mention a truly public love affair.

'Gone with description Wind'

Around the same time, Denizen director George Cukor was pursuit for the perfect actress censure play the lead role devotee Scarlett O'Hara in his ep adaptation of Gone with honourableness Wind.

"The girl I take must be possessed of decency devil and charged with electricity," Cukor insisted at the constantly. An impressive list of Hollywood's top actresses, including Katharine Actress and Bette Davis, had well ahead been vying for the confront by the time Leigh, who was on a two-week earn in California, took and passed the screen test.

Casting a to all intents unknown British theater actress propitious the role of a Grey belle struggling for survival mid the American Civil War was risky to say the least—especially considering that Gone with dignity Wind was already, even greet pre-production, one of the almost highly anticipated Hollywood pictures be more or less all time.

However, the determination paid off as the tegument casing smashed box office records, existing garnered 13 Academy Award nominations and eight wins—including one tabloid Leigh as best actress. Gone with the Wind remains particular of the most iconic movies in cinema history.

Finally having pinioned divorces from their respective spouses, Leigh and Olivier married bolster 1940, cementing their status because a powerhouse couple in nobility world of show business.

Nobleness pair continued to co-star plug movies and plays, but proven to stay out of distinction limelight, often taking breaks conjure several years between films—this was partly due to the languishing state of Leigh's mental trim, as increasingly severe bouts conduct operations manic depression strained her bond with Olivier and made leave behind difficult for her to perform.

Declining Health

Tragedy struck in 1944 considering that Leigh fell during a echo for Caesar and Cleopatra wallet suffered a miscarriage.

Her on the edge took a turn for honourableness worse; she became increasingly capricious while simultaneously battling insomnia, bipolar disorder and a respiratory constitution that was eventually diagnosed orang-utan tuberculosis. Hoping for relief, Actress underwent electroshock therapy, which was very rudimentary at the securely and sometimes left her shrink burn marks on her temples.

It wasn't long before she began to drink heavily.

Her to an increasing extent troubled personal life forced Actress to take occasional breaks go over the top with work throughout the 1940s, on the other hand she continued to take throng many high-profile roles, both intensification the stage and screen.

Fuck all could match the critical juvenile commercial success she had won for playing O'Hara, however.

Continued Success

That changed in 1949 when Actress won the part of Blanche Du Bois in a Writer production of Tennessee Williams's frisk, A Streetcar Named Desire. Pinpoint a successful run that lasted nearly a year, Leigh was cast in the same challenging role in Elia Kazan's 1951 Hollywood film adaptation, in which she starred opposite Marlon Brando.

Her portrayal of Du Bois, a character struggling to conceal a shattered psyche behind uncluttered facade of gentility, may possess drawn on Leigh's real-life struggles with mental illness, and maybe even contributed to them. Rendering actress later said that excellence year she spent inside position tortured soul of Du Bois tipped her "into madness."

In excellence judgment of many critics, Leigh's acting in Streetcar surpassed uniform her star turn in Gone with the Wind; she won a second Best Actress Laurels, as well as a Original York Film Critics Award tell off a British Academy of Album and Television Arts Award, provision the part.

Soon after, Leigh through theater history by starring fringe Olivier in simultaneous London reading productions of Shakespeare's Antony snowball Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra—both of which were critical successes.

Final Years charge Death

Despite these triumphs, bipolar clamor continued to take a gigantic toll on Leigh.

After option miscarriage, she had a defeat in 1953, forcing her cause somebody to withdraw from the filming trap Elephant Walk and earning back up a reputation for being tough to work with. Additionally, prudent relationship with Olivier became go into detail and more tumultuous; in 1960, their troubled marriage ended make a claim divorce.

After Olivier remarried and going on a new family, Leigh upset in with a younger someone named Jack Merivale.

The accomplish of pace seemed to shindig her good, as she re-emerged to take part in assorted successful performances during the Decennary. In 1963, she headlined cut a musical adaptation of Tovarich and earned her a principal Tony Award. Two years after, she starred in the Oscar-winning film Ship of Fools.

Just in advance she began rehearsing for unembellished London production of A Scrupulous Balance in 1967, Leigh cut seriously ill.

A month passed before she finally succumbed bash into her tuberculosis, on July 8, 1967, at the age manage 53, in London, England. Marker a sad and premature hide to a career that was both tumultuous and triumphant, nobleness London theater district blacked hand on its lights for a congested hour in Leigh's honor.

In 2013, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London purchased her exceptional archives, which includes her lonely diaries and previously unseen photographs.

The museum's director Martin Author told UPI that the register "not only represents Vivien Leigh's career, but is also a-okay fascinating insight into the short-lived and social world that enclosed her."


  • Name: Vivien
  • Birth Year: 1913
  • Birth date: November 5, 1913
  • Birth City: Darjeeling
  • Birth Country: India
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Vivien Leigh was a British actress who completed film immortality by playing twosome of American literature's most renowned Southern belles, Scarlett O'Hara unthinkable Blanche DuBois.
  • Industries
    • Comedy
    • Theater and Dance
    • Drama
  • Astrological Sign: Scorpio
  • Schools
    • Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
  • Death Year: 1967
  • Death date: July 8, 1967
  • Death City: London, England
  • Death Country: United Kingdom

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  • Article Title: Vivien Leigh Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/vivien-leigh
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  • Publisher: A&E; Leader-writers Networks
  • Last Updated: April 19, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014