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Vivien Leigh biography

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Quick Facts

  • PLACE OF BIRTH: Darjeeling, India
  • PLACE OF DEATH: London, United Kingdom
  • Originally: Vivian Mary Hartley
more about Vivian

Best Known For

This British actress achieved film immortality by playing two of American literature's most celebrated Southern belles, Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois.


Synopsis

Vivien Leigh was born November 5, 1913 in Darjeeling, India to a Yorkshire stockbroker. She was convent-educated in England and throughout Europe, and inspired by her schoolmate Marueen O'Sullivan to embark on an acting career. Leigh earned international popularity and an Academy Award for her unforgettable portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in David O. Selznick's production of Gone with the Wind.

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(born November 5, 1913, Darjeeling, India—died July 8, 1967, London, England) British actress who achieved motion picture immortality by playing two of American literature's most celebrated Southern belles, Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois.

The daughter of a Yorkshire stockbroker, she was born in India and convent-educated in England and throughout Europe. Inspired by the example of her schoolmate Maureen O'Sullivan, she embarked upon an acting career, enrolling at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1932. That same year she married her first husband, British barrister Herbert Leigh Holman, and adopted his middle name as her professional name. After her film debut in Things Are Looking Up (1934), she appeared in several more British “quota quickies” before making her first stage appearance in The Green Sash (1935). Although she possessed a weak stage voice at this point in her career, her stunning stage presence and beauty were impossible to ignore, and in 1935 she was signed to a contract by movie mogul Alexander Korda. During her initial burst of film stardom Leigh began an affair with British leading man Laurence Olivier, then married to actress Jill Esmond. The two lovers would subsequently appear together on stage and screen, notably in Korda's Fire Over England (1937) and 21 Days (filmed 1937, released 1940; also released as 21 Days Together).

In 1938 Olivier and Leigh traveled to Hollywood, he to star in Samuel Goldwyn's Wuthering Heights (1939), she to audition for the highly coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in the David O. Selznick production of Margaret Mitchell's best-seller Gone with the Wind (1939). Much to the surprise of industry insiders, she won the role over hundreds of candidates. Her unforgettable screen portrayal of Mitchell's resilient heroine earned her not only international popularity but also an Academy Award. She capped this professional high point with her 1940 marriage to Olivier; the newlyweds subsequently costarred in the historical drama That Hamilton Woman (1941), acclaimed by Sir Winston Churchill as his all-time favourite film.

Pregnant during production of Caesar and Cleopatra in 1944 (released 1946), Leigh suffered an on-set accident that resulted in a miscarriage. While some film historians have traced her subsequent struggle with manic-depressive psychosis to this incident, other reports indicate that she evinced signs of her illness as early as the late 1930s. Despite her fragile health (she also suffered from tuberculosis)

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