Vivien LEIGH (1913-1967)
Actress, real name Vivian Mary HARTLEY born 5 November 1913, Darjeeling, India. Died 7 July 1967, London. (tuberculosis)
Biography writer Dale O'Connor daleoc@interaccess.com 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 the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is 6 years old the first time her parents take her to England. 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. The only comfort for the lonely child is a cat that was in the courtyard of the school that the nuns let her take up to her dormitory. Her first and best friend at the school is an 8-year-old girl, 'Maureen O'Sullivan' who has been transplanted from Ireland. 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. After Vivien has been at the school for 18 months, her mother comes again from India and takes her to a play in London. In the next six months, Vivien will insist in seeing the same play 16 times. In India, the British community entertained themselves at amateur theatricals and Vivien's father was a leading man. Pupils at the English convent school are eager to perform in school plays. It's an all girls school so some of the girls have to play the male roles. The male roles are so much more adventurous. Vivien's favorite actor is Leslie Howard and when she is 19 she marries an English barrister who looks very much like him. The year is 1932. Vivien's best friend from that convent school has gone to California where she is making movies. Vivien has an opportunity to play a small role in an English film, "Things Are Looking Up" (1935). She has only one line but the camera keeps returning to her face. The London stage is more exciting than the movies being filmed in England and the most thrilling actor on that stage is Laurence Olivier. At a party, Vivien finds out about a stage role, "The Green Sash", where the only requirement is that the leading lady be beautiful. The play has a very brief run, but now she is a real actress. An English film is going to be made about Elizabeth I. Laurence gets the role of a young favorite of the queen who is sent to Spain. Vivien gets a much smaller role as a lady-in-waiting of the queen who is in love with Laurence's character. In real life, both fall in love while making the film, "Fire Over England", that is shown in British and American movie theaters in 1937. In 1938, Hollywood wants Laurence to play Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights". Vivien, who has just recently read "Gone With The Wind", thinks that the role of Scarlett O'Hara is the first role for an actress that would be really exciting to bring to the screen. She sails to America for a brief vacation. In New York, she gets on a plane for the first time to rush to California to see Laurence. They have dinner with Myron Selznick the night that his brother David Selznick is burning Atlanta on a backlot of MGM. Actually they are burning old sets that go back to the early days of silent films to make room to recreate an Atlanta of the 1860s. Vivien is 26 when "Gone With The Wind" makes a sweep of the Oscars in 1939. So let's show 26-year-old Vivien walking up to the stage to accept her Oscar and then as the Oscar is presented the camera focuses on Vivien's face and through the 1990s magic of altering images the 26-year-old face merges into the face of Vivien at age 38 getting her second Best Actress Oscar for portraying Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire". She wouldn't have returned to America to make that film had not Laurence been going over there to do a film based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie". The film was called "Carrie". Laurence tells their friends that his motive for going to Hollywood to make films is to get enough money to produce his own plays for the London stage. He even has his own theater there, the St. James. 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. Breaking protocol, Vivien speaks up and is escorted from the House of Lords. The publicity helps raise the funds to save the St. James. Throughout their two-decade marriage Laurence and Vivien were acting together on the stage in London and New York. Vivien was no longer Lady Olivier when she performed her last major film role, "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" (1962)
Spouse Laurence Olivier (1940 - 1960) (divorced) 'Hubert Leigh Holman' (1932 - 1940) (divorced) (barrister) Trivia (October 1997) Ranked #48 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. Suffered from manic depression Had one daughter with Leigh Holman. Lived with John Merivale from 1959 to her death in 1967. Biography (print) Vivien Leigh: A Biography, Anne Edwards, R00338 02407 Vivien Leigh: A Biography, Hugo Vickers, R00699 92117 Personal quotes "It's much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh." Talking to critics about her reviews for "The Mask of Virtue" (1935), her second play on the London stage: "Some critics saw fit to say that I was a great actress. I thought that was a foolish, wicket thing to say because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry." "People who are very beautiful make their own laws." Portrayed in Gable and Lombard (1976) Salary Gone with the Wind (1939) $25,000 (USA) Article "Empire" (UK), October 1997, Iss. 100, pg. 196, by: Ian Freer and Jake Hamilton, "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time "Copyright © 1990-1998 The Internet Movie Database Ltd The Internet Movie Database
More of the early life of Vivien LEIGH
Vivien LEIGH was born Vivian Mary HARTLEY on the evening of Wednesday November 5th, 1913 in her parents home in Darjeeling, India. Her father, Ernest HARTLEY, was born in Yorkshire England in 1883, and had moved to India at the age of 22 in search of a career and adventure. He became involved with a brokerage firm, spent time racing horses, and acted in The Calcutta Dramatic Society. Vivien's mother, Gertrude YACKJEE, although from Irish descendants, was also born in Darjeeling India, in 1888. Friends of the Hartleys said that Gertrude, with her dark hair, blue eyes, and peach-like skin (traits Vivien would inherit), was very beautiful in her youth, more so than Vivien. The YACKJEE side of the family also had Armenian descendants which may have influenced Vivien's dark Eastern looks.
Meeting originally in Calcutta, Vivien's parents traveled to London where they were married in 1912. They then returned to India and settled in Darjeeling, a city within site of Mount Everest. A year after their marriage, Vivien was born, 'a most enchanting little girl with wonderful colouring'. Enjoying elements of fantasy and drama as a child, she was encourage to read early on and became fond of authors such as Rudyard Kipling, Hans Christian Anderson, and Lewis Carroll. She moved to England with her family at the age of 6 in 1920, returning to India only briefly in the 1960's.
On September 21st, 1920, Vivien was placed in the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Roehampton, and did not see her parents again for almost a year and a half. She was educated at the Convent for the subsequent 8 years, and 'from early on she showed poised, self -containment, and the ability to sustain a private existence.' Her first stage appearances at school were in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (playing the fairy), and in The Tempest (as Miranda). She studied ballet, played the cello in the school orchestra, and excelled at piano - taking her music exam at the Royal Academy of Music when she was a teenager. Vivien was also fascinated early on in different languages, Egyptian history, and learned to speak French fluently.
Vivien was so tiny and delicately made, with wonderful large blue eyes and chestnut wavy hair nearly to her waist, the tiny retrousse nose, the only complexion I have ever seen that really was like a peach.
Vivien stayed briefly at a sister convent of the Sacred Heart in San Remo, the capital of the Italian Riviera, during 1928-29. At the age of 15, she went to Paris to spend a term at a finishing school in Auteuil. She was the youngest student in the school, however she was already moving from the awkward youth phase into a charming, dark haired beauty that would later bring much fame. The purpose of the finishing school in France was 'to teach French - language and literature - and to send the girls out into the world with a good marriage set firmly in their sights.'1 At Christmas of that year, 1929, Vivien was chosen to be the heroine of the school play. Encouraged by her schoolmistress, she was inspired to work on her diction and acting abilities. This early help pushed her further towards an interest in a career on stage. Her final two years of education were at yet another finishing school, this time in the Bavarian Alps, which concluded her schooling in June of 1931 - halfway towards her 17th birthday. During this time, she developed an interest in the visual arts and continued to study languages - notably French and German.
In January of 1932 Vivien met Leigh Holman while staying at her aunt's in Teignmouth, England. He was a man 13 years her senior, but possessed a charm and intelligence Vivien found captivating. Born in 1900, Leigh was educated in Cambridge and practiced as a Barrister-at-Law. An attachment quickly developed between the two and they spent several months courting and corresponding. In May of 1932, Vivien began to study at RADA, The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Life was looking up - she was about to marry a man she greatly admired, and she was studying acting in a well know academy. Much to her dismay, Vivien abandoned the academy, at Leigh's request, once they became serious about marriage.
The wedding between Leigh and Vivien took place on December 20th 1932, at St. James's Cathedral. Shortly after they returned from their honeymoon in Austria, Vivien obtained Leigh's permission to return to RADA and she continued to study acting. A year passed and Vivien gave birth to a daughter on October 10th 1933, naming her Suzanne. At this point, things seemed to have settled into domestic life for Vivien. Her destiny would not remain domestic for long however, she had just heard of the chance for a small part in a new film entitled Things are Looking Up…Copyright
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