I used to maintain a list of historical women here I called "Heroine of the Weekend" (since I posted them on weekend). I love discovering new-to-me extraordinary women in history and delving a bit into their lives and times, but life got in the way and I didn't have the time to continue for a while. I'm eager to start this feature again, even sporadically, and see who we can discover. Let me know if you have any ideas for future features! And take a look at past essays in the side panel...
Today's heroine is one of my very favorite actresses, the complex, wonderfully beautiful, immensely talented Vivien Leigh, who was born November 5, 1913 and died July 8, 1967. The winner of 2 Oscars (Gone With the Wind and Streetcar Names Desire) and a Tony for Tovarich, she had a 30 year career, Despite her great film successes, she considered herself mainly a stage actress. "I'm not a film star—I'm an actress. Being a film star—just a film star—is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity. Actresses go on for a long time and there are always marvellous parts to play," she said. She faced many challenges ub ger short life, roles she longed for and lost, a serious battled with bi-polar disorder abd TB (which led to her early death), as well as the collapse of her great love for Laurence Olivier. Always, she was tough, hard-working, never giving up.
She was born in India, where she had her first stage role as Little Bo Peep at 3, and at age 6 was sent to Catholic school in England. After her schooling, she was accepted at RADA, but dropped out soon after meeting and marrying conventional, older barrister Leigh Holman in 1932 and having her one child, Suzanne, 1in 1933. She went back to study part-time, and managed to get a role in in the play The Mask of Virtue (1935). She got good reviews and lots of notice (except grumblings that her voice was too small for the large space!) Later Leigh said "some critics saw fit to be as foolish as to say that I was a great actress. And I thought, that was a foolish, wicked thing to say, because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry. And it took me years to learn enough to live up to what they said for those first notices.[29] I find it so stupid. I remember the critic very well and have never forgiven him"
In 1935, she first met Olivier at the Savoy Grill, and despite their current marriages were instantly drawn to each other and embarked on a passionate affair.. She played Ophelia to his Hamlet at a famous production at Ellsionore, where the weather was stormy and Vivien was worse, having her first major breakdown.
Her first major movie Yank at Oxford (1938) and it gained her attention in America. Soon after the pair embarked for the US, Oiliver to stare in Wuthering Heights, Vivie convinced she could bag THE part of Scarlett O'Hara. She did, of course, and embarked on a long, grueling shooting schedule, with her favorite director replaced, illness, feuds with the likes of Leslie Howard. Worst of all, she was separated from Olivier. "Puss, my puss, how I hate film acting! Hate, hate, and never want to do another film again!" she wrote to him in anguish.
After GWTW her career was never the same. She became a phenomonon, garnering all acclaim, including the Oscar. But it wasn't entirely what she wanted. "I'm not a film star—I'm an actress. Being a film star—just a film star—is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity. Actresses go on for a long time and there are always marvellous parts to play."
On May 31, 1940, finally free, the pair married , and headed off to mount a production of Romeo and Juliet in New York. (after Vivien being disappointed in losing the role of Rebecca opposite Olivie). The play was terrible flop and huge financial disaster for the could. Their follow-up was luckier, a film version of That Hamilton Woman. They returned to England on the eve of war, where Leigh performed for the troops in North Africa (where she probablu first contracted TB), and Olivier made his great, and very patriotiocally stirring Henry V.
Leigh sufferered miscarriages, and the mental troubles increased. The couple went ton tour to Australia and New Zealand in 1948 (soon after Olivier gained knighthood, making Vivien Lady Olivier). It went on for many gruelling months, and though a great success Vivien's health broke down further. Olivier said he "lost Vivien in Australia"
Throughout the '40s and '50s there were many movies and stage prductions (including Ceaser and Cleopatra and Antony and Cleopatra together). "The reviews there were also mostly positive, but film critic Kenneth Tynan angered them when he suggested that Leigh's was a mediocre talent that forced Olivier to compromise his own"
She performed Blanch in Streetcar... in the West End in 1949 (326 performances) which led to the film version and her second Oscar. In 1953, her marriage rocky, she went to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk, where she threw herself into an affair with actor Peter Finch, and feel deeper into mental illness. She was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor, and Olivier took Vivien home to the US for treatment. Later, after partial recovery, there were more plays, especially Shaw and Shakespeare, as well as a few films, such as Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and Ship of Fools. After parting with Olivier (how went on to marry actress Joan Plowright) she entered a long, stable relationship with actor Jack Merivale, settling into life on a country estate with lots of cats. She died at her London flat of TB on July 7, 1967
When asked if she believed her beauty had been an impediment to being taken seriously as an actress, she said, "People think that if you look fairly reasonable, you can't possibly act, and as I only care about acting, I think beauty can be a great handicap, if you really want to look like the part you're playing, which isn't necessarily like you."
Director George Cukor described Leigh as a "consummate actress, hampered by beauty", and Laurence Olivier said that critics should "give her credit for being an actress and not go on forever letting their judgments be distorted by her great beauty." Garson Kanin shared their viewpoint and described Leigh as "a stunner whose ravishing beauty often tended to obscure her staggering achievements as an actress. Great beauties are infrequently great actresses—simply because they don't need to be. Vivien was different; ambitious, persevering, serious, often inspired"
Some sources:
Bean, Kendra. Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press
Coleman, Terry. Olivier, The Authorised Biography. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005
Edwards, Anne. Vivien Leigh, A Biography. London: Coronet Books, 1978 edition
Spoto, Donald. Laurence Olivier: A Biography. London: Cooper Square Press, 2001
Strachan, Alan. Dark Star: A Biography of Vivien Leigh. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2018.
Vickers, Hugo. Vivien Leigh: A Biography. London: Little, Brown and Company, 1988 editionyg
No comments:
Post a Comment