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Vivien Leigh: Roles
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Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) was a very successful actress, starring in 20 films over the course of her lifetime and bringing home Oscars for two of them. She is best remembered for her Oscar winning role in the 1939 film Gone With the Wind, although she ... played Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951, for which she won an Oscar as well. Vivien Leigh is remembered as a startlingly beautiful woman, with expressive features and a distinctive arched eyebrow.
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At the time of her death Vivien Leigh was attempting to prepare to play the role of Agnes in the London premiere of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. She told friends that she could not understand the character. The play is set in a dream that Leigh has at the end of her life. She enters a theater thinking that she is coming to the first read-through of A Delicate Balance. But the theater is dark and abandoned, and perhaps haunted. The dream leads her back through the events of her life that brought her to this lost place and toward a confrontation with the central issues of her life.
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Vivien Leigh appeared in a number of films during the war years, but her life took several bad turns during this period. She had health problems compounded by an infection with tuberculosis, and she struggled with her personal life and screen roles. Unlike many actresses who suffer personal difficulties... Vivien Leigh remained very popular at the box office, making several high grossing films during the 1940s and 1950s.
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Against the background of Vivien Leigh’s life, loves and illness, this book explores her roles as an actress, the nature of acting and her personal philosophies. In a modern world it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify what is real and what is illusion. Vivien Leigh’s story challenges readers to explore all aspects of their lives and relationships, discarding masks and stereotypes to discover a personal truth.What is inspiration? Where does the artist’s genius come from? And what does he have to sacrifice in order to remain true to his vision and his destiny?
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In 1932, Leigh decided to get serious about her stage career. Married that year to a London barrister, Herbert Leigh Holman, she took his middle name, slightly changed the spelling of her first name. She gave birth to a daughter, Suzanne, in 1933, and got a part in a British film called Things Are Looking Upin 1934. For Leigh, they were looking up. She landed small parts in several movies and then won her first stage role in 1935 for a production of The Green Sash. Although the play never got to London's famed theater district, her performance caught the attention of Sydney Carroll, a West End producer.
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That, at least, is the story of how Vivien Leigh came to be cast in the role coveted or claimed at one time or another by every rising, established or waning female star in Hollywood. Perhaps the only exceptions were Barbara Stanwyck (who was aware her screen persona made her unsuitable for the part) and Hedy Lamarr (whose Viennese accent cancelled her out).
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