ABOUT VIVIEN LEIGH

Vivian Mary Hartley (November 5, 1913) known as Vivien Leigh was a legendary beauty whose film fame rests largely on her two Oscar-winning roles: in Gone with the Wind (1939) and in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

Trained at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), Vivien claimed the stage (debut 1935) as her first allegiance, though the jury remained divided about her work in classical drama. She entered films in 1935, getting her first major chance in Fire Over England (1937), as romantic interest of her future husband Laurence Olivier.

Later, there were also romantic-tragic successes in two US films - Waterloo Bridge (1940) and That Hamilton Woman (1941). However, Vivien Leigh's postwar British films saw her unequal to the demands of Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), Anna Karenina (1948) and The Deep Blue Sea (1955).

Vivien Leigh was a prolific stage performer, frequently in collaboration with Laurence Olivier, who directed her in several of her roles. She played parts that ranged from the heroines of Noel Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet, and Lady Macbeth.

Lauded for her beauty, Vivien Leigh often felt that it prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress. Also, affected by bipolar disorder for most of her adult life, Vivien Leigh gained a reputation for being a difficult person to work with, and her career went through periods of decline. She was further weakened by recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, with which she was diagnosed in the mid-1940s.
Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier divorced in 1960, and Vivien worked sporadically in film and theatre until her death from tuberculosis (July 8, 1967).