Vivien Leigh Gone Wind Restored

Vivien Leigh (1913—1967), British actress who achieved motion picture immortality by playing two of American literature’s most celebrated Southern belles, Scarlett O’Hara and Blanche DuBois. The daughter of a Yorkshire stockbroker, she was born in India and convent-educated in England and throughout Europe. Inspired by the example of her schoolmate Maureen O’Sullivan, she embarked upon an acting career, enrolling at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1932. That same year she married her first husband, British barrister Herbert Leigh Holman, and adopted his middle name as her professional name. After her film debut in Things Are Looking Up (1934), she appeared in several more British “quota quickies” before making her first stage appearance in The Green Sash (1935). Although she possessed a weak stage voice at this point in her career, her stunning stage presence and beauty were impossible to ignore, and in 1935 she was signed to a contract by movie mogul Alexander Korda. During her initial burst of film stardom Leigh began an affair with British leading man Laurence Olivier, then married to actress Jill Esmond. The two lovers would subsequently appear together on stage and screen, notably in Korda’s Fire Over England (1937) and 21 Days (filmed 1937, released 1940; also released as 21 Days Together).