Viven leigh biography
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When Vivien Leigh played Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind in , she instantly became one of the most famous women in the world.
The blockbuster went onto win 10 Oscars, including one for Vivien, who became the first British woman to win for Best Actress.
Many believe the role of Scarlett was a part Vivien was born to play: perhaps it wasn't a huge stretch to play a woman who was beautiful and passionate as well as highly ambitious. A woman who wasted years obsessing about a man she didn't truly love, while she lost the man who truly loved her.
Vivien only appeared in a handful of movies and died tragically young, but her incredible talent, bringing Scarlett O'Hara to life, means she will never be forgotten.
The early years
Born Vivian Mary Hartley in , Vivian's parents Ernest and Gertrude, were British but spent several years in India where Vivian was born. (She later changed the spelling of her name to Vivien.)
The future Hollywood star had h
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Vivien Leigh
British actress (–)
Vivien Leigh | |
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Leigh in Gone with the Wind () | |
| Born | Vivian Mary Hartley ()5 November Darjeeling, Bengal Presidency, British India |
| Died | 8 July () (aged&#;53) Belgravia, London, England |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years&#;active | – |
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| Spouses |
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| Partner | John Merivale (–) |
| Children | Suzanne Farrington |
| Relatives | Gerald Fielding (first cousin) Xan Fielding (first cousin once removed) |
Vivien Leigh (LEE; born Vivian Mary Hartley; 5 November – 8 July ), styled as Lady Olivier after , was a British actress. After completing her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England (). She then won the Academy Award for Best A
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Dark Star: A Biography of Vivien Leigh,by Alan Strachan. I.B. Tauris, , pp.
Gwenda Young
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John Gielgud once wrote to Vivien Leigh, just as she commenced her career on scen and screen, to observe that her striking beauty might “always be more hindrance than help to your acting. Almost incidentally either it blinds the critical faculty or produces a perverse determination to pick holes” (Strachan xviii). His varning would prove prescient: it is Leigh’s beauty—regarded as exotic and, with the knowledge of her mental and physical health problems, “fragile”—that still frames much of the biographical and critical discussion of her performances and of her stardom.
The title of Alan Strachan’s new biography of Leigh, Dark Star, calls to mind Leatrice Gilbert Fountain’s study of her father, the silent rulle actor John Gilbert. In Dark Star: The Untold Story of the Meteoric Rise and Fall of Legendary Silent Scree