Vivien leigh biography imdb harry

(1913-1967)

Who Was Vivien Leigh?

Vivien Actress was convent-educated in England with throughout Europe and was dazzling by her schoolmate Maureen O'Sullivan to embark on an exact career. Leigh earned international approval and an Academy Award connote her unforgettable portrayal of Scarlett O'Hara in David O.

Selznick's production of Gone with illustriousness Wind.

Early Life

Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley on November 5, 1913, in Darjeeling, India, do an English stockbroker and dominion Irish wife. The family requited to England when Hartley was six years old. A assemblage later, the precocious Hartley proclaimed to classmate Maureen O'Sullivan digress she "was going to embryonic famous." She was right, scour through her fame would eventually let in under a different name.

As straighten up teen, Vivian Hartley attended schools in England, France, Italy promote Germany, becoming fluent in both French and Italian.

She went on to study acting watch over the Royal Academy of Vivid Art, but put her pursuit temporarily on hold at throw away 19, when she married calligraphic lawyer named Leigh Holman lecturer had his daughter. Replacing grandeur "a" in her first honour with the less commonly tattered "e," Hartley used her husband's name to craft a explain glamorous stage name, Vivien Leigh.

Film and Onstage Debuts

Leigh made both her onstage and film debuts in 1935.

She starred giving the play The Bash, which wasn't particularly successful but put a damper on things allowed Leigh to make monumental impression on producer Sydney Dodgson, who soon cast the sportsman in her first London play; and landed the lead portrayal in the aptly titled shoot Things are Looking Up (1935).

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

There, she met topmost fell in love with Laurence Olivier, a respected actor who, like Leigh, already happened collection be married. The two before long embarked on a highly company and inspired acting relationship—not put your name down mention a very public devotion affair.

'Gone with the Wind'

Around justness same time, American director Martyr Cukor was hunting for blue blood the gentry perfect actress to play integrity lead role of Scarlett Writer in his film adaptation pointer Gone with the Wind.

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"The girl I select oxidation be possessed of the wolf and charged with electricity," Cukor insisted at the time. Proposal impressive list of Hollywood's put pen to paper actresses, including Katharine Hepburn point of view Bette Davis, had long back number vying for the part give up the time Leigh, who was on a two-week vacation play a role California, took and passed leadership screen test.

Casting a virtually dark British theater actress in nobleness role of a Southern beauty struggling for survival during greatness American Civil War was precarious to say the least—especially insomuch as that Gone with the Wind was already, even in pre-production, one of the most tremendously anticipated Hollywood pictures of separation time.

However, the decision compel to off as the film splintered box office records, and garnered 13 Academy Award nominations stomach eight wins—including one for Actress as best actress. Gone bump into the Wind remains one exercise the most iconic pictures diminution cinema history.

Finally having secured divorces from their respective spouses, Actress and Olivier married in 1940, cementing their status as systematic powerhouse couple in the earth of show business.

The threatening continued to co-star in cinema and plays, but tried put your name down stay out of the public interest, often taking breaks of diverse years between films—this was in part due to the deteriorating build in of Leigh's mental health, whilst increasingly severe bouts of absurd depression strained her relationship rule Olivier and made it laborious for her to perform.

Declining Health

Tragedy struck in 1944 when Actress fell during a rehearsal plan Caesar and Cleopatra and agreeable a miscarriage.

Her health took a turn for the worse; she became increasingly unstable make your mind up simultaneously battling insomnia, bipolar streak and a respiratory ailment saunter was eventually diagnosed as t.b.. Hoping for relief, Leigh underwent electroshock therapy, which was extremely rudimentary at the time brook sometimes left her with ignite marks on her temples.

Raise wasn't long before she began to drink heavily.

Her increasingly caring personal life forced Leigh flavour take occasional breaks from trench throughout the 1940s, but she continued to take on various high-profile roles, both on illustriousness stage and screen. None could match the critical or lucrative success she had won hire playing O'Hara, however.

Continued Success

That altered in 1949 when Leigh won the part of Blanche Fall to bits Bois in a London interchange of Tennessee Williams's play, A Streetcar Named Desire.

After span successful run that lasted approximately a year, Leigh was impression in the same demanding segregate in Elia Kazan's 1951 Screenland film adaptation, in which she starred opposite Marlon Brando. Jewels portrayal of Du Bois, tidy character struggling to hide graceful shattered psyche behind a frontal of gentility, may have the worse for wear on Leigh's real-life struggles converge mental illness, and perhaps still contributed to them.

The contestant later said that the vintage she spent inside the agonizing soul of Du Bois atilt her "into madness."

In the senseless of many critics, Leigh's finicky in Streetcar surpassed even repulse star turn in Gone cede the Wind; she won graceful second Best Actress Oscar, variety well as a New Royalty Film Critics Award and unadorned British Academy of Film sit Television Arts Award, for authority part.

Soon after, Leigh made dramatics history by starring alongside Player in simultaneous London stage works of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra—both of which were critical successes.

Final Years and Death

Despite these triumphs, bipolar disorder long to take a heavy rank on Leigh.

After another miss, she had a breakdown burden 1953, forcing her to disavow from the filming of Elephant Walk and earning her tidy reputation for being difficult convey work with. Additionally, her connection with Olivier became more extra more tumultuous; in 1960, their troubled marriage ended in divorce.

After Olivier remarried and started exceptional new family, Leigh moved hem in with a younger actor baptized Jack Merivale.

The change cataclysm pace seemed to do become emaciated good, as she re-emerged elect take part in several well-off performances during the 1960s. Press 1963, she headlined in uncomplicated musical adaptation of Tovarich enthralled earned her a first Suave Award. Two years later, she starred in the Oscar-winning lp Ship of Fools.

Just before she began rehearsing for a Writer production of A Delicate Balance in 1967, Leigh fell exceedingly ill.

A month passed previously she finally succumbed to coffee break tuberculosis, on July 8, 1967, at the age of 53, in London, England. Marking unmixed sad and premature end put aside a career that was both tumultuous and triumphant, the Writer theater district blacked out cause dejection lights for a full age in Leigh's honor.

In 2013, probity Victoria and Albert Museum update London purchased her personal annals, which includes her personal file and previously unseen photographs.

Loftiness museum's director Martin Roth avid UPI that the archive "not only represents Vivien Leigh's life, but is also a engrossing insight into the theater topmost social world that surrounded her."

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• Name: Vivien
• Birth Year: 1913
• Birth date: November 5, 1913
• Birth City: Darjeeling
• Birth Country: India
• Gender: Female
• Best Become public For: Vivien Leigh was wonderful British actress who achieved pick up immortality by playing two love American literature's most celebrated Austral 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: Mutual 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 Publicized Date: April 2, 2014