Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh (November 5, 1913 - July 8, 1967) was an English actress who was born Vivian Mary Hartley in Darjeeling, India. She and her parents later moved to England, where young Leigh grew up. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton, England, along with fellow actress-to-be Maureen O'Sullivan.
She was married in 1932 to Herbert 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 for Best Actress.
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 Thornton 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 1960s, 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 her companion, actor John Merivale. Joan Plowright, third wife and widow of Olivier, claimed that for much of Olivier's marriage to Leigh, he was having a longterm homosexual relationship with the American actor Danny Kaye.
The actress died of chronic tuberculosis in her London home. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered on the lake at Tickerage Mill, near Blackboys, Sussex, London, England.
Filmography
1934:
1935:
- The Village Squire
- Gentleman's Agreement
- Look Up And Laugh
1937:
1938:
- A Yank At Oxford
- St. Martins Lane
1939:
1940:
1941:
1945:
1947:
1951:
1955:
1961:
1965:
Leigh has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6773 Hollywood Blvd.
External links
Referenced By
1913 | 1913 in film | 1939 in film | 1951 in film | 1967 | 1967 in film | 5 November | 5th November | 8 July | 8th July | A Streetcar Named Desire | A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 movie) | Academy Award for Best Actress | Academy Awards/Best Actress | Bi-polar disorder | Bipolar Affective Disorder | Bipolar Disorder | Bipolar I | Bipolar II | Cleopatra VII | Cleopatra VII of Egypt | Danny Kaye | Dysphoric mania | Elia Kazan | Elia Kazanjoglous | Famous women in history | Francis Walsingham | Golders Green Crematorium | Gone With The Wind | Hollywood's Walk of Fame | Hollywood Walk Of Fame | Hollywoods Walk of Fame | Joanne Woodward | July 8 | July 8th | Laurence Olivier | List of famous tuberculosis victims | List of female movie actors 2 | List of female theater actors | List of people on stamps of the United Kingdom | List of people on stamps of the United States | Manic-depression | Manic-depressive | Manic-depressive illness | Manic Depression | November 5 | November 5th | Oxford University | Oxford Universty | People on stamps of the United States | Peter Finch | Richard Garrick | Scarlett O'Hara | Ship of Fools | Streetcar Named Desire | The University of Oxford | University of Oxford
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