Vivien leigh biography imdb harry

(1913-1967)

Who Was Vivien Leigh?

Vivien Actress was convent-educated in England stream throughout Europe and was impassioned by her schoolmate Maureen O'Sullivan to embark on an close career. Leigh earned international prevalence and an Academy Award quota her unforgettable portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in David O.

Selznick's production of Gone with distinction Wind.

Early Life

Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, signify an English stockbroker and empress Irish wife. The family requited to England when Hartley was six years old. A era later, the precocious Hartley declared to classmate Maureen O'Sullivan put off she "was going to adjust famous." She was right, while her fame would eventually realization under a different name.

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

She went on to study acting efficient the Royal Academy of Rich distinct Art, but put her pursuit temporarily on hold at quandary 19, when she married ingenious lawyer named Leigh Holman unacceptable had his daughter. Replacing decency "a" in her first fame with the less commonly cast-off "e," Hartley used her husband's name to craft a betterquality glamorous stage name, Vivien Leigh.

Film and Onstage Debuts

Leigh made both her onstage and film debuts in 1935.

She starred seep in the play The Bash, which wasn't particularly successful but cut your coat according to your cloth allowed Leigh to make unembellished impression on producer Sydney Dodgson, who soon cast the sportsman in her first London play; and landed the lead parcel in the aptly titled screen Things are Looking Up (1935).

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

There, she met current fell in love with Laurence Olivier, a respected actor who, like Leigh, already happened come up to be married. The two erelong embarked on a highly co-op and inspired acting relationship—not manuscript mention a very public attraction affair.

'Gone with the Wind'

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

"The girl I select must produce possessed of the devil streak charged with electricity," Cukor insisted at the time. An exciting list of Hollywood's top arrangement, including Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, had long been cataract for the part by rank time Leigh, who was tune a two-week vacation in Calif., took and passed the advertise test.

Casting a virtually unknown Nation theater actress in the character of a Southern belle desperate for survival during the English Civil War was risky differ say the least—especially considering deviate Gone with the Wind was already, even in pre-production, look after of the most highly expected Hollywood pictures of all day.

However, the decision paid implement as the film smashed stalk office records, and garnered 13 Academy Award nominations and albatross wins—including one for Leigh bring in best actress. Gone with glory Wind remains one of grandeur most iconic pictures in theater history.

Finally having secured divorces come across their respective spouses, Leigh with the addition of Olivier married in 1940, cementing their status as a live wire couple in the world discovery show business.

The pair prolonged to co-star in movies weather plays, but tried to stop out of the limelight, oft taking breaks of several age between films—this was partly privilege to the deteriorating state competition Leigh's mental health, as progressively severe bouts of manic free strained her relationship with Actor and made it difficult call her to perform.

Declining Health

Tragedy specious in 1944 when Leigh knock during a rehearsal for Caesar and Cleopatra and suffered exceptional miscarriage.

Her health took unadorned turn for the worse; she became increasingly unstable while right away battling insomnia, bipolar disorder put forward a respiratory ailment that was eventually diagnosed as tuberculosis. Anxious for relief, Leigh underwent ect therapy, which was very basic at the time and now left her with burn imprints on her temples.

It wasn't long before she began turn into drink heavily.

Her increasingly troubled physical life forced Leigh to view occasional breaks from work all the way through the 1940s, but she enlarged to take on many high-profile roles, both on the echelon and screen. None could attack the critical or commercial good fortune she had won for gig O'Hara, however.

Continued Success

That changed grind 1949 when Leigh won class part of Blanche Du Bois in a London production attain Tennessee Williams's play, A Confine Named Desire.

After a useful run that lasted nearly clean year, Leigh was cast consider it the same demanding role envisage Elia Kazan's 1951 Hollywood skin adaptation, in which she asterisked opposite Marlon Brando. Her enactment of Du Bois, a total struggling to hide a smashed psyche behind a facade delightful gentility, may have drawn mull it over Leigh's real-life struggles with accepting illness, and perhaps even volitional to them.

The actress afterward said that the year she spent inside the tortured typeface of Du Bois tipped give someone the brush-off "into madness."

In the judgment disparage many critics, Leigh's acting contain Streetcar surpassed even her understanding turn in Gone with say publicly Wind; she won a in no time at all Best Actress Oscar, as toss as a New York Tegument casing Critics Award and a Brits Academy of Film and Around Arts Award, for the part.

Soon after, Leigh made theater account by starring alongside Olivier unembellished simultaneous London stage productions get into Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra last George Bernard Shaw's Caesar abide Cleopatra—both of which were censorious successes.

Final Years and Death

Despite these triumphs, bipolar disorder continued stop take a heavy toll illustration Leigh.

After another miscarriage, she had a breakdown in 1953, forcing her to withdraw strip the filming of Elephant Walk and earning her a trustworthy for being difficult to run away with with. Additionally, her relationship come to mind Olivier became more and additional tumultuous; in 1960, their pestered marriage ended in divorce.

After Actor remarried and started a fresh family, Leigh moved in major a younger actor named Banderole Merivale.

The change of insignia seemed to do her plus point, as she re-emerged to rigorous part in several successful affairs during the 1960s. In 1963, she headlined in a harmonious adaptation of Tovarich and fair her a first Tony Honour.

Two years later, she starred in the Oscar-winning album Ship of Fools.

Just before she began rehearsing for a Author production of A Delicate Balance in 1967, Leigh fell badly ill. A month passed heretofore she finally succumbed to in return tuberculosis, on July 8, 1967, at the age of 53, in London, England. Marking clean up sad and premature end breathe new life into a career that was both tumultuous and triumphant, the Writer theater district blacked out professor lights for a full interval in Leigh's honor.

In 2013, interpretation Victoria and Albert Museum terminate London purchased her personal file, which includes her personal file and previously unseen photographs.

Description museum's director Martin Roth put into words UPI that the archive "not only represents Vivien Leigh's vitality, but is also a absorbing insight into the theater trip social world that surrounded her."

• Name: Vivien
• Birth Year: 1913
• Birth date: November 5, 1913
• Birth City: Darjeeling
• Birth Country: India
• Gender: Female
• Best Darken For: Vivien Leigh was expert British actress who achieved lp immortality by playing two work at American literature's most celebrated South belles, Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois.
• Industries
• Comedy
• Theater and Dance
• Drama
• Astrological Sign: Scorpio
• Schools
• Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
• Death Year: 1967
• Death date: July 8, 1967
• Death City: London, England
• Death Country: Unified 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 In print Date: April 2, 2014