How one of Hollywood’s symbols of beauty lived and acted, despite his illness that was confused with “bad mood”

She beautifully portrayed the classic heroines of the theater, which she always considered greater than the cinema: Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth. She has revealed her talent in dramas and is known around the world as the peerless Scarlett O’Hara of …Gone with the Windand Blanche DuBois de A Streetcar Named Desire🇧🇷 She became the first British actress to win an Oscar and dreamed of making people laugh. But behind her delicate appearance and brilliant destiny, she hid the complicated life of Vivian Mary Hartley, Vivien Leigh’s real name.

O awesome.club became interested in the story of this extraordinary woman, who believed that anyone could get anything they wanted if they tried their best. However, life showed her different faces, Vivien suffered from depression but also had infinite happiness trying to be herself at all times.

The actress was born in 1913 and had a troubled childhood. The personality of the future star was formed in free and warm India, where she was born. But when Vivien was 7 years old, her parents returned to England and put her in a convent to be educated and to have “the Indian spirit out of her”. She returned home only after 11 years.

The theatrical performances she participated in at the convent helped Vivien define her career choice. At 18, she entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, where she studied for less than a year, as she decided to become the wife of a “true Englishman”.

Her first husband was attorney Herbert Leigh Holman, 12 years her senior. Holman didn’t approve of acting classes and so Vivien dropped out of school, but she didn’t abandon her dream of becoming famous. From her marriage to Holman, her only child, Suzanne, was born, but Vivien failed to become a good wife. She even appeared in advertisements and in some movie scenes. She also created her stage name Vivien Leigh and made the play The Mask of Virtuefor which she was lauded in London theater circles as “a promising and incredibly beautiful actress”.

Around the same time, she met Laurence Olivier. Seeing him on stage, Vivien told a friend that she would marry him. A friend of hers remembered that she was already married, to which the actress simply smiled mysteriously. Soon, they started acting together on stage. At first, the relationship was a simple friendship, but later it became a torrid romance.

Olivier remembers being enchanted by Vivien’s “incredible and unbelievable” beauty. Olivier’s wife and Vivien’s husband did not give them a divorce for quite some time, and the couple got married only after 6 years.

At this point, Vivien already stood out around the world thanks to the role of Scarlett O’Hara, for which she received her first Oscar.

film crew from …Gone with the Wind after winning the Oscar.

Vivien’s fame became a real test for Olivier’s feelings. He was a well-known actor and director, but he never enjoyed the same fame as his wife. There was jealousy, envy, and suspicion, though Vivien did her best not to provoke any of it.

She continued acting in shows that Olivier produced and filmed. Their bond was known around the world and they were later considered the most beautiful couple in Hollywood in the movie. Lady Hamilton, the Divine Lady🇧🇷

At that time, the actress went through a personal tragedy: during the filming of Caesar and Cleopatra suffered her second miscarriage. Grief provoked her first nervous breakdown and that was when everyone met the irate Vivien. In fact, after the incident, she didn’t remember a thing and apologized to the entire set staff when they told her what she had told people.

At the height of her fame, Vivien traveled across Africa. Upon returning, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. That diagnosis was made in 1945 and she immediately began treatment. However, something strange happened. Because of her illness, she started having bouts of insanity. She would punch her husband and then not remember anything, she suffered from sudden mood swings, from euphoria to lack of energy and even did several such scenes on set.

For a long time, Vivien attributed her condition to simple fatigue and stress, but then she went to the doctors. However, they were unable to make an accurate diagnosis and used radical methods against mental disorders, such as electroshock sessions, which Vivien accepted with dismay, thus aggravating her painful condition.

It was later revealed that his bipolar disorder was caused, in particular, by the anti-tuberculosis drugs he had been taking for a year, and he was prescribed therapies.

During the time of his forced break from work, his fame waned somewhat. It seemed like she couldn’t find a common language with the directors as they didn’t take her seriously because of her beauty. Vivien was convinced he wasn’t allowed to show his dramatic and comic talent to the fullest. But the reason was different: the actress had a reputation for being a difficult person to deal with, precisely because of her humor. Vivien tried to hide that her attacks weren’t the result of a difficult temper, but symptoms of the disease, but the rumors spread and the directors didn’t want to take risks in the filming.

Subsequently, she participated in several unsuccessful projects, for example, the film Ana Karenina🇧🇷 At the same time, it debuted Hamlet with Olivier in the lead role, for which the actor got his first Oscar.

Of course, Olivier included Vivien in his plays, and together they went on tour, but as his close friends commented, their paths diverged: he was absorbed by work and she by illness.

In 1947, Vivien read the play A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, and wanted to play Blanche DuBois the same way he had played Scarlett. Critics praised her incredible sensitivity to the roles. Close friends of hers said that in Scarlett and Blanche there was a lot of Vivien herself, which is exactly why such roles turned out to be so convincing.

Despite controversial reviews from critics, A Streetcar Named Desire it has been performed at the London Theater 326 times. Afterwards, Vivien acted in the film of the same name, in which her co-worker was Marlon Brando. This was her second best performance, an absolutely consecrated work, which earned her her second Oscar. The role brought the actress a new wave of recognition, but it ended up worsening her illness. “For 9 months I was Blanche DuBois, and since then she has controlled me. She’s a tragic figure and I understand her, but when I play her I sink into madness.”

The illness progressed and the relationship with her husband was destroyed. On Vivien’s birthday, Olivier gave her an incredible gift: a Rolls-Royce, but he also filed for divorce. After a difficult breakup, Vivien began a romantic relationship with actor John Merivale.

Vivien Leigh with her husband Laurence Olivier and their daughter from her first marriage, Suzanne.

In between bouts of depression, the actress tried to accept various roles and surrender to work without rest. She received the Tony Award, the Academy Award for Theater, for her performance in the musical Comrade; participated in the movies In Rome in Spring and The Ship of Fools, in which she was presented to the viewer with an unusual mature image. the director of The Ship of FoolsStanley Kramer, said: “She was sick, but she had the courage and kept going, which is amazing, it couldn’t have been any other way.”

In her private life, Vivien sincerely liked the role of grandmother: her daughter gave birth to three children, and this improved the relationship between mother and daughter. Suzanne could not forgive the actress for “having left her for the theater”. In her new home, with a lake and a mill, she received her friends. Winston Churchill was one of her frequent guests. Apparently, happiness has returned. But an old enemy too: tuberculosis.

Vivien’s final role in the film The ship of fools.

In 1967, she once again gathered her courage and began rehearsing in London a play by Chekhov, Ivanov🇧🇷 Despite the development of her tuberculosis, she continued rehearsing at home with the hope of taking the stage.

It happened on Friday, July 7th. Merivale, on returning from rehearsals and taking a look at Vivien’s room, found her dead, lying on the floor.

Vivien died at just 53 years old. On her farewell day, all central London theaters turned off their lights for an hour to honor her memory. She was not afraid of old age and dreamed of playing old women’s roles where people could see her personality and not her appearance. And, in part, she succeeded.

What would you highlight about this incredible actress? Have you seen any of her hits on screen?