Vivien Leigh was English stage and film actress, best known for her performances as “Southern belle” Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind .
After her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England (1937). Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that it sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress. Despite her fame as a screen actress, Leigh was primarily a stage performer. During her 30-year stage career, she played roles ranging from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such asOphelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth. Later in life, she played character roles in a few films.
Gone with the Wind brought Leigh immediate attention and fame; but she was quoted as saying, “I’m not a film star – I’m an actress. Being a film star – just a film star – is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity. Actresses go on for a long time and there are always marvelous parts to play. The film won 10 Academy Awards including aBest Actress award for Leigh, who also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.
To the public at the time, Leigh was strongly identified with her second husband Laurence Olivier, to whom she was married from 1940 to 1960. Leigh and Olivier starred together in many stage productions, with Olivier often directing, and in three films. She earned a reputation for being difficult to work with, as for much of her adult life, she had a bipolar disorder, as well as recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, first diagnosed in the mid-1940s, which ultimately claimed her life at the age of 53. Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
It was Vivien Leigh’s birthday couple days ago, so we are a bit late to honor her 102nd birthday. Anyway, we decided to gather some candid and rare photos of the iconic British actress. Take a look:
Credit: AMPAS
Image Credit: Running Press