To legions of movie fans, Vivien Leigh (November 5, 1913 – July 8, 1967) will best be remembered as the defiant and beautiful Scarlett O’Hara, heroine of the 1939 movie classic Gone With the Wind.
Vivien Leigh won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London’s West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963).
After completing her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England (1937). Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that her physical attributes sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress. Despite her fame as a screen actress, Leigh was primarily a stage performer. During her 30-year career, she played roles ranging from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet, and Lady Macbeth. Later in life, she performed as a character actress in a few films.
Although her career had periods of inactivity, in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked Leigh as the 16th greatest female movie star of classic Hollywood cinema.
0 comments:
Post a Comment