A lucky thing Eva Peron was. She died at 32. I'm already 45.
Actresses go on for a long time and there are always marvelous parts to play.
All day long you're really leading up to the evening's performance. To time everything correctly, you have to take care of yourself-which is a very difficult thing to do, because it's highly emotional.
Chicago has one good art gallery. It's still freezing and there's no sign of spring.
Classical plays require more imagination and more general training to be able to do. That's why I like playing Shakespeare better than anything else.
Comedy is much more difficult than tragedy-and a much better training, I think. It's much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh.
Dear Lord, I'm so grateful I'm still loved.
English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.
Every single night I'm nervous. You never know how the audience is going to react.
I adore dancing.
I always know my lines.
I am going to be a great actress.
I am having voice lessons four times a week and Larry has suddenly started to compose music and nothing will stir him from the piano.
I am working frantically hard rehearsing and studying a southern accent which I don't find difficult anyway.
I can feel the audience being shocked. They take a breath before they dare laugh, for a start.
I did some hard thinking while I was ill. I just felt all washed up and never wanted to see a camera or a stage again. But I mapped out a new way of living.
I do long to have another baby, but I would have to stop work if I became pregnant and do precious little for nine months. I don't think that would suit my nature.
I don't know what that Method is. Acting is life, to me, and should be.
I find Juliet an extremely taxing and difficult part. Not that I didn't know that before.
I guess I'm not a maternal person, after all.
I have a charming chauffeur and a car, a sweet, French good cook who brings her cat, which is nice.
I have every reason to be grateful-I seem to have seen everyone I meant to and there have been some hilarious moments.
I have just made out my will and given all the things I have and many that I haven't.
I have taken a pill because I want to have a proper sleep and know I should be awake fretting dreadfully otherwise.
I know I am right for Scarlett. I can convince Mr. Selznick.
I like to have people come visit me all the time in the dressing room, I love that. But I can go through the lines quietly; I don't say them out loud.
I loved fencing and dancing and elocution.
I need something truly beautiful to look at in hotel rooms.
I never found accents difficult, after learning languages.
I think any classical training in the theatre is of enormous value.
I think Edith Evans is the most marvelous actress in the world and she can look beautiful. People who aren't beautiful can look beautiful. She can look as beautiful as Diana Cooper, who was the most beautiful woman in the world.
I thought I was in an insane asylum. I thought I had to scream so that someone would help me get out.
I tried in Streetcar to let people see what Blanche was like when she was in love with her young husband when she was 17 or 18. That was awfully important.
I was educated all over the place, in England, France, Germany and Italy. Came back to England when I was 5, went straight to convent school. I imagine I was rather spoiled.
I will never make a fuss about the financial side but am determined to ask for more time for the theatre.
I'm a Scorpio, and Scorpios eat themselves out and burn themselves up like me.
I'm not a film star, I am an actress. Being a film star is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity.
I'm not afraid to die.
I'm not young. What's wrong with that?
I've always been mad about cats.
I've been a godmother loads of times, but being a grandmother is better than anything.
I've been allowed home and I'm going to be a good girl and follow instructions to the last period.
I've never slept much, ever. Since I was born, I haven't.
If you're in love with something, it's comparatively easy, but if you're not, then life is more difficult, isn't it?
It's a very hard life. The hours are different from the rest of normal living, and to be able to act well, you have to be in marvelous physical condition.
It's early to bed from now on. I shall work just as hard, but rest harder, too.
Leigh taught me how to live, your father how to love, and Jack how to be alone.
Life is too short to work so hard.
My agent assures me that if the picture is a success I can make demands to get my contract altered.
My first husband and I are still good friends and there is no earthly reason why I should not see him. Larry and I are very much in love.
My husband came to see me in my dressing room. He admitted he had been in love with Miss Plowright for three months.
My parents were absolutely delighted that I knew what I wanted to do.
My parents were French and Irish and our family even has Spanish blood-and I do so love the United States and consider myself part American.
Now one does not plan a career much as it seems futile, and we are certainly only doing this for financial purposes.
On the whole, one has to speak much more slowly for an American audience. Of course, it's because of our English accent.
One is just an interpreter of what the playwright thinks, and therefore the greater the playwright, the more satisfying it is to act in the plays.
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.
San Francisco is simply beautiful. It is a perfectly delightful company, all very enthusiastic and young and eager.
Shaw is like a train. One just speaks the words and sits in one's place. But Shakespeare is like bathing in the sea - one swims where one wants.
Sometimes I dread the truth of the lines I say. But the dread must never show.
Stanley Kramer is the director and producer of Ship of Fools. I shall have the first draft in a week. Meanwhile I shall try to struggle through 700 pages of the book!
Streetcar is a most wonderful, wonderful play.
This has been an extraordinary week. Friends have been most remarkable.
Tonight I should like to play dominoes.
We play Shakespeare all the time in England, and we play to all classes.
When I come into the theatre I get a sense of security. I love an audience. I love people, and I act because I like trying to give pleasure to people.
When I was at school at Paris, I had special lessons from Mademoiselle Antoine, an actress at the Comedie Francaise, and I was taken to every sort of play. I felt very grand.
Why can't I have a decent, clean illness?
You can do things reasonably well, even if you dislike them very much. I've been very fortunate. I've done mostly plays in my life that I loved to do.
You know the passage where Scarlett voices her happiness that her mother is dead, so that she can't see what a bad girl Scarlett has become? Well, that's me.
You must tell me who I might have hurt. I have to write them an apology.
[Talking to critics about her reviews for "The Mask of Virtue" (1935), her second play on the London stage] "It's much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh."
Some critics saw fit to say that I was a great actress. 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.
Scorpios burn themselves out and eat themselves up and they are careless about themselves - like me. I swing between happiness and misery and I cry easily. I am a mixture of my mother's determination and my father's optimism. I am part prude and part non-conformist and I say what I think and don't dissemble. I am a mixture of French, Irish and Yorkshire, and perhaps that's what it all is.
[when asked to take over Joan Crawford's role in Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)] "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis."
[on Alexander Korda] "Alex was like a father to us - we went to see him with every little problem we had. We usually left convinced that he had solved it - or that we'd got our own way."
Am I finished with Hollywood? Good heavens, no! I shall certainly go back there if there is a film to make.
Won Tony Award-Best Musical Actress (1963) "Tovarich"
Ranked #48 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Suffered from manic depression.
Daughter, with Holman, Suzanne (b. 10/12/1933).
Lived with John Merivale from 1959 to her death in 1967.
A heavy smoker, Leigh was smoking almost four packs a day during filming of Gone with the Wind (1939).
Gertrude Hartley, while awaiting the birth of her child in Darjeeling, spent 15 minutes every morning gazing at the Himalayas in the belief that their astonishing beauty would be passed to her unborn child.
After cremation at Golders Green, London, her ashes were scattered on the mill pond at her home, Tickerage Mill, at Blackboys in Sussex.
Scarlett O'Hara might have been played by an actress called 'April Morn', a stage name she briefly considered before settling on Vivien Leigh.
Laurence Olivier's first wife, Jill Esmond, named Vivien as co-respondent in her February 1940 divorce from Olivier on grounds of adultery. Vivien would name Joan Plowright - Olivier's next and last wife - as co-respondent in her 1960 divorce from Olivier, also on grounds of adultery.
The producer of the 1935 play "The Mask of Virtue" suggested to her that she change the 'a' in her first name to an 'e' from "Vivian" to "Vivien."
According to legend, Myron Selznick introduced Vivien to his brother - Gone with the Wind (1939) producer David O. Selznick - with the words, "Hey, genius! Meet your Scarlett."
Married Laurence Olivier at San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara on August 31st, 1940, with Katharine Hepburn as maid of honor; they honeymooned on actor Ronald Colman's yacht.
A lover of cats, especially Siamese.
Claimed that when she tested for Gone with the Wind (1939), the costume was still warm from the actress who preceded her.
Was offered the supporting role of Isabella in Wuthering Heights (1939), but decided to gamble and hold out for the lead role of Cathy. Director William Wyler thought she was crazy to pass up the opportunity, telling her, "You will never get a better part than Isabella for an American debut." Shortly after, she landed the plum role of Scarlett O'Hara.
Pictured on one of four 25? US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp features Clark Gable and Leigh as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind (1939). The other films honored were Beau Geste (1939), Stagecoach (1939), and The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Her favorite role was that of Myra Lester, which she played in Waterloo Bridge (1940).
She took her then husband's first name (Leigh) as her last name when she began acting professionally.
Son-in-law's name is Robin Farrington.
Has three grandsons: Neville Farrington (b. December 4 1958), Jonathan Farrington (b. May 13 1961) and Rupert Farrington (b. Aug 31 1962)
Godmother of actress Juliet Mills.
Measurements: 32A/B-23-33 (during Gone with the Wind (1939)). (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Reportedly used one of her two Oscars to doorstop her bathroom.
Kept Laurence Olivier's photograph beside her bed and on her dressing table even after they divorced. Until her death she was addressed as "Lady Olivier."
Was the first non-American to win a "Best Actress" Oscar (Gone with the Wind (1939)).
She desperately wanted to play the second Mrs. De Winter in Rebecca (1940) opposite her husband Laurence Olivier, but producer David O. Selznick thought the role would dilute her value as a Scarlett O'Hara type and cast Joan Fontaine instead. His decision severely strained her professional relationship with Selznick; neither she nor Olivier ever appeared in one of his films again. Fontaine won her first Academy Award nomination in the role.
Had an affair with actor Peter Finch that nearly ended her marriage to Laurence Olivier. The movie The V.I.P.s (1963) is based on an incident from Leigh's and Olivier's marriage, when she was about to leave him for Finch but Olivier wooed her back.
Although she was a British subject for her whole life, her ancestry was French and Irish.
Won Broadway's 1963 Tony Award as Best Actress (Musical) for "Tovarich."
Was named #16 Actress on The American Film Institutes 50 Greatest Screen Legends
Is portrayed by Morgan Brittany in The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980) (TV) and by Mel Martin in Darlings of the Gods (1989) (TV)
She was supposed to star in the Paramount film Elephant Walk (1954) with Peter Finch and Dana Andrews, but after appearing in a few scenes she was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor. The reasons for Leigh's dismissal were rumored to be her difficult nature, having just been diagnosed as a manic-depressive. Further complications may have erupted because of an affair she had with co-star Finch while she was still married to Laurence Olivier, and Leigh and Olivier were still married in 1954.
She has at least 3 great granddaughters: Amy, Sophie and Ashua
Laurence Olivier wrote in his autobiography, "Confessions of an Actor," that sometime after World War II, Leigh announced calmly that she was no longer in love with him, but loved him like a brother. Olivier was emotionally devastated. What he did not know at the time was that Leigh's declaration -- and her subsequent affairs with multiple partners -- was a signal of the bipolar disorder that eventually disrupted her life and career. Leigh had every intention of remaining married to Olivier, but was no longer interested in him romantically. Olivier himself began having affairs (including one with Claire Bloom in the 1950s, according to Bloom's own autobiography) as Leigh's eye and amorous intentions wandered and roamed outside of the marital bedchamber. Olivier had to accompany Leigh to Hollywood in 1950 in order to keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble, to ensure that her manic-depression did not get out of hand and disrupt the production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). In order to do so, he accepted a part in William Wyler's Carrie (1952) that was shot at the same time as "Streetcar". The Oliviers were popular with Hollywood's elite, and Elia Kazan and Marlon Brando both liked "Larry" very much (that was the reason that Brando gave in his own autobiography for not sleeping with Leigh, whom he thought had a superior posterior--he couldn't raid Olivier's "chicken coop" as "Larry was such a nice guy".) None of them knew the depths of the anguish he was enduring as the caretaker of his mentally ill wife. Brando said that Leigh was superior to Jessica Tandy -- the original stage Blanche DuBois -- as she WAS Blanche. Ironically, Olivier himself had directed Leigh in the part on the London stage.
Peter Finch was discovered by Laurence Olivier in 1948 when Olivier and his theatrical company, which included wife Leigh, were conducting a tour of Australia, Olivier signed the young Aussie to a personal contract and Finch became part of Olivier's theatrical company. He then proceeded to cuckold his mentor and employer by bedding Leigh. Olivier was personally humiliated but ever the trouper, he kept the talented Finch under contract after having brought him back to England, where Finch flourished as an actor. Finch and Leigh carried on a long affair, and since Leigh was bipolar and her manic-depression frequently manifested itself in nymphomania, some speculate that Olivier subconsciously might have been grateful for Finch as he occupied Leigh's hours and kept her out of worse trouble and Olivier from even worse embarrassment. Their on-again, off-again affair reportedly reached a crisis point on the movie Elephant Walk (1954), when they had renewed their affair. However, the instability of their relationship allegedly triggered a nervous breakdown in Leigh, and Olivier had to step in to take care of her.
Her performance as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) is ranked #3 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Eventually, Vivien needed shock therapy to control her manic depression. Sometimes she would go on stage just hours after her treatments, without missing a beat in her performance.
Gave birth to daughter Suzanne during her marriage to Herbert Leigh Holman.
Was obsessed with hiding her large hands. Gloves were a favorite cover-up, she owned more than 150 pairs.
Her father was a full-blooded Englishmen, while her mother was of French and Irish descent.
Despite her legendary stature, Leigh made fewer than twenty films in her career.
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