Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier (5 November 1913 – 7 July 1967) was an English actress. She won two Best Actress Academy Awards for playing "southern belles": Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End.
She was a prolific stage performer, frequently in collaboration with her then-husband, Laurence Olivier, who directed her in several of her roles. During her 30-year stage career, she played roles ranging from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth.
Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that it sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress. However, ill health proved to be her greatest obstacle. For much of her adult life Leigh had what is now known as bipolar disorder. She earned a reputation for being difficult to work with, and her career suffered periods of inactivity. She also suffered recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, first diagnosed in the mid-1940s. Leigh and Olivier divorced in 1960, and she worked sporadically in film and theatre until her death from tuberculosis in 1967.
Vivian Hartley was removed from the school by her father, who took her travelling in Europe; with schooling provided by schools in the areas they travelled, returning to England in 1931. She attended one of Maureen O'Sullivan's films playing in London's West End and told her parents of her ambitions to become an actress. Her father enrolled her at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.
Her early performances brought her immediate success in Britain, but she remained largely unknown in other parts of the world until the release of Gone with the Wind. In December 1939, the New York Times wrote, "Miss Leigh's Scarlett has vindicated the absurd talent quest that indirectly turned her up. She is so perfectly designed for the part by art and nature that any other actress in the role would be inconceivable", and as her fame escalated, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine as Scarlett. In 1969, critic Andrew Sarris commented that the success of the film had been largely due to "the inspired casting" of Leigh, and in 1998 wrote that "she lives in our minds and memories as a dynamic force rather than as a static presence." Leonard Maltin described the film as one of the all-time greats, writing in 1998 that Leigh "brilliantly played" her role.
Leigh had only a brief career on the British stage and screen when she was plucked out of relative obscurity for the female lead in what would become one of the greatest movies ever made. Playing opposite the charismatic Clark Gable, Leigh became an instant celebrity after her role as Scarlett O'Hara, and remained so for the rest of her relatively short, yet sometimes turbulent life.
Vivien Leigh was the first ever actress to won two Best Actress at the Academy Awards, the first for a color film and the second for a black-and-white film. This was repeated by Elizabeth Taylor in 1960 and 1966.
