BACKSTORY: Vivian Mary Hartley was born November 5, 1913 in Darjeeling, India. She married a lawyer named Leigh Holman at age 19 and had his daughter. Replacing the "a" in her first name with the less commonly used "e," Hartley used her husband's name to craft a more glamorous stage name, Vivien Leigh. She met and fell in love with Laurence Olivier, a respected actor who, like Leigh, was already married. The two began a highly collaborative and inspired acting relationship, as well as a very public love affair. Around the same time, American director George Cukor was hunting for the perfect actress to play the lead role of Scarlett O'Hara in his film adaptation of “Gone with the Wind.” "The girl I select must be possessed of the devil," he insisted, "and charged with electricity." An impressive list of Hollywood's top actresses, including Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, had long been vying for the part by the time Leigh (on a two-week California vacation) successfully filmed her screen test. The movie smashed box office records and earned Leigh a Best Actress Oscar. Finally having secured divorces from their respective spouses, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier married in 1940. Another famous part came in 1949 when she played Blanche Du Bois in a London production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." Leigh was cast opposite Marlon Brando in the 1951 Hollywood film version which earned her a second Best Actress Oscar. Just before she began rehearsing for a London production of "A Delicate Balance" in 1967, Leigh fell seriously ill. A month passed before she succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 53. The London theater district blacked out its lights for a full hour in her honor.
