Winner of the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize 2020 Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the twentieth century. As Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history. Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously unseen sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work. Revealing new aspects of her early life as well as providing glimpses behind-the-scenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, this book provides the essential and comprehensive life-story of one of the twentieth century's greatest actresses.

Vivien Leigh is best known as the former Mrs. Laurence Olivier; the beautiful but willful Scarlett O'Hara; and the fading southern belle with a tenuous grip on reality, Blanche Du Bois. In life and on the screen, these were her public roles. Walker's excellent biography fills the gaps, giving insights into her private life-into what it must have been like to be Vivien Leigh. Walker (author of Garbo: A Portrait, CH, Mar '81; Dietrich, 1984; and Bette Davis: A Celebration, 1986) is a careful researcher who managed to win the confidence of the right people. His interview subjects include Vivien Leigh's only daughter, Suzanne Farrington; her first agent, John Glidden; and her last husband, Jack Merivale. Vivien is personal without being excessively gossipy, and informative without being pedantic. Walker's book should delight film-goers, theater-goers, and readers curious about prominent people. Leigh's achievements were many, but her personality had its darker side; even her 20 years as half of Britain's reigning theatrical couple ``the Oliviers'' took its toll on her physical and mental health. Amply supplied with photographs of the actress at all stages of her life, Vivien is an engaging book about an engaging figure. Undergraduates and general readers.- J.L. Cohen, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

This is the story of the actress who became a Hollywood legend by winning the coveted role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, and whose circle included both theatrical and political celebrities, from Winston Churchill to Noel Coward, John Gielgud, and Marlon Brando. But behind the dazzling exterior lay the sinister shadow of another Vivien Leigh—a shadow which pursued her throughout her aristocratic upbringing, her frustrating first marriage, her tempestuous romance with Laurence Olivier, and her meteoric rise to stardom. As The New York Times wrote of the hardcover edition, “To read her story is to be inspired with pity and terror.”

Vivien Leigh's mystique was a combination of staggering beauty, glamour, romance, and genuine talent displayed in her Oscar-winning performances in Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire. For more than thirty years, her name alone sold out theaters and cinemas the world over, and she inspired many of the greatest visionaries of her time: Laurence Olivier loved her; Winston Churchill praised her; Christian Dior dressed her. Through both an in-depth narrative and a stunning array of photos, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait presents the personal story of one of the most celebrated women of the twentieth century, an engrossing tale of success, struggles, and triumphs. It chronicles Leigh's journey from her birth in India to prominence in British film, winning the most-coveted role in Hollywood history, her celebrated love affair with Laurence Olivier, through to her untimely death at age fifty-three in 1967. Author Kendra Bean is the first Vivien Leigh biographer to delve into the Laurence Olivier Archives, where an invaluable collection of personal letters and documents ranging from interview transcripts to film contracts to medical records shed new insight on Leigh's story. Illustrated by hundreds of rare and never-before-published images, including those by Leigh's "official" photographer, Angus McBean, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait is the first illustrated biography to closely examine the fascinating, troubled, and often misunderstood life of Vivien Leigh: the woman, the actress, the legend.

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm" Margaret Mitchell opened Gone with the Wind with this description of Scarlett O'Hara, but her words can hardly be applied to Vivien Leigh, the British actress who gave an unforgettable performance as the Southern belle. Leigh possessed a beauty that men seldom failed to recognize and a charm that caught many, but her life was far from being all beauty and charm. This biography of the beautiful and tortured actress, from her birth and childhood in exotic India to her premature death in 1967, gives special attention to her development and career as a stage and film actress (which culminated in one Tony award and two Oscars). Her ambitious personality and her manic-depressive illness, including the sexual compulsion that haunted her life, her romantic and tragic marriage to Laurence Olivier, and her performances in, for instance, Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, are all detailed.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST A New York Times Bestseller "A "well rounded and entertaining" (New York Times) Hollywood biography about the passionate, turbulent marriage of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In 1934, a friend brought fledgling actress Vivien Leigh to see Theatre Royal, where she would first lay eyes on Laurence Olivier in his brilliant performance as Anthony Cavendish. That night, she confided to a friend, he was the man she was going to marry. There was just one problem: she was already married—and so was he. TRULY, MADLY is the biography of a marriage, a love affair that still captivates millions, even decades after both actors' deaths. Vivien and Larry were two of the first truly global celebrities – their fame fueled by the explosive growth of tabloids and television, which helped and hurt them in equal measure. They seemed to have it all and yet, in their own minds, they were doomed, blighted by her long-undiagnosed mental-illness, which transformed their relationship from the stuff of dreams into a living nightmare. Through new research, including exclusive access to previously unpublished correspondence and interviews with their friends and family, author Stephen Galloway takes readers on a bewitching journey. He brilliantly studies their tempestuous liaison, one that took place against the backdrop of two world wars, the Golden Age of Hollywood and the upheavals of the 1960s — as they struggled with love, loss and the ultimate agony of their parting.

Renowned for her screen performances, down-to-earth personality, and love affair with Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner left an indelible mark on Hollywood history. Her adventurous life story is told through authoritative text and hundreds of photos in Ava: A Life in Movies. Ava is an illustrated tribute to a legendary life. Authors Kendra Bean and Anthony Uzarowski take a closer look at the Academy Award-nominated actress's life and famous screen roles. They also shed new light on the creation and maintenance of her glamorous image, her marriages, and friendships with famous figures such as Ernest Hemingway, John Huston, and Tennessee Williams. From the backwoods of Grabtown, North Carolina to the bullfighting rings of Spain, from the MGM backlot to the Rome of La Dolce Vita, this lavishly illustrated biography takes readers on the exciting journey of a life lived to the fullest and through four decades of film history with an iconic star.

This edited volume provides new readings of the life and career of iconic actress Vivien Leigh (1913-67), written by experts from theatre and film studies and curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The collection uses newly accessible family archives to explore the intenselycomplex relationship between Vivien Leigh's approach to the craft of acting for stage and screen, and how she shaped, developed and projected her public persona as one of the most talked about and photographed actresses of her era.With key contributors from the UK, France and the US, chapters range from analyses of her work on stage and screen to her collaborations with designers and photographers, an analysis of her fan base, her interior designs and the "public ownership" of Leigh's celebrity status during her lifetime andbeyond.