PEOPLE SAID ABOUT VIVIEN LEIGH

"If you want a label for her type," said a caption in Vogue under one of Cecil Beaton's earliest gallery portraits of her wearing Stiebel's blue and green plaid velvet jacket over dark skirt, "call it "exotic".

Gertrude Hartley (mother): She was never a sleepy child.

John Gliddon: Vivien, you're going to be a great star - as great as Garbo. (1935)
John Gliddon: It became obvious to me that if ever I was fortunate enough to bring an offer to Vivien that would prove acceptable to her and meet Olivier's approval, then it would be a miracle. It was from that moment on that I knew my usefulness to Vivien was running out. She had found another adviser and he was one with whom I simply couldn't compete.
John Gliddon: Vivien was sunk, but didn't she make a full about the cost of a ruined pair of shoes! She demanded MGM reimburse her.

Anthony Quayle: All she wanted to do was to talk about Larry, and so I went along with that, gazing on that beautiful face with unhopeful ardor. (During the film "Storm in a Teacup")

Stewart Granger: She was appalling because when Vivien spoke, you could hear Larry. (about 1938)

Elaine Dundy (wife of British theatre critics, Kenneth Tynan): To me Vivien Leigh was a tragic heroine of classic proportions: chosen, blessed and abandoned by the gods. Obstinately she tried to control and defy her destiny and to know her story is to be inspired by pity and terror.

ABOUT SCARLETT O'HARA

David Selznick: I took one look and knew that she was right. (1938, before "Gone with the wind")

George Cukor: (about Scarlett O'Hara role) I saw her in "A Yank at Oxford" and she seems to be a little static, not quite sufficiently fiery for the role.

Margaret Mitchell: She is my Scarlett. (1939)

Suzan Hayward: She should have been Scarlett!

George Cukor: In the scene with Douglass Montgomery - that was before Leslie Howard was cast - you can see why she [Vivien Leigh] got the job. (March 1968)

ABOUT VIVIEN'S PARTIES

Lady Redgrave: She never tired. It was incredible. Larry and the rest of us would quite obviously be dying on our feet, but not Vivien. She simply never looked or behaved as if she as tired.

Rachel Kempson: Vivien made every weekend so special and wonderful. She was such a loving and giving person.

Peter Finch: An attitude circulated that these weekend parties were in some way exclusive gatherings of a small and somewhat superior theatrical clique. It was never like that. Vivien adored her home and she was never happier than when she could share the peace and beauty of Notley... Larry, I remember, spent much of his time enjoying his hobby of tree pruning. I spent one glorious afternoon employed on nothing more glamorous than cleaning out a stretch of clogged-up river.

Trader Faukner (actor and friend): If you upset her, she could be a scorpion, but it was part of her personality. She could be dangerous. She could be very, very dangerous, but also she could be very sweet, very charming, and very warming.

Simone Signoret: I will miss her, her laughs and her screams, her humour and her toughness and her tenderness.