During the 1940s, Vivien Leigh (November 5, 1913 – July 8, 1967) consolidated her status as an elite global star while enduring a turbulent decade marked by wartime contributions, critical film roles, and complex personal health battles. Coming off the monumental success of Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she officially accepted her first Best Actress Academy Award in February 1940, Leigh shifted her focus toward balancing high-profile Hollywood cinema with patriotic theater work alongside her husband, Laurence Olivier.
Sweeping into the decade, Leigh starred as a doomed ballerina in Waterloo Bridge (1940), a performance widely praised for its deep emotional vulnerability. Both she and co-star Robert Taylor named it their personal favorite film. She starred as Emma, Lady Hamilton opposite her real-life love Laurence Olivier in That Hamilton Woman (1941). Directed by Alexander Korda, the film became an international hit and reportedly Winston Churchill's favorite movie.
Filmed during World War II in Britain, Leigh played the young Egyptian queen opposite Claude Rains in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). This lavish Technicolor feature became the most expensive British production of its time. Filming was profoundly difficult, disrupted by German bombing raids and a tragic on-set accident where Leigh suffered a miscarriage. In Anna Karenina (1948), Leigh took on Tolstoy’s tragic heroine in a grand British film adaptation directed by Julien Duvivier.
Leigh dedicated massive energy to the war effort. She knitted clothing for the Bundles for Britain organization, served tea at canteens, and participated in Red Cross fundraisers. In 1943, she embarked on a grueling, multi-week Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) tour through North Africa to perform for active troops.
As the decade drew to a close, Leigh became increasingly selective with film roles due to recurring bouts of tuberculosis and severe bipolar disorder. She turned her focus to the London stage under Olivier’s direction. In 1949, her career came full circle when she won the coveted role of Blanche DuBois in the West End premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire. Her shattering stage performance in late 1949 laid the groundwork for her second Academy Award when the film adaptation released in 1951.
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