Few are the girls who never dreamed of becoming an actress, a movie star, a Hollywood icon. Even fewer are the girls who never swooned over a hot movie star. Whether we like it or not, Hollywood is still the film-making capital of the world, and if you look at many of today’s starlets you would believe that all it takes is a nice face and a lot of well-placed silicone. However, Hollywood became the stuff of dreams decades ago when the movie stars were larger than life. This series is about the Golden Era of Hollywood and the legends on whose blood, sweat and talent the success of the modern film industry was built upon.
Vivien Leigh is an atypical example of Hollywood fame, she was and remained throughout her life a theater actress at heart, yet when she set her mind on a movie career she took the film industry by storm, landing one of the most coveted parts ever, Scarlett O’Hara in ‘Gone with the Wind’. Even more surprising, the woman who came to be identified as the prototype of the Southern belle of the American Civil War era was not American, as many assume, but British and beat literally thousands of US-born stars and aspiring actresses to play Scarlett. While she achieved greatness both on screen and on stage, Vivien Leigh’s life was marred by a lengthy battle with mental illness and tuberculosis, the latter claiming her life at the age of 53.
Vivien Leigh was born in 1913 in India, where her British father worked as a broker. She spent the first years of her life in colonial India, but later travelled extensively around the world with her parents, as her father’s career demanded. Eventually, she settled in London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. At the age of 18, she met barrister Leigh Holman, 13 years her senior, whom she married in 1932. The following year she gave birth to a daughter and had all but abandoned her dream of being an actress. Despite her husband’s opposition, her true calling led her to return to acting, appearing in a couple of British movies as well as in theatrical productions in London, where, in 1937, she met Laurence Olivier, who was to become her second husband.
It took them three years to obtain a divorce from their respective partners and they got married in 1940.
Both Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier struggled to further their film careers and be accepted by Hollywood, the main charge leveled against them being they were too British.
As opposed to many stars who started small, Vivien Leigh would not settle for secondary parts. When Laurence Olivier was cast to play Heathcliff in ’Wuthering Heights’ (1939), she was offered the lesser part of Isabella, which she turned down. She wanted to play Catherine, a part which she would have been perfect for. It was not to be and maybe it was for the best as she had ample time to devote herself to getting the part she really wanted, Scarlett O’Hara.
Following the tremendous success of Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel, ‘Gone with the Wind’(1939) was one of the most anticipated movies in history. As soon as Selznick International Pictures acquired the movie rights, the American public went wild, the studio being flooded with letters suggesting the best actress for the part. David O. Selznick was inclined to come up with a fresh face, so studio representatives scoured the Southern US, going through every acting school and college in search of the perfect Scarlett. More than 1400 women auditioned for the part, but while many had the looks, few had any talent. It was useless. At the same time, most of Hollywood’s leading ladies vied for the part. With a new Oscar to her name for the role of Jezebel, another Southern spoiled belle, Bette Davis was also the public’s favorite, but Selznick refused to give her the part.
Vivien Leigh was recommended for the part by her American agent, Myron Selznick, who reputedly told his brother David "Hey, genius, meet your Scarlett O'Hara." Director George Cukor was also happy with the choice. "The girl I select must be possessed of the devil and charged with electricity", he once said and Vivien Leigh had a lot of energy and even more inner demons. Playing the part of the Southern girl whose life unravels as the Civil War breaks out was not an easy feat. During filming, Leigh worked 16 hours a day, six days a week, for 125 days. The part somehow reflected her own personality. Scarlett O’Hara could be sweet and loving one moment and erupt in a temper outburst the next moment. So was Vivien Leigh herself.
Archive footage - Vivien Leigh accepting the Oscar fot ‘Gone with the Wind’
At that time, mental issues received less attention than they do today so it is difficult to point to one clear diagnostic. She was described as suffering from bipolar disorder or manic depression, tinged with paranoia. Sometimes she was difficult to work with, sometimes Laurence Olivier was the victim of her violent outbursts.
During the war years, Vivien Leigh volunteered to perform for the troops stationed in North Africa, although her health was starting to fail. In 1944 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which was going to plague her for the rest of her life. One year later, she suffered a miscarriage after a fall on the set for ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’, another of her great movies. Some have said the torment of losing Olivier’s baby caused her mental problems, but the truth is she’d always had issues like mood changes and temper outbursts. The miscarriage was probably what sent her over the edge. She alternated periods of hyperactivity with days marked by depression and mental breakdowns. Laurence Olivier had learned to predict her breakdowns. When she started to take down all her jewelry and clean obsessively it was a sure sign she was going to have a violent fit.
In 1947, when Laurence Olivier was knighted, she became Lady Olivier, a title she will cherish even after their divorce.
Despite her many health concerns, the Oliviers divided their time between Hollywood and London’s West End, where she played a vast array of characters, from the tragic Greek heroine Antigone, passing through various Shakespearean characters to enchant in light parts in Noel Coward's comedies.
The ever ambitious Vivien Leigh next had her heart set on another great part, that of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, which opened in 1949 in London and ran for 326 nights.
Vivien Leigh once said of the part:
“Blanche is a woman with everything stripped away. She is a tragic figure and I understand her. But, playing her tipped me into madness”.
Obviously she was already ill before taking the part, but putting herself night after night in the persona of a mentally disturbed woman surely did not help. She also got the part in the Hollywood version, in 1951.
Like Scarlett, Blanche is another Southerner who has lost the family estate and privileged position. She is forced to move in with her sister, Stella, married to a coarse, often violent common man, Stanley, magnificently played by Marlon Brando. As the play progresses, the fantasy world Blanche lives in begins to crumble, until it is revealed she had lost her job and had been living as a prostitute. After Stanley rapes her, Blanche has a complete breakdown and retreats into a fantasy about an old suitor coming to rescue her, an illusion she clings to even as she is taken away to a mental institution.
Tennessee Williams later said Vivien Leigh’s Blanche was exactly how he’d imagined the character, the film brought her the second Oscar, but sadly her mental health deteriorated rapidly.
'Anthony and Cleopatra'at London's St.James Theater
Source
However, 1951 was a great year for the Oliviers who made history appearing together in simultaneous London stage productions of Shakespeare's ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and George Bernard Shaw's ‘Caesar and Cleopatra’ — both of which were critical successes.
In 1953, while filming in Asia, Vivien Leigh began an affair with co-star Peter Finch and then suffered a terrible breakdown, which resulted in her being fired from the movie and Olivier flying her back to England. Tragically, at the time, one of the most popular treatments for mental problems was electroshock therapy, Vivien Leigh being subjected to multiple sessions. It did not cure her, but destroyed much of her personality in the process. Here’s how Laurence Olivier spoke of the therapy’s effects:
“I can only describe them by saying that she was not, now that she had been given the treatment, the same girl that I had fallen in love with. She was now more of a stranger to me than I could ever have imagined possible. Something had happened to her, very hard to describe, but unquestionably evident.”
She recovered enough to act both on stage and on set, even did another movie with Olivier, but their relationship was strained and they ended up divorcing in 1960. Olivier still watched out for her, even as she started an affair with actor Jack Merivale. He was aware of Leigh’s problems and he promised Olivier he’ll take care of her.
Even her first husband Leigh Holman kept in touch and sometimes came over to take care of the mentally fragile Vivien Leigh, having a calming influence on her.
Her last screen performance was in a wartime drama ‘Ship of Fools’(1965). The filming was difficult as Vivien Leigh was often paranoid and in a rape scene she completely lost it, striking Lee Marvin over his face with a shoe so hard it left a mark.
She died of tuberculosis in July 1967 in her London flat. Laurence Olivier, himself in the hospital with prostate cancer, immediately came to the flat and stayed there until her body was removed for the funeral.The following night London’s theater district blacked out its lights for a full hour to mark the passing of one of the greatest and most dedicated English actress.
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References: Vivien Leigh Biography, Wikipedia.
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