This trend began to gather pace a few years ago with the 2013 centenary of her birth and the publication of Kendra Bean's lavishly illustrated biography, exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery (Starring Vivien Leigh) and the V&A (Vivien Leigh: Public Faces, Private Lives), and a high-profile sale of her jewellery at Sotheby's in 2017, as well as growing academic attention in the shape of a 2015 symposium at Queen Mary University of London (Vivien Leigh and the Star Archive), a 2017 Manchester University Press collection of essays edited by Kate Dorney and Maggie B. But the new interest in Leigh seeks to bring into focus the fuller range of the actress's achievements beyond Scarlett, and to appreciate her as much more than merely the one-time Lady Olivier. Likewise, her legendary love affair with Laurence Olivier created a formidable and highly photogenic celebrity couple which still exerts a powerful pull. Of course, on the strength of her performance as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) alone, Leigh was never a star likely to slip into obscurity. Revealing new aspects of her early life as well as providing glimpses behind-the-scenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, this book provides the essential and comprehensive life-story of one of the twentieth century's greatest actresses.The troubled life, eventful career and dazzling beauty of Vivien Leigh are enjoying renewed attention currently. Sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work.
In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. As Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history. Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the twentieth century. Winner of the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize 2020
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