The tragedy of Vivien Leigh: how the actress lived and worked despite the disease, which was taken for a bad character
'14.04.2021'
Source: Adme.ru
She brilliantly played classic heroines in the theater, which she always considered higher than cinema: Ophelia and Cleopatra, Juliet and Lady Macbeth. She revealed her talent in dramas, and is known throughout the world as the inimitable Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind and Blanche Dubois from Desire Tram. She became the first British actress to receive an Oscar and dreamed of making people laugh. But behind the exquisite appearance and bright fate hid a very difficult life of Vivian Mary Hartley - that was the real name of Vivien Leigh.
To learn the story of this extraordinary woman who believed that everyone can get what she wants, if she really tries, offers Adme.ru. Life showed the actress its different sides - Vivien survived both depression and unlimited happiness, always trying to remain herself.
The actress was born in 1913, and her childhood was controversial. The character of the future star was formed in the free, hot India, where she was born, but when Vivian was 7 years old, her parents returned to England and sent the girl to study and bring up in a monastery in order to “weather the Indian spirit out of her”. She returned home only after 11 years.
It was amateur performances in the monastery school in which she participated that helped Vivian determine the profession. In 18 years, she entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, but studied there for less than a year because she decided to become the wife of a "real Englishman."
Her first husband, lawyer Herbert Lee Holman, was 12 years older than her. He did not approve of acting classes, so Vivian dropped out of school, but did not refuse from the dream of becoming famous. In a marriage with Holman, she gave birth to her only daughter, Susanna, but she could not become a respectable English wife. She managed to star in commercials, episodes in the movie. Then she came up with the stage name Vivien Leigh and played in the play “Mask of Virtue”, after which she was noticed in theatrical circles of London as “a promising non-standard actress of stunning beauty”.
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At the same time, she met Lawrence Olivier. Vivienne saw him on stage and told her friend that she would definitely marry this man. A friend reasonably noticed that Vivienne was already married, to which she only mysteriously smiled. Soon they began to play on the same stage. At first, their relationship remained just sympathy, but later grew into a stormy romance. Olivier recalled that he was fascinated by the “amazing, unimaginable” beauty of Vivienne. Olivier’s wife and Lee’s husband did not give a divorce for a long time, the couple managed to get married only after 6 years.
By that time, Vivienne had already become famous all over the world thanks to her role as Scarlett O'Hara and received her first Oscar.
“I hope I have one thing that Scarlett never had - a sense of humor. I want to enjoy life. And she has one feature, which, I hope, I will never have - it is selfishness, ”said Vivien Leigh.
It was the fame of Vivienne that became a real test for Olivier's feelings. He was a famous actor and director, but still he did not dream of the glory of his wife. Jealousy, envy and suspicion appeared, although Vivien tried her best not to provoke them.
She continued to play in the performances that Olivier put, and act in films. Well-known collaboration around the world, after which they were called the most beautiful couple in Hollywood - the film "Lady Hamilton".
Then the actress experienced a personal tragedy: on the set of the film "Caesar and Cleopatra" she suffered a second miscarriage. The experienced shock provoked the first nervous breakdown, and just then everyone saw what Vivienne could be in anger. However, after the outbreak, she did not remember anything and apologized to the crew when she was told what exactly she had said to the people.
At the peak of her fame, Vivien went on a tour of Africa, upon her return she was found to be sick with tuberculosis. She was diagnosed with this diagnosis in 1945 and was immediately treated. However, a strange thing happened: against the background of the disease, she began to have bouts of insanity. She rushed at her husband with fists, and then did not remember anything, suffered from sudden mood swings - from euphoria to loss of strength - and arranged scenes right on the set.
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For a very long time Vivien explained this to herself with simple fatigue and stress, but then she nevertheless turned to the doctors. However, she could not make an accurate diagnosis, and sometimes radical methods were used for mental disorders, for example, electroshock, for several sessions of which Vivien agreed desperately, exacerbating her painful condition.
Later it turns out that the bipolar affective disorder with which she suffered was provoked, among other things, by the drugs for tuberculosis, which she had been treated for a year, and then prescribed with supportive courses.
During the forced retreat, her fame faded a little. It began to seem to her that she did not find a common language with the directors, because she was taken lightly because of beauty. She was convinced that she was not allowed to fully reveal her comedic and dramatic talent. But the reason was different: the actress gained a reputation as a person with whom it is difficult to work precisely because of her mood swings. Vivien hid as much as possible that her outbursts were not just a bad character, but symptoms of the disease, but rumors leaked anyway, and the directors did not want to risk filming.
Several unsuccessful projects followed - for example, the film "Anna Karenina." At the same time, Hamlet appeared on the screens with Olivier in the lead role. Its success in scale was quite comparable with the failure of Anna Karenina. Olivier received his first Oscar.
Of course, he included Vivienne in the plays of his theater, they toured together, but, as close friends said, their paths diverged: he was absorbed in work, and her illness.
In 1947, she read Tennessee Williams's play “Streetcar Desire” and wanted to play Blanche Dubois with the same ardor as Scarlett had once done. Critics spoke of her incredible sensitivity to roles: this image became her second best, absolutely brilliant work, awarded the second Oscar. But relatives said: in Scarlett and Blanche there was a lot from Vivienne herself, which is why they turned out to be so convincing.
Despite controversial reviews from critics, the performance "Desire Tram" at the London Theater was played 326 times. Then Vivienne starred in the film of the same name, where Marlon Brando became her partner. This role brought the actress a new wave of recognition, but exacerbated the disease from which she suffered. “For 9 months I have been Blanche Dubois, and she still rules me. She is a tragic figure, and I understand her. But, playing her, I plunge into madness. "
The disease progressed, relations with her husband deteriorated. On his birthday, Olivier made Vivien a gorgeous gift - a Rolls-Royce - and announced that he was asking for a divorce. After a hard breakup, Vivien began a romantic relationship with actor John Merivale.
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Between episodes of depression, the actress tried to take on all the roles and give herself to work without a trace. The Tony Theater Award for Best Actor in the musical The Comrade, filming in the films Spring of Mrs. Stone and The Ship of Fools, where she appeared to the viewer in an unusual, mature way. Director of The Ship of Fools Stanley Kramer noted: “She was sick, but she had courage, and she walked forward. It’s incredible, but it just couldn’t be any different. ”
In her personal life, Vivienne sincerely enjoyed the role of grandmother: the daughter gave birth to three children and established a relationship with her mother, whom she could not forgive for a long time that she "exchanged her for the theater." In her new house with a pond and a mill, she received friends; Winston Churchill was a frequent guest there. Happiness seemed to return. But the old enemy came back - tuberculosis.
In 1967, she once again gathered her will into a fist and began in London to rehearse Chekhov’s play “Ivanov”. Despite the exacerbation of tuberculosis, she continued to rehearse at home, hoping to go on stage.
It happened on Friday, 7 of July. Merivale returned from rehearsal and peered into Vivien's bedroom. She was lying dead on the floor.
Vivien Leigh died when she was only 53 of the year. On the day of farewell, all theaters in central London turned off the light for one hour in memory of her. She was not afraid of old age and dreamed of playing such roles where people would see her personality, and not her appearance. And she partially succeeded.
“Beauty is fleeting. But the beauty of the spirit, the beauty of the imagination and the beauty of the soul are real virtues. I'm not young. What's wrong with that? ”- said the actress.
