Vivien Leigh - best known as the star of the classic movie "Gone with the wind"
Vivian Mary Hartley was born on November 5, 1913 in Darjeeling, India. Her parents, Ernest Hartley and Gertrude Yackjee spent a little time in Darjeeling with Vivien, before taking her back to England. They enrolled her in The Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton, England. There, she grew up alongside the actress Maureen O'Sullivan (who died this past year). Upon leaving the school, Vivien traveled with her parents all over Europe, and was enrolled in many Catholic Schools. In the early thirties, she met Leigh Holman, quite a bit older than she, yet she married him anyway, at age eighteen. On October 12, 1933, Suzanne Holman was born.
Vivien's stage debut was in The Green Sash , but it was her performance as Henriette Duquesnoy in The Mask of Virtue that earned her critical acclaim, and the eye of famed director, Alexander Korda. Holman thought her beginning obsession with acting was just a hobby, he knew nothing of the extent to which Vivien would go to be "a great actress". Still married to Holman, Vivien began performing in many plays including Richard III , The Happy Hypocrite , and Henry VIII. By this time, Vivien had developed a sort of mild obsession with the English theatre star, Laurence Olivier. They'd first met at the Savoy Grill, through much of her own arranging and in 1936, they were paired to do their first film, Fire Over England.
As far as they were concerned, both of their respective marriages were over, despite Olivier's wife's (Jill Esmond, daughter of the famed actress Eva Moore and H.V. Esmond) impending pregnancy, and Vivien's husband and child, they were both headstrong and determined. After the film, they signed on to do a second film called Twenty-One Days (there are other variations of the title), during the filming, they took time off to perform Hamlet at Elsinore Castle in Germany. According to documentaries, the film was considered so ridiculously horrible that it was shelved until 1940, when both Vivien and Olivier had made names for themselves, internationally. On August 21, 1936, Tarquin Olivier was born, but it was merely a small stepping stone in the blooming romance.
Vivien's first film was The Village Squire in 1935 as Rose Venables. The same year she had minor roles in Things are Looking Up as a school girl with one line; also in Look Up and Laugh as Marjorie Belfer; and finally in The Gentleman's Agreement as Phil Stanley. As early as 1937, they realized that they must marry, despite the young children in each marriage. But Olivier's wife, [who rumor-has-it preferred the company of women] did not want a divorce and neither did Holman. So, Vivien kept working, and soon in 1937 [with the rest of the world], she read the very-popular Margaret Mitchell novel, Gone With the Wind . She was engrossed in it, in fact, giving a copy to every cast and crew member on the current play she was in. She decided the moment she read the novel that she would indeed play Scarlett O'Hara, two years before it actually happened.
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Producer, David O. Selznick, (who had bought the rights to the book), was looking for his Scarlett. The search lasted two years, and was only brought to an end by a diliberate meeting of Vivien to Selznick by Olivier and Myron Selznick (Olivier's agent). He knew immediately that she was to be his Scarlett, after forgetting how she had already auditioned and he'd given her the cold shoulder. Vivien was screentested, and contracts were signed with the rest of the cast including Leslie Howard, Clark Gable and Olivia deHavilland. Filming began in January 1939; and was said to be quite long and excruitiating. It would turn out to be the turning point in Vivien's life, and what would shape and mold her acting experience, for the rest of her life. In the early months of production, the director, George Cukor was fired and repalced by The Wizard of Oz director Victor Fleming. Vivien once said that Cukor was her last chance at happiness on the set. Both she and deHavilland were known to have called him, and visited him on many occasions for further direction.
Vivien won an Academy Award (Oscar) in 1940; though she had been barred from seeing Olivier during the production, he was allowed to attend as publicity for his nominated film Willian Wyler's Wuthering Heights. By late 1940, World War II was already raging in England, both Olivier and Leigh received divorces from their respective spouses; unable to get back to England they decided to spend their joint fortune on a tour of Romeo and Juliet. It was a short-lived tour, a financial disaster, but nonetheless occupying. Olivier's divorce was granted in mid-August, they registered for a marriage license and paraded to Santa Barbara. At one minute past midnight on August 30, 1940 (with Garson Kanin and Katharine Hepburn as witnesses) they were wed.
Still, they could not return to England. However, both Jill and Tarquin, as well as Gertrude (Vivien's mother) and Suzanne boarded a ship and came to the United States. The newly-wed Oliviers needed money. Olivier wanted to fight in the war but was unable due to a hearing infraction, so he decided to train as a pilot. While he trained, they made Lady Hamilton (also a few variations on title), the story of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton.
During the next few years the couple would be separate any number of times due to the ongoing war. Vivien starred in plays such as The Doctor's Delimma with bombs being dropped overhead, while Olivier flew and made war films like Forty-Ninth Parallel , Malta G.C.. In 1944, Vivien was diagnosed with tubercular patch on her left lung while performing in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. To add to her medical distress, in 1946 [while filming Caesar and Cleopatra] she had a miscarriage. Due to her condition she became increasingly posessive of Olivier. She began to pride herself on Olivier's love, and despite her mood swings, she depended on him to make her live. In 1947, Olivier decided to film Hamlet, naturally Vivien wanted the role of Ophelia; but Olivier thought her too old to play the young and fragile daughter of Polonius. Vivien did the only thing she could think of, a film, and played in a much-criticized version of Anna Karenina opposite Kieron Moore and Ralph Richardson.
In early 1948, the Old Vic Theatre Company decided to do a tour of plays in Australia. The tour would be a large success but was a turning point in the Olivier's marriage. Vivien's illness was becoming somewhat of a second cousin to her, appearing out of nowhere and virtually taking over her body. She was put on medications, given electroshock therapy and ordered to months and months of bedrest at Notley Abbey. During her bedrest, she read Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire and was convinced (just as she was with the role of Scarlett O'Hara) that she would indeed play Blanche DuBois. After her recovery, Olivier began rehearsals for the play (in which she would star) that would run over three-hundred performances. The play had already been a success under Irene Selznick on Broadway with Jessica Tandy playing the role of Blanche. In early 1950, when Elia Kazan decided to direct the film, Vivien was chosen to play Blanche, primarily (it has been said) because at the time she had a much broader presence in film than the up-and-coming Tandy.
Nonetheless the film was a success and Vivien received the second of her Academy Awards in 1951; while performing Caesar and Cleopatra and Antony and Cleopatra in England. The film also earned Kim Hunter (Stella) and Karl Malden (Mitch) Academy Awards as well as the award for Best Picture and Director.
After playing opposite Olivier in the play The Sleeping Prince she was denied a role in his film The Prince and the Showgirl {which was supposedly a remake of the play} and the role went to Marilyn Monroe. Suddenly, Vivien had a second miscarriage, and a few months later watched her daughter, Suzanne, marry Robin Farrington. Her tuberculosis was getting worse (most likely due to her intake of alcohol and manic-depression). Olivier was torn. He loved her, but he couldn't help getting upset when she grew out of control. In the late 1950's Olivier was turning to actress Joan Plowright for comfort. Plowright was not yet thirty, costarring in Olivier's production of The Entertainer. Just as she had when he cast Jean Simmons as Ophelia in 1948, Vivien felt almost denied.
During the late fifties and early sixties, she found a new companion in the actor Jack (John) Merivale, of whom had been cast in quite a few of productions including the disasterous Romeo and Juliet effort in 1940. It was a relief off Olivier's shoulders who was now free to divorce Vivien, and did so in 1960. Vivien wasn't through yet, she had lost her beloved Olivier but she hadn't lost herself. She began performing in a series of plays ranging from Duel of Angels to Tovarich (which she won a Tony for in 1963) to Ivanov with John Gielgud and Jack Merivale. She wasn't a film peasant either, she starred with Warren Beatty in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and won a French Etoile Crystal award for her performance in Ship of Fools in 1965. But 1966, her health was decreasing rapidly; her tuberculosis had resurfaced and she was beginning to spend more and more time at her country house, Tickerage Mill, with her cats, tending to her garden than she was acting.
In 1967, Vivien moved to her and Olivier's flat at 54 Eaton Square in Chelsea, London, and until the day she died, she kept Olivier's photograph on her bedside table. On July 7, 1967, after sipping wine with Merivale, Vivien Mary died from chronic-tuberculosis. It has been said that an old friend saw Olivier in the mid-eighties, close to some twenty-years after her death, watching one of her older films saying "this was true love."