Who is Vivien Leigh?
Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) was a very successful actress, starring in 20 films over the course of her lifetime and bringing home Oscars for two of them. She is best remembered for her Oscar winning role in the 1939 film Gone With the Wind, although she also played Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951, for which she won an Oscar as well. Vivien Leigh is remembered as a startlingly beautiful woman, with expressive features and a distinctive arched eyebrow. Vivien Leigh was born in Darjeeling, India, where she lived until 1920. Her British parents had wanted to go home to England, but decided to remain in India for the First World War, since they felt it would be safer. Upon their return to England, Vivien Leigh was enrolled in a convent school, because her mother felt it would provide her daughter with the best possible education. During Vivien’s time at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, her mother introduced her to the theatre, and Vivien Leigh also appeared in many school pr
Get me Vivien Leigh. Get me a Vivien Leigh. Get me a young Vivien Leigh. Who is Vivien Leigh? Laffertys show is set just as her subject slithers from the fourth to the fifth stage: When we meet Miss Leigh, she has already suffered the indignity of one cub reporter asking her what part she played in Gone With The Wind. And so, Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference is as much about the fickle nature of fame as it is about the actresss life how long will it be before someone asks: Who are Posh and Becks? The show, written and performed by Marcy Lafferty and forged largely from Leighs own words, takes the form of an audience with the press at which the ailing star is prepared to speak candidly so providing a pretext for a revealing canter through her life. Since her life was eventful, this makes for an entertaining 90 minutes. The young Vivien, we learn, developed her lethal combination of determination and charm at a very tender age by age six, she had worked out that a successful bit o
Get me Vivien Leigh. Get me a Vivien Leigh. Get me a young Vivien Leigh. Who is Vivien Leigh?” For the uninitiated the sheer volume of biographical detail might be a little intimidating, and the US-born Lafferty is occasionally more convincing with her American accents than Leigh’s plumy tones, but these are only minor quibbles. For those with an interest in Hollywood icons, Vivien Leigh is, frankly, my dears, worth giving a damn about.
