Vivian Mary
Hartley was born in the mountains of above Calcutta and went to England with
her parents when World War I broke out.
Her father enrolled her at the Royal Academy of
Dramatic Art in London. She then met and married Leigh Holman and dropped
out of drama school. When she began to get small film roles, she
changed her name to
Vivian Leigh.
Vivien soon met Laurence Olivier
and followed him to Hollywood when he was signed to star in
Wuthering Heights
(1939). She was introduced to and convinced David
Selznick to give her the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind
(1939) in which she made film history and earned her first Oscar for
Best Actress. The following year, Vivien and Laurence married which also made
Hollywood history since Leigh's Gone With the Wind and Olivier's
Wuthering Heights had made them international stars.
Vivien continued dividing her time between the
stage and film. She played Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of Tennessee
William's A Streetcar Named Desire in 1949 which eventually
resulted her being cast in the role in the film version for which she won her
second Academy Award as Best Actress and playing what some called an logical
progression of her Scarlett persona.
In the early 1950s, Vivien's mental health grew
more unstable and developed what we now call bipolar disorder ,
although some have speculated that her initial bout of depression were
caused by Larry's long-time affair with actor Danny Kaye. She had her
first major breakdown in 1953 after going to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk
(1954)
with Peter Finch with whom she told Larry that she had an affair.
After her breakdown, she was replaced in the film by Elizabeth Taylor.
Vivien gradually recovered over a period of several months. In 1960, she and
Olivier divorced.
In his autobiography, Larry wrote " Throughout her possession by that
uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening
spirals, she retained her own individual canniness – an ability to disguise
her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could
hardly be expected to take the trouble."
During the sixties, Viviwn earned critical praise for starring
in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) and Ship
of Fools (1965), and won Tony in the Broadway production of Tovarich
(1963). But her manic-depressive interludes continued and was a cofactor in
her continuing battle with tuberculosis from which she finally died in 1967.
In 1986, a visitor to Larry's ' home found the 80-year-old film legend sitting
alone in tears, watching Vivien in an old film on television. "This, this was love," he said, "This was the real thing."
In 1939, the Scarlett O'Hara
cocktail was concocted in tribute to the release of Gone with
the Wind and remains a popular drink.
So what could be a more appropriate way to celebrate Vivien's birthday
than toasting her with a drink that that echoes her most
memorable role and watching Gone with the Wind for the umpteenth time?
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