 Vivien Leigh, was born as Vivian Mary Hartley, in Darjeeling, India on November 5th 1913. Her father was French, her mother Irish, and her education was equally international, recieving schooling in London, a French convent in Italy and finishing schools in Paris and Bavaria. At the age of 19 she joined the Academy of Dramatic Art.
Her first stage role came in The Green Sash, followed by appearances in plays such as The Mask of Virtue and The Happy Hypocrite. Whilst continuing on the London stage, she found herself committing more performances to celluloid, beginning with Fire over London, and continuing with the films Dark Journey, Storm in a Teacup, St. Martin's Lane and A Yank At Oxford. International Fame and an Academy Award came for her performance as Scarlet O'Hara in the phenomenal 1939 blockbuster, Gone With The Wind. Her second Oscar came from her portrayal of Blanche in 1951's Streetcar Named Desire, a role she was reprising from the London stage version of two years earlier. Her other films included Waterloo Bridge (1940), That Hamilton Woman (1941), Anna Karenina (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1955), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961), and Ship of Fools (1965). Vivien Leigh died on July 8th 1967. |
