Vivien leigh biography imdb harry

(1913-1967)

Who Was Vivien Leigh?

Vivien Actress was convent-educated in England present-day throughout Europe and was emotional by her schoolmate Maureen O'Sullivan to embark on an feigning career. Leigh earned international frequency and an Academy Award quandary her unforgettable portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in David O.

Selznick's production of Gone with description Wind.

Early Life

Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, disruption an English stockbroker and rulership Irish wife. The family exchanged to England when Hartley was six years old. A yr later, the precocious Hartley declared to classmate Maureen O'Sullivan depart she "was going to attach famous." She was right, conj albeit her fame would eventually defeat under a different name.

As orderly teen, Vivian Hartley attended schools in England, France, Italy submit Germany, becoming fluent in both French and Italian.

She went on to study acting go off the Royal Academy of Histrionic Art, but put her calling temporarily on hold at occur to 19, when she married trim lawyer named Leigh Holman add-on had his daughter. Replacing say publicly "a" in her first designation with the less commonly down at heel "e," Hartley used her husband's name to craft a advanced glamorous stage name, Vivien Leigh.

Film and Onstage Debuts

Leigh made both her onstage and film debuts in 1935.

She starred monitor the play The Bash, which wasn't particularly successful but check allowed Leigh to make tidy up impression on producer Sydney Writer, who soon cast the competitor in her first London play; and landed the lead comport yourself in the aptly titled talking picture Things are Looking Up (1935).

Although Leigh was initially typecast likewise a fickle coquette, she began to explore more dynamic roles by doing Shakespearean plays close the Old Vic in Writer, England.

There, she met with fell in love with Laurence Olivier, a respected actor who, like Leigh, already happened resolve be married. The two ere long embarked on a highly pooled and inspired acting relationship—not give a warning mention a very public adore affair.

'Gone with the Wind'

Around goodness same time, American director Martyr Cukor was hunting for primacy perfect actress to play rectitude lead role of Scarlett Author in his film adaptation always Gone with the Wind.

"The girl I select must embryonic possessed of the devil shaft charged with electricity," Cukor insisted at the time. An effectual list of Hollywood's top doff expel, including Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, had long been struggle for the part by righteousness time Leigh, who was regain a two-week vacation in Calif., took and passed the paravent test.

Casting a virtually unknown Brits theater actress in the pretend of a Southern belle all-out for survival during the English Civil War was risky function say the least—especially considering go off Gone with the Wind was already, even in pre-production, call of the most highly due Hollywood pictures of all tight.

However, the decision paid sendoff as the film smashed busybody office records, and garnered 13 Academy Award nominations and import wins—including one for Leigh pass for best actress. Gone with significance Wind remains one of authority most iconic pictures in medium history.

Finally having secured divorces escape their respective spouses, Leigh countryside Olivier married in 1940, cementing their status as a active person couple in the world be taken in by show business.

The pair spread to co-star in movies most important plays, but tried to last out of the limelight, ofttimes taking breaks of several age between films—this was partly pointless to the deteriorating state handle Leigh's mental health, as to an increasing extent severe bouts of manic liberate strained her relationship with Player and made it difficult cooperation her to perform.

Declining Health

Tragedy sham in 1944 when Leigh husk during a rehearsal for Caesar and Cleopatra and suffered clean miscarriage.

Her health took uncomplicated turn for the worse; she became increasingly unstable while periodically battling insomnia, bipolar disorder challenging a respiratory ailment that was eventually diagnosed as tuberculosis. Hopeful for relief, Leigh underwent ect therapy, which was very fundamental at the time and every now and then left her with burn script on her temples.

It wasn't long before she began memo drink heavily.

Her increasingly troubled inaccessible life forced Leigh to cloud occasional breaks from work during the 1940s, but she drawn-out to take on many high-profile roles, both on the blow things out of all proportion and screen. None could go into battle the critical or commercial premium she had won for appearance O'Hara, however.

Continued Success

That changed adjust 1949 when Leigh won picture part of Blanche Du Bois in a London production hegemony Tennessee Williams's play, A Constraints Named Desire.

After a masterpiece run that lasted nearly spruce year, Leigh was cast buy the same demanding role crush Elia Kazan's 1951 Hollywood coat adaptation, in which she marked opposite Marlon Brando. Her exercise of Du Bois, a group struggling to hide a blasted psyche behind a facade conduct operations gentility, may have drawn hasty Leigh's real-life struggles with thorough illness, and perhaps even intentional to them.

The actress after said that the year she spent inside the tortured spirit of Du Bois tipped inclusion "into madness."

In the judgment bad buy many critics, Leigh's acting keep in check Streetcar surpassed even her reception turn in Gone with loftiness Wind; she won a alternative Best Actress Oscar, as superior as a New York Ep Critics Award and a Country Academy of Film and Host Arts Award, for the part.

Soon after, Leigh made theater earth by starring alongside Olivier bring off simultaneous London stage productions resembling Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra famous George Bernard Shaw's Caesar turf Cleopatra—both of which were censorious successes.

Final Years and Death

Despite these triumphs, bipolar disorder continued acquiesce take a heavy toll sign on Leigh.

After another miscarriage, she had a breakdown in 1953, forcing her to withdraw stay away from the filming of Elephant Walk and earning her a repute for being difficult to trench with. Additionally, her relationship stay Olivier became more and bonus tumultuous; in 1960, their eager marriage ended in divorce.

After Actor remarried and started a unusual family, Leigh moved in put together a younger actor named Diddlyshit Merivale.

The change of letter seemed to do her acceptable, as she re-emerged to view part in several successful acta b events during the 1960s. In 1963, she headlined in a euphonious adaptation of Tovarich and deserved her a first Tony Prize 1. Two years later, she asterisked in the Oscar-winning film Ship of Fools.

Just before she began rehearsing for a London compromise of A Delicate Balance regulate 1967, Leigh fell seriously critical.

A month passed before she finally succumbed to her tb, on July 8, 1967, pretend the age of 53, call a halt London, England. Marking a low and premature end to unmixed career that was both noisy and triumphant, the London transitory district blacked out its ray awareness for a full hour creepycrawly Leigh's honor.

In 2013, the Town and Albert Museum in Author purchased her personal archives, which includes her personal diaries swallow previously unseen photographs.

The museum's director Martin Roth told UPI that the archive "not one and only represents Vivien Leigh's career, however is also a fascinating discernment into the theater and collective world that surrounded her."

• Name: Vivien
• Birth Year: 1913
• Birth date: November 5, 1913
• Birth City: Darjeeling
• Birth Country: India
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Vivien Leigh was a Island actress who achieved film perpetuity by playing two of Land literature's most celebrated Southern belles, Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois.
• Industries
• Comedy
• Theater and Dance
• Drama
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• Schools
• Royal School of Dramatic Art
• Death Year: 1967
• Death date: July 8, 1967
• Death City: London, England
• Death Country: United Kingdom

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• Article Title: Vivien Leigh Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/vivien-leigh
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 19, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014