Biography
Distinctive Features
Her beautiful body.
::
Her beautiful face.
::
Her hair.
::
her green eyes
Measurements
Bust: 34"
A
Waist: 23"
Hips: 4."
Friends and Family
Rachel Kempson
[Friend]
(the mother of Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave)
Pets
Siamese cats
Cat
Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 Actresses go on for a long time and there are always marvelous parts to play.
All day long you`re really leading up to the evening`s performance. To time everything correctly, you have to take care of yourself-which is a very difficult thing to do, because it`s highly emotional
OTHER
Am I finished with Hollywood? Good heavens, no! I shall certainly go back there if there is a film to make.
OTHER
[on Alexander Korda] Alex was like a father to us - we went to see him with every little problem we had. We usually left convinced that he had solved it - or that we`d got our own way.
OTHER
(Alexander Korda)
[on Warren Beatty] He has the kind of magnetic sensuality you could light torches with.
o
OTHER
(warren beatty)
[talking to critics about her reviews for "The Mask of Virtue" (1935), her second play on the London stage] It`s much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.
Career
Scorpios burn themselves out and eat themselves up and they are careless about themselves - like me. I swing between happiness and misery and I cry easily. I am a mixture of my mother`s determination and my father`s optimism. I am part prude and part non-conformist and I say what I think and don`t dissemble. I am a mixture of French, Irish and Yorkshire, and perhaps that`s what it all is.
Some critics saw fit to say that I was a great actress. I thought that was a foolish, wicked thing to say because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn`t able to carry.
[talking to critics about her reviews for "The Mask of Virtue" (1935), her second play on the London stage] It`s much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.
Olivier himself had directed Leigh in the part on the London stage.
Not only did it win Best Picture during the Academy Awards, but Vivien won for Best Actress.
[when asked to take over Joan Crawford`s role in Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)] "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford`s face at six o`clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis."
Trivia
Vivian was just 19 years old when she had her daughter Suzanne. Her diary entry on this October 12, 1933 simply read, "Had a baby- a girl."
beat out 1400 other actors for the role in gone with the wind.
Vivien has an opportunity to play a small role in an English film, Things Are Looking Up (1935).
Vivien`s favorite actor is Leslie Howard, and at 19 she marries an English barrister who looks very much like him.
After Vivien has been at the school for 18 months, her mother comes again from India and takes her to a play in London.
Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time her parents take her to England.
Her first and best friend at the school is an eight-year-old girl, Maureen O`Sullivan who has been transplanted from Ireland.
Her mother thinks she should have a proper English upbringing and insists on leaving her in a convent school - even though Vivien is two years younger than any of the other girls at the school.
If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince.
In India the British community entertained themselves at amateur theatricals and Vivien`s father was a leading man.
In the bleakness of a convent school, the two girls can recreate in their imaginations the places they have left and places where they would some day like to travel.
At the end of her education, she met and married Herbert Leigh in 1932 and together had a child named Suzanne in 1933.
Her first role in British motion pictures was as Rose Venables in 1935`s The Village Squire (1935).
In 1938, Vivien went to the US to see her lover, Laurence Olivier, who was filming Wuthering Heights (1939) (she had left Herbert Leigh in 1937). While visiting Olivier,
It was there that Vivien decided to become an actress.
That same year Vivien appeared in Things Are Looking Up (1935), Look Up and Laugh (1935) and Gentlemen`s Agreement (1935).
The role of Scarlett O`Hara had yet to be cast and she was invited to take part in a screen test for the role. There had already been much talk in Hollywood about who was to be cast as Scarlett.
Though she enjoyed motherhood, it did not squelch her ambition to be an actress.
Vivien had the good luck to happen upon the Selznick brothers, who were filming the burning of Atlanta for the film, Gone with the Wind (1939), based on Margaret Mitchell`s novel.
While there her mother came for a visit and took her to a play on London`s legendary West Side.
Breaking protocol, Vivien speaks up and is escorted from the House of Lords.
Her parents wanted to go home to England but because of World War I they opted to stay in India. At the end of the war the Hartleys headed back to their home country, where Vivien`s mother wanted her daughter to have a convent education.
Now Sir Laurence, with a seat in the British House of Lords, is accompanied by Vivien the day the Lords are debating about whether the St James should be torn down.
Throughout their two-decade marriage Laurence and Vivien were acting together on the stage in London and New York.
Vivian Mary Hartley was born on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, a strange place for one of the world`s most celebrated actresses to be born.
Vivien was no longer Lady Olivier when she performed her last major film role, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961).
Vivien is 26 when Gone with the Wind (1939) makes a sweep of the Oscars in 1939.
As of 2008, she is only one of six actors who have a 2-0 winning record when nominated for an acting Oscar. The others are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937); Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) and Airport (1970); Sally Field for Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984); Kevin Spacey for The Usual Suspects (1995) and American Beauty (1999); and Hilary Swank for Boys Don`t Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).
When making Gone with the Wind (1939), super macho director Victor Fleming wanted Scarlett, for at least once in the film, to look like his hunting buddy Clark Gable`s type of woman. So, when wearing the stunning low-cut burgundy velvet dress with rhinestones that Scarlett wears to Ashley Wilkes` birthday party in the second half of the film, to achieve the desired cleavage for Fleming, Walter Plunkett had to tape Vivien Leigh`s breasts together.
Despite her legendary stature, Leigh made fewer than twenty films in her career.
Eventually, Vivien needed shock therapy to control her manic depression. Sometimes she would go on stage just hours after her treatments, without missing a beat in her performance.
Gave birth to daughter Suzanne during her marriage to Herbert Leigh Holman.
Great grandchildren are: Ashua, Amy, Sophie and Tessa. The great grandchildren, the girls in particular, bear a striking resemblance to Suzanne.
Her father was a full-blooded Englishmen, while her mother was of French and Irish descent.
Her performance as Scarlett O`Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) is ranked #3 on Premiere Magazine`s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Measurements 34A/23/34.
Was close friends with Rachel Kempson, the mother of Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave.
Was obsessed with hiding her large hands. Gloves were a favorite cover-up, she owned more than 150 pairs.
Was the first British actress to win an Academy Award. She won the Best Actress Oscar for Gone with the Wind (1939) in February 1940.
and kept her out of worse trouble and Olivier from even worse embarrassment.
and since Leigh was bipolar and her manic-depression frequently manifested itself in nymphomania, some speculate that Olivier subconsciously might have been grateful for Finch as he occupied Leigh`s hours
In order to do so, he accepted a part in William Wyler`s Carrie (1952) that was shot at the same time as "Streetcar".
None of them knew the depths of the anguish he was enduring as the caretaker of his mentally ill wife. Brando said that Leigh was superior to Jessica Tandy -- the original stage Blanche DuBois -- as she WAS Blanche.
Olivier had to accompany Leigh to Hollywood in 1950 in order to keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble, to ensure that her manic-depression did not get out of hand and disrupt the production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).
Olivier was personally humiliated but ever the trouper, he kept the talented Finch under contract after having brought him back to England, where Finch flourished as an actor. Finch and Leigh carried on a long affair,
Peter Finch was discovered by Laurence Olivier in 1948 when Olivier and his theatrical company, which included wife Leigh, were conducting a tour of Australia, Olivier signed the young Aussie to a personal contract and Finch became part of Olivier`s theatrical company. He then proceeded to cuckold his mentor and employer by bedding Leigh.
The Oliviers were popular with Hollywood`s elite, and Elia Kazan and Marlon Brando both liked "Larry" very much (that was the reason that Brando gave in his own autobiography for not sleeping with Leigh, whom he thought had a superior posterior--he couldn`t raid Olivier`s "chicken coop" as "Larry was such a nice guy".)
Their on-again, off-again affair reportedly reached a crisis point on the movie Elephant Walk (1954), when they had renewed their affair. However, the instability of their relationship allegedly triggered a nervous breakdown in Leigh, and Olivier had to step in to take care of her.
Is portrayed by Morgan Brittany in The Scarlett O`Hara War (1980) (TV) and by Mel Martin in Darlings of the Gods (1989) (TV)
Laurence Olivier wrote in his autobiography, "Confessions of an Actor," that sometime after World War II, Leigh announced calmly that she was no longer in love with him, but loved him like a brother. Olivier was emotionally devastated.
Leigh had every intention of remaining married to Olivier, but was no longer interested in him romantically.
Olivier himself began having affairs (including one with Claire Bloom in the 1950s, according to Bloom`s own autobiography) as Leigh`s eye and amorous intentions wandered and roamed outside of the marital bedchamber.
She has at least 3 great granddaughters: Amy, Sophie and Ashua
She was supposed to star in the Paramount film Elephant Walk (1954) with Peter Finch and Dana Andrews, but after appearing in a few scenes she was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. The reasons for Leigh`s dismissal were rumored to be her difficult nature, having just been diagnosed as a manic-depressive. Further complications may have erupted because of an affair she had with co-star Finch while she was still married to Laurence Olivier, and Leigh and Olivier were still married in 1954.
Was named #16 Actress on The American Film Institutes 50 Greatest Screen Legends
Won Broadway`s 1963 Tony Award as Best Actress (Musical) for "Tovarich."
Although she was a British subject for her whole life, her ancestry was French and Irish.
Godmother of actress Juliet Mills.
Had an affair with actor Peter Finch that nearly ended her marriage to Laurence Olivier. The movie The V.I.P.s (1963) is based on an incident from Leigh`s and Olivier`s marriage, when she was about to leave him for Finch but Olivier wooed her back.
Has three grandsons: Neville Farrington (b. December 4 1958), Jonathan Farrington (b. May 13 1961) and Rupert Farrington (b. Aug 31 1962)
Kept Laurence Olivier`s photograph beside her bed and on her dressing table even after they divorced. Until her death she was addressed as "Lady Olivier."
Measurements: 32A/B-23-33 (during Gone with the Wind (1939)). (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Reportedly used one of her two Oscars to doorstop her bathroom.
She desperately wanted to play the second Mrs. De Winter in Rebecca (1940) opposite her husband Laurence Olivier, but producer David O. Selznick thought the role would dilute her value as a Scarlett O`Hara type and cast Joan Fontaine instead. His decision severely strained her professional relationship with Selznick; neither she nor Olivier ever appeared in one of his films again. Fontaine won her first Academy Award nomination in the role.
She took her then husband`s first name (Leigh) as her last name when she began acting professionally.
Son-in-law`s name is Robin Farrington.
A lover of cats, especially Siamese.
According to legend, Myron Selznick introduced Vivien to his brother - Gone with the Wind (1939) producer David O. Selznick - with the words, "Hey, genius! Meet your Scarlett."
Claimed that when she tested for Gone with the Wind (1939), the costume was still warm from the actress who preceded her.
Her favorite role was that of Myra Lester, which she played in Waterloo Bridge (1940).
Laurence Olivier`s first wife, Jill Esmond, named Vivien as co-respondent in her February 1940 divorce from Olivier on grounds of adultery. Vivien would name Joan Plowright - Olivier`s next and last wife - as co-respondent in her 1960 divorce from Olivier, also on grounds of adultery.
Married Laurence Olivier at San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara on August 31st, 1940, with Katharine Hepburn as maid of honor; they honeymooned on actor Ronald Colman`s yacht.
Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp features Clark Gable and Leigh as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O`Hara from Gone with the Wind (1939). The other films honored were Beau Geste (1939), Stagecoach (1939), and The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Scarlett O`Hara might have been played by an actress called `April Morn`, a stage name she briefly considered before settling on Vivien Leigh.
The producer of the 1935 play "The Mask of Virtue" suggested to her that she change the `a` in her first name to an `e` from "Vivian" to "Vivien."
Was offered the supporting role of Isabella in Wuthering Heights (1939), but decided to gamble and hold out for the lead role of Cathy. Director William Wyler thought she was crazy to pass up the opportunity, telling her, "You will never get a better part than Isabella for an American debut." Shortly after, she landed the plum role of Scarlett O`Hara.
A heavy smoker, Leigh was smoking almost four packs a day during filming of Gone with the Wind (1939).
After cremation at Golders Green, London, her ashes were scattered on the mill pond at her home, Tickerage Mill, at Blackboys in Sussex.
Lived with John Merivale from 1959 to her death in 1967.
Mother of Suzanne Farrington.
Ranked #48 in Empire (UK) magazine`s "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Suffered from manic depression.
Won Tony Award-Best Musical Actress (1963) "Tovarich"
All day long you`re really leading up to the evening`s performance. To time everything correctly, you have to take care of yourself-which is a very difficult thing to do, because it`s highly emotional
Cat like smile
Green Eyes
Raised right eyebrow
[talking to critics about her reviews for "The Mask of Virtue" (1935), her second play on the London stage] It`s much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.
Eventually, Vivien needed shock therapy to control her manic depression. Sometimes she would go on stage just hours after her treatments, without missing a beat in her performance.
Was obsessed with hiding her large hands. Gloves were a favorite cover-up, she owned more than 150 pairs.
A heavy smoker, Leigh was smoking almost four packs a day during filming of Gone with the Wind (1939).
A lover of cats, especially Siamese.
Married Laurence Olivier at San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara on August 31st, 1940, with Katharine Hepburn as maid of honor; they honeymooned on actor Ronald Colman`s yacht.
Scarlett O`Hara might have been played by an actress called `April Morn`, a stage name she briefly considered before settling on Vivien Leigh.
Suffered from manic depression.
Won Tony Award-Best Musical Actress (1963) "Tovarich"
|
Gold Sites
Silver Sites
Star Sites
Fan Sites
Comments
Continue the Conversation