© Ballistik Coffee Boy (Flickr) vivien leigh
© Ballistik Coffee Boy (Flickr)
Vivien Leigh was born as Vivian Hartley in India, due to her father being a British officer in the Indian Cavalry. The family sent Vivian to convent school at the age of six, where she was to meet another future great actress and beauty, Maureen O’Sullivan.
Fiercely determined to become an actress, Vivian tried her hand at acting on the stage as an adolescent. A marriage to the barrister Leigh Holman and the birth of their daughter Suzanne, did not change her ambitions. After some small parts on stage and screen Vivian got a break in 1935 in the theatre production of ‘The Mask of Virtue’, that earned her some good reviews and got her noticed. More importantly Alexander Korda, one of Britain’s leading film producers, signed her to a contract. Now rechristened Vivien Leigh, the young actress was cast opposite Laurence Olivier in ‘Fire over England’. Leigh and Olivier were instantly attracted to each other and started a passionate affair.
Then came the big break when Leigh was cast as Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara in the film adaptation of Margeret Mitchell’s ‘Gone With the Wind’. Leigh won the Oscar for best actress of 1939 and married Olivier. Together they acted mainly on the stage and were seen as Britain’s acting royalty. After Olivier was knighted Vivien became Lady Olivier.
All though the couple seemed to have it all on the surface, the psychological problems of Vivien were causing their marriage to crumble. Vivien struggled with manic depression and even received electro shock therapy to try and cure her ailments. Her health took a turn for the worst when she played fading Southern belle Blanche Dubois in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, first on the stage in London, then in the film adaptation opposite Marlon Brando. Playing troubled Blanche earned her a second Oscar, but shortly after the movie wrapped, the Oliviers announced their divorce after twenty years of marriage.
Vivien was afraid her great beauty was standing in the way of being taken seriously as an actress, today she is remembered as both. She passed away from tuberculosis in 1967, just 53 years old.