Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5, 1913 in Darjeeling, India. She and her parents later moved to England, where young Leigh grew up.
She was married at nineteen to Leigh Holman, and they had a daughter, Suzanne, in 1933.
Leigh's career began on the stage. Her first play was "The Green Sash", though it was "Mask of Virtue" that really brought her to stardom. In 1935, she began her film career with such movies as "The Village Squire", "Things are Looking Up", and "Look Up and Laugh". Leigh is best known, however, for her role of Scarlett O'Hara in the American film Gone With the Wind (1939), for which she won an Academy Award.
In 1940, Leigh arranged for a divorce from Holman and married British theatre star Laurence Olivier. The pair had met in 1935 and had begun a rather public love affair. At the time, both were married; (Olivier to actress Jill Esmond).
In 1944, the actress was diagnosed as having a tuberculosis patch on her left lung. Though she continued her career with such plays as Thorton Wilder's "Skin of Our Teeth", and the 1946 film "Caesar and Cleopatra", her illness was getting worse. In 1951, however, Leigh won a second Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire". By the early sixties, Leigh had suffered two miscarriages and the severity of the tuberculosis was incapacitating. She had also been plagued by manic-depression for some time. In 1960, she and Olivier divorced on supposedly friendly terms. Leigh continued to keep a framed photograph of him on her bedside table, even while living with companion Jack Merivale.
On July 8, 1967, the actress died of chronic tuberculosis in her London home. She was 53 years old.
Filmography:
1934:
- Things Are Looking Up
1935:
- The Village Squire
- Gentleman's Agreement
- Look Up And Laugh
1937:
- Fire Over England
- Dark Journey
- Storm In A Teacup
- Twenty-One Days
1938:
- A Yank At Oxford
- St. Martins Lane
1939:
1940:
- Waterloo Bridge
1941:
- That Hamilton Woman
1945:
- Caeser and Cleopatra
1947:
- Anna Karenina
1951:
1955:
- The Deep Blue Sea
1961:
- The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
1965:
- Ship of Fools
Eternal Links:
["Biography.com, Leigh, Vivien"]