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Not many people will be familiar with Luke Magazine today, but its editor was certainly correct about Vivien Leigh and her performances Blanche DuBois. On the screen adaptation of Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, the role also won Vivien her second Oscar. The first Oscar was for an even more iconic role, one of the most lauded and hyped in Hollywood history, Scarlett O’Hara in 1939’s Gone with the Wind. She won the part after a highly publicized casting process by producer David O. Selznick, during which practically every A-list actress in Hollywood auditioned.
Legend has it that Selznick had already cast the rest of the film, including Olivia de Havilland’s Melanie but had started shooting all without securing her leading lady. Then on the day he was shooting with the famous burning of Atlanta scene, Vivien visited the set with Laurence Olivier and was introduced to Selznick with the words, “Here’s your Scarlett O’Hara.”
Born in Darjeeling in India in 1913 and schooled in England, France, Germany and Italy, Vivien was still perfectly cast as the impetuous southern belle with nerves of steel and charm and spades. The performance is as fresh today as it was in 1939 and when it comes to numbers of tickets sold, the film remains America’s all time box office champ.
The greatest love of Vivien’s life was one of English theater’s preeminent stars, Laurence Olivier. They fell in love on the set of Fire over England in 1937, despite being married to other people at the time. They moved in together but couldn’t marry until 1940, when their spouses finally agreed divorces.
In 1949, Vivien starred in the West End Production of A Streetcar named Desire. Elia Kazan’s film version followed, in which she co-starred with Marlon Brando and picked up that second Oscar.
The Oliviers frequently appeared together on the stage, including a string of Shakespearean productions such as Macbeth, Romeo an Juliet and Anthony and Cleopatra. Meanwhile, pushes were mounting on the marriage with Olivier, many of them compounded by Vivien’s ill health. An insomniac and heavy smoker, she was first diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1944 after touring North Africa with Olivier and performing for the troops. She suffered from recurrent outbreaks of the disease throughout her life. She also had psychiatric problems, eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder. When Olivier finally asked for a divorce in order to marry his new love, Joan Plowright, he entrusted Vivien’s wellbeing to her friend and admirer, Jack Merivale. After a friendship of over 20 years, Merivale became her devoted companion during the last years of her life, although he refused to marry her. The divorce from Olivier was finalized in 1960 but Vivien’s career still thrived. In 1963, she won her first and only Tony award for her performance as Tatiana in Tovarich. In May 1967, during the rehearsal period for Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, the TB returned, but Vivien refused to go to hospital, insisting she could recover just as well at home. She died on the evening of the seventh of July, aged just 53.
With a plaque in her memory on the wall of the actor’s church St. Pauls in Covent Garden, it reads “Now boast thee death, in thy possession lies a lass unparalleled.”
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