birth date	February 01, 1901
birth place	Cadiz, Ohio, U.S.
death date
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
death cause	Heart attack
restingplace	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
birth name	William Clark Gable
occupation	Actor
years active	1923–60
spouse	(divorced) (divorced) (widowed) (divorced) (his death)
children	Judy Lewis, John Gable
parents	William GableAdeline (née Hershelman) }}

William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960), known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film ''Gone with the Wind'', in which he starred with Vivien Leigh. His performance earned him his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor; he won for ''It Happened One Night'' (1934) and was also nominated for ''Mutiny on the Bounty'' (1935). Later movies included ''Run Silent, Run Deep'', a submarine war film, and his final film, ''The Misfits'' (1961), which paired Gable with Marilyn Monroe, also in her last screen appearance. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable seventh among the greatest male stars of all time.

During his long film career, Gable appeared opposite some of the most popular actresses of the time. Joan Crawford, who was his favorite actress to work with, was partnered with Gable in eight films, Myrna Loy worked with him seven times, and he was paired with Jean Harlow in six productions. He also starred with Lana Turner in four features, and with Norma Shearer in three. In the mid-1930s, Gable was often named the top male movie star, and second only to the top box-office draw of all, Shirley Temple.

Early life

Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio to William Henry "Bill" Gable, an oil-well driller, and Adeline (née Hershelman). He was named "William" after his father, while "Clark" was the maiden name of his maternal grandmother. In childhood he was almost always called "Clark"; some friends called him "Clarkie", "Billy", or "Gabe". He was mistakenly listed as a female on his birth certificate.

When he was six months old, his ill mother had him baptized Catholic. She died when he was ten months old, possibly from a brain tumor. Following her death, Gable's father's family refused to raise him as a Catholic, provoking enmity with his mother's side of the family. The dispute was resolved when his father's family agreed to allow Gable to spend time with his uncle, Charles Hershelman, and his wife on their farm in Vernon, Pennsylvania.

In April 1903, Gable's father married Jennie Dunlap, whose family came from the small neighboring town of Hopedale. Gable was a tall, shy child with a loud voice. After his father purchased some land and built a house, the new family settled in. Jennie played the piano and gave her stepson lessons at home; later he took up brass instruments. She raised Gable to be well-dressed and well-groomed; he stood out from the other kids. Gable was very mechanically inclined and loved to strip down and repair cars with his father. At thirteen, he was the only boy in the men's town band. Even though his father insisted on Gable doing "manly" things, like hunting and hard physical work, Gable loved language. Among trusted company, he would recite Shakespeare, particularly the sonnets. Will Gable did agree to buy a seventy-two volume set of ''The World's Greatest Literature'' to improve his son's education, but claimed he never saw his son use it.

In 1917, when Gable was in high school, his father had financial difficulties. Will decided to settle his debts and try his hand at farming and the family moved to Ravenna, just outside of Akron. Gable had trouble settling down in the area. Despite his father's insistence that he work the farm, Gable soon left to work in Akron's B.F. Goodrich tire factory.

At seventeen, Gable was inspired to be an actor after seeing the play ''The Bird of Paradise'', but he was not able to make a real start until he turned 21 and inherited some money. By then, his stepmother Jennie had died and his father moved to Tulsa to go back to the oil business. He toured in stock companies as well as working the oil fields and as a horse manager. Gable found work with several second-class theater companies and thus made his way across the Midwest to Portland, Oregon, where he then took work as a necktie salesman in the Meier & Frank department store. While there, he met Laura Hope Crews, a stage and film actress, who encouraged him to return to the stage and into another theater company. Many years later, Crews would play "Aunt Pittypat" in Gable's most famous film, ''Gone With the Wind'' (1939).

His acting coach was a theater manager in Portland named Josephine Dillon, who was 17 years his senior. She paid to have his teeth repaired and his hair styled. She guided him in building up his chronically undernourished body, and taught him better body control and posture. She spent considerable time training his naturally high-pitched voice, which Gable slowly managed to lower, and to gain better resonance and tone. As his speech habits improved, Gable's facial expressions became more natural and convincing. After the long period of rigorous training, Dillon eventually considered him ready to attempt a film career.

Career

Stage and silent films

In 1924, with Dillon's financial aid, the two went to Hollywood, where she became his manager -- and first wife. He changed his stage name from W. C. Gable to Clark Gable. He found work as an extra in such silent films as Erich von Stroheim's ''The Merry Widow'' (1925), ''The Plastic Age'' (1925), which starred Clara Bow, and ''Forbidden Paradise'', plus a series of two-reel comedies called ''The Pacemakers''. He also appeared as a bit player in a series of shorts. However, Gable was not offered any major roles and so he returned to the stage. He became lifelong friends with Lionel Barrymore, who in spite of his bawling Gable out for amateurish acting initially, urged Gable to pursue a career on stage. During the 1927-28 theater season, Gable acted with the Laskin Brothers Stock Company in Houston, where he played many roles, gained considerable experience and became a local matinee idol. Gable then moved to New York and Dillon sought work for him on Broadway. He received good reviews in ''Machinal''; "He's young, vigorous and brutally masculine", wrote the critic at the ''Morning Telegraph''. The start of the Great Depression and the beginning of talking pictures caused a cancellation of many plays in the 1929-30 season and acting work became harder to get.

Early successes

In 1930, after his impressive appearance as the seething and desperate character Killer Mears in the Los Angeles stage production of ''The Last Mile'', Gable was offered a contract with MGM. His first role in a sound picture was as the villain in a low-budget William Boyd western called ''The Painted Desert'' (1931). He received a lot of fan mail as a result of his powerful voice and appearance; the studio took notice.

In 1930, Gable and Josephine Dillon were divorced. A few days later, he married Texas socialite Maria Franklin Prentiss Lucas Langham, nicknamed "Ria". After moving to California, they were married again in 1931, possibly due to differences in state legal requirements.

"His ears are too big and he looks like an ape", said Warner Bros. executive Darryl F. Zanuck about Clark Gable after testing him for the lead in Warner's gangster drama ''Little Caesar'' (1931). Gable played a villainous chauffeur who was gradually starving two adorable little girls to death in ''Night Nurse'' (1931) for the studio. After several failed screen tests for Barrymore and Zanuck, Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. He became a client of well-connected agent Minna Wallis, sister of producer Hal Wallis and very close friend of Norma Shearer. Gable's timing in arriving in Hollywood was excellent, as MGM was looking to expand its stable of male stars and he fit the bill. Gable first worked mainly in supporting roles, often as the villain. MGM's publicity manager Howard Strickland developed Gable's studio image, playing up his he-man experiences and his 'lumberjack in evening clothes' persona.

To bolster his rocketing popularity, MGM frequently paired him with well-established female stars. Joan Crawford asked for him as her co-star in ''Dance, Fools, Dance'' (1931). He built his fame and public visibility in such movies as ''A Free Soul'' (1931), in which he played a gangster who shoved the character played by Norma Shearer (Gable never played a supporting role again). ''The Hollywood Reporter'' wrote "A star in the making has been made, one that, to our reckoning, will outdraw every other star... Never have we seen audiences work themselves into such enthusiasm as when Clark Gable walks on the screen". He followed that with ''Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)'' (1931) with Greta Garbo, and ''Possessed'' (1931), in which he and Crawford (then married to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) steamed up the screen. Adela Rogers St. John later dubbed Gable and Crawford's real-life relationship as "the affair that nearly burned Hollywood down". Louis B. Mayer threatened to terminate both their contracts, and for a while they kept apart. Gable shifted his attentions to Marion Davies. On the other hand, Gable and Garbo disliked each other. She thought he was a wooden actor while he considered her a snob.

Rising star

Gable was considered for the role of ''Tarzan'' but lost out to Johnny Weissmuller's better physique and superior swimming prowess. However Gable's unshaven lovemaking with braless Jean Harlow in ''Red Dust'' (1932) soon made him MGM's most important male star. After the hit ''Hold Your Man'' (1933), MGM recognized the goldmine of the Gable-Harlow pairing, putting them in two more films, ''China Seas'' (1935) and ''Wife vs. Secretary'' (1936). An enormously popular combination, on-screen and off-screen, Gable and Jean Harlow made six films together, the most notable being ''Red Dust'' (1932) and ''Saratoga'' (1937). Harlow died during production of ''Saratoga''. Ninety percent completed, the remaining scenes were filmed with long shots or the use of doubles like Mary Dees; Gable would say that he felt as if he was "in the arms of a ghost".

According to legend, Gable was lent to Columbia Pictures, then considered a second-rate operation, as punishment for refusing roles; however, this has been refuted by more recent biographies. MGM did not have a project ready for Gable and was paying him $2000 per week, under his contract, to do nothing. Studio head Louis B. Mayer lent him to Columbia for $2500 per week, making a $500 per week profit.

Gable was not the first choice to play the lead role of Peter Warne in ''It Happened One Night'' (1934). Robert Montgomery was originally offered the role, but he felt that the script was poor. Filming began in a tense atmosphere, but both Gable and Frank Capra enjoyed making the movie, although Colbert reportedly did not. Gable and Colbert won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Actress for their performances in the film. He returned to MGM a bigger star than ever.

The unpublished memoirs of animator Friz Freleng mention that this was one of his favorite films. It has been claimed that it helped inspire the cartoon character Bugs Bunny. Four things in the film may have coalesced to create Bugs: the personality of a minor character, Oscar Shapely and his penchant for referring to Gable's character as "Doc", an imaginary character named "Bugs Dooley" that Gable's character uses to frighten Shapely, and most of all, a scene in which Clark Gable eats carrots while talking quickly with his mouth full, as Bugs does.

Gable also earned an Academy Award nomination when he portrayed Fletcher Christian in 1935's ''Mutiny on the Bounty''.

''Gone with the Wind''

Despite his reluctance to play the role, Gable is best known for his performance in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Carole Lombard may have been the first to suggest that he play Rhett Butler (and she play Scarlett) when she bought him a copy of the bestseller, which he refused to read. thumb|left|230px|As Rhett Butler in the trailer for ''[[Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind'' (1939)]] Butler's last line in ''Gone With the Wind'', "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", is one of the most famous lines in movie industry history. Gable was an almost immediate favorite for the role of Rhett with both the public and producer David O. Selznick. But since Selznick had no male stars under long-term contracts, he needed to go through the process of negotiating to borrow an actor from another studio. Gary Cooper was Selznick's first choice. When Cooper turned down the role of Butler, he was quoted as saying, "''Gone With the Wind'' is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it'll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me." By then, Selznick had become determined to hire Gable, and set about finding a way to borrow him from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Gable was wary of potentially disappointing an audience that had decided that no one else could play the part. He later conceded, "I think I know now how a fly must react after being caught in a spider's web." ''Gone with the Wind'' was Gable's first Technicolor film. Also appearing in ''Gone With The Wind'' in the role of "Aunt Pittypat" was Laura Hope Crews who had coaxed Gable back into the theater from Portland.

During the filming of the movie, Vivien Leigh complained about Gable's bad breath, which was apparently caused by his false teeth, claiming they "smelled something awful". Otherwise, they appear to have gotten along well. Gable was also friends with actress Hattie McDaniel, and he even slipped her a real alcoholic drink during the scene they were supposed to be celebrating the birth of Scarlett and Rhett's daughter. Gable tried to boycott the premier of ''Gone with the Wind'' in Atlanta, Georgia, because the African-American McDaniel was not permitted to attend. He reportedly only went after she pleaded with him to go. Gable remained friends with McDaniel, and he always attended her Hollywood parties, especially when she was raising funds during World War II.

Gable did not want to shed tears for the scene after Scarlett (Leigh) has a miscarriage. Olivia de Havilland made him cry, later commenting, "... Oh, he would not do it. He would not! Victor (Fleming) tried everything with him. He tried to attack him on a professional level. We had done it without him weeping several times and then we had one last try. I said, "You can do it, I know you can do it and you will be wonderful ..." Well, by heaven, just before the cameras rolled, you could see the tears come up at his eyes and he played the scene unforgettably well. He put his whole heart into it."

Decades later, Gable said that whenever his career would start to fade, a re-release of ''Gone with the Wind'' would soon revive his popularity, and he continued as a top leading actor for the rest of his life. Thanks in part to MGM's dominance in balloting, Gable was the lead actor in three films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture between 1934 and 1939. Only Dustin Hoffman has subsequently enjoyed a similar trifecta. ''Gone with the Wind'' was given theatrical re-releases in 1947, 1954, 1961, 1967 (in a widescreen version), 1971, 1989, and 1998.

Personal life

Marriage to Carole Lombard

Gable's marriage in 1939 to his third wife, actress Carole Lombard (1908-1942), was the happiest period of his personal life. As an independent actress, her annual income exceeded his studio salary until ''Gone with the Wind'' brought them to rough parity. From their marriage, she gained personal stability that she had lacked, and he thrived being around her with her youthful, charming, and frank personality. Lombard went hunting and fishing with Gable, and he became more sociable around her. Most times, she tolerated his philandering ways. He one or more times stated, "You can trust that little screwball with your life or your hopes or your weaknesses, and she wouldn't even know how to think about letting you down." The Gables purchased a ranch at Encino, California, and once Gable had become accustomed to Lombard's often blunt way of expressing herself, they found that they had much in common, despite Gable being a Conservative Republican and Lombard a Liberal Democrat. Their efforts to have a baby were unsuccessful. Lombard got pregnant once in 1940, but she suffered a miscarriage.

On January 16, 1942, Lombard was a passenger on Trans-World Airlines Flight 3. She had just finished her 57th movie, ''To Be or Not to Be'', and was on her way home from a successful war bond selling tour when the flight's DC-3 airliner crashed into a mountain near Las Vegas, Nevada, killing all aboard, including Lombard, her mother, and her MGM staff publicist Otto Winkler (who had been the best man at Gable's wedding to Lombard). Gable flew to the crash site, and he saw the forest fire that had been ignited by the burning airliner. Lombard was declared to be the first war-related American female casualty of World War II, and Gable received a personal condolence note from President Roosevelt. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation into the crash concluded that "pilot error" was its cause.

Gable returned to his and Lombard's empty house, and a month later, he returned to the studio to work with Lana Turner in the movie, ''Somewhere I'll Find You''. Gable was devastated by the tragic death of his wife for many months afterwards, and he began to drink heavily, but carried out his performances professionally on the movie sets. Gable was seen to break down for the first time in public when Lombard's funeral request note was given to him. He resided for the rest of his life at the home in Encino which he and Lombard had purchased. He acted in twenty-seven more movies, and re-married two more times. "But he was never the same", said Esther Williams. "His heart sank a bit."

World War II

:''For details of Gable's combat missions, see RAF Polebrook'' In 1942, following Lombard's death, Gable joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. Lombard had suggested that Gable enlist as part of the war effort, but MGM was reluctant to let him go, and he resisted the suggestion. Gable made a public statement after Lombard's death that prompted Commanding General of the Army Air Forces Henry H. Arnold to offer Gable a "special assignment" in aerial gunnery. Gable had earlier expressed an interest in officer candidate school (OCS), but he enlisted on August 12, 1942, with the intention of becoming an enlisted gunner on an air crew. MGM arranged for his studio friend, cinematographer Andrew McIntyre, to enlist with and accompany him through training.

However, shortly after his enlistment, he and McIntyre were sent to Miami Beach, Florida, where they entered USAAF OCS Class 42-E on August 17, 1942. Both completed training on October 28, 1942, commissioned as second lieutenants. His class of 2,600 fellow students (of which he ranked 700th in class standing) selected Gable as their graduation speaker, at which General Arnold presented them their commissions. Arnold then informed Gable of his special assignment: to make a recruiting film in combat with the Eighth Air Force to recruit gunners. Gable and McIntyre were immediately sent to Flexible Gunnery School at Tyndall Field, Florida, followed by a photography course at Fort George Wright, Washington and promoted to first lieutenants upon completion.

Gable reported to Biggs Army Air Base on January 27, 1943, to train with and accompany the 351st Bomb Group to England as head of a six-man motion picture unit. In addition to McIntyre, he recruited screenwriter John Lee Mahin; camera operators Sgts. Mario Toti and Robert Boles; and sound man Lt.Howard Voss to complete his crew. Gable was promoted to captain while with the 351st at Pueblo AAB, Colorado, for rank commensurate with his position as a unit commander. (As first lieutenants, he and McIntyre had equal seniority.)

Gable spent most of the war in the United Kingdom at RAF Polebrook with the 351st. Gable flew five combat missions, including one to Germany, as an observer-gunner in B-17 Flying Fortresses between May 4 and September 23, 1943, earning the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts. During one of the missions, Gable's aircraft was damaged by flak and attacked by fighters, which knocked out one of the engines and shot up the stabilizer. In the raid on Germany, one crewman was killed and two others were wounded, and flak went through Gable's boot and narrowly missed his head. When word of this reached MGM, studio executives began to badger the U.S. Army Air Corps to reassign their valuable screen property to non-combat duty. In November 1943, he returned to the United States to edit the film, only to find that the personnel shortage of aerial gunners had already been rectified. He was allowed to complete the film anyway, joining the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Hollywood.

In May 1944, Gable was promoted to major. He hoped for another combat assignment but, when D-Day came and passed in June without further orders, he requested and was granted a discharge. His discharge papers were signed by Captain Ronald Reagan, Hollywood actor and eventual President of the United States. Gable completed editing of the film, ''Combat America'', in September 1944, providing the narration himself and making use of numerous interviews with enlisted gunners as focus of the film.

Adolf Hitler favored Gable above all other actors; during the Second World War, Hitler offered a sizable reward to anyone who could capture and bring Gable to him unscathed.

After World War II

Immediately after his discharge from the service, Gable returned to his ranch and rested. He resumed a pre-war relationship with Virginia Grey and dated other starlets. He introduced his golf caddie Robert Wagner to MGM casting. Gable's first movie after World War II was the 1945 production of ''Adventure'', with his ill-matched co-star Greer Garson. It was a critical and commercial failure despite the famous teaser tagline "Gable's back and Garson's got him". After this film, Gable's career as a top star in Hollywood abruptly ended.

After Joan Crawford's third divorce, she and Gable resumed their affair and lived together for a brief time. Gable was acclaimed for his performance in ''The Hucksters'' (1947), a satire of post-war Madison Avenue corruption and immorality. A very public and brief romance with Paulette Goddard occurred after that. In 1949, Gable married Sylvia Ashley, a British divorcée and the widow of Douglas Fairbanks. The relationship was profoundly unsuccessful; they divorced in 1952. Soon followed ''Never Let Me Go'' (1953), opposite Gene Tierney. Tierney was a favorite of Gable and he was very disappointed when she was replaced in ''Mogambo'' (due to her mental health problems) by Grace Kelly. ''Mogambo'' (1953), directed by John Ford, was a Technicolor but somewhat sanitized remake of his earlier film ''Red Dust'', which had been a greater success. Gable's on-location affair with Grace Kelly (1929–1982), who was young enough to be his daughter, sputtered out after filming was completed.

Gable became increasingly unhappy with what he considered mediocre roles offered him by MGM, while the studio regarded his salary as excessive. Studio head Louis B. Mayer was fired in 1951 amid slumping Hollywood production and revenue, due primarily to the rising popularity of television. Studio chiefs struggled to cut costs. Many MGM stars were fired or not renewed, including Greer Garson and Judy Garland. In 1953, Gable refused to renew his contract, and began to work independently. His first two films were ''Soldier of Fortune'' and ''The Tall Men'', both profitable although only modest successes. In 1955, Gable married his fifth wife, Kay Spreckels (née Kathleen Williams), a thrice-married former fashion model and actress who had previously been married to sugar-refining heir Adolph B. Spreckels Jr.

In 1955, Gable formed a production company with Jane Russell and her husband Bob Waterfield, and they produced ''The King and Four Queens'', Gable's one and only production. He found producing and acting to be too taxing on his health, and he was beginning to manifest a noticeable tremor particularly in long takes. His next project was ''Band of Angels'', with relative newcomer Sidney Poitier and Yvonne De Carlo; it was a total disaster. ''Newsweek'' said, "Here is a movie so bad that it must be seen to be disbelieved." Next he paired with Doris Day in ''Teacher's Pet'', shot in black and white to better hide his aging face and overweight body. The film was good enough to bring Gable more film offers, including ''Run Silent, Run Deep'', with co-star and producer Burt Lancaster, which featured his first on screen death since 1937, and which garnered good reviews. Gable started to receive television offers but rejected them outright. At 57, Gable finally acknowledged, "Now it's time I acted my age". His next two films were light comedies for Paramount: ''But Not for Me'' with Carroll Baker and ''It Started in Naples'' with Sophia Loren (his last film in color). Both received poor reviews and flopped at the box office.

Gable's last film was ''The Misfits'', written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and co-starring Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and Thelma Ritter. This was also the final film completed by Monroe. Many critics regard Gable's performance to be his finest, and Gable, after seeing the rough cuts, agreed.

Politics

Gable was politically conservative, though he never publicly spoke about politics. His third wife Carole Lombard was an activist liberal Democrat, and she cajoled him into supporting Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. In 1944, he became an early member of the conservative Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, alongside Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and other conservative actors and filmmakers. In February 1952, he attended a televised rally in New York where he enthusiastically urged General Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for President. This was when Eisenhower was still being sought by both parties as their candidate. Despite having suffered a severe coronary thrombosis, Gable still managed to vote by post in the 1960 presidential election. It is believed that he probably voted for the Republican candidate, and Eisenhower's vice-president, Richard Nixon.

Children

Gable had a daughter, Judy Lewis, the result of an affair with actress Loretta Young that began on the set of ''The Call of the Wild'' in 1934. In an elaborate scheme, Young took an extended vacation and went to Europe to hide the fact that she was pregnant. After a few months, she came back to California and gave birth to their child in Venice, CA. Nineteen months after the birth, Loretta claimed to have adopted Judy. This ploy became less believable when the child grew up to look almost exactly like her mother except with protruding ears like Clark Gable's. According to Lewis, Gable visited her home once, but he didn't tell her that he was her father. Neither Gable nor Young would ever publicly acknowledge their daughter's real parentage, but this fact was so widely known that, in Lewis' autobiography ''Uncommon Knowledge'', she wrote that she was shocked to learn of it from other children at school. Young never officially acknowledged the fact, which she said would be the same as admitting to a "venial sin". However, Young finally gave her biographer permission to include it only on the condition that the book not be published until after her death.

On March 20, 1961, Kay Gable gave birth to Gable's son, John Clark Gable, born four months after Clark's death.

Death

Gable died in Los Angeles on November 16, 1960, aged 59, from a coronary thrombosis ten days after suffering a severe heart attack. There was much speculation that Gable's physically demanding role in ''The Misfits'' contributed to his sudden death soon after filming was completed. In an interview with Louella Parsons, published soon after Gable's death, Kay Gable was quoted as saying "It wasn't the physical exertion that killed him. It was the horrible tension, the eternal waiting, waiting, waiting. He waited around forever, for everybody. He'd get so angry that he'd just go ahead and do anything to keep occupied." Monroe said that she and Kay had become close during the filming and would refer to Clark as "Our Man", while Arthur Miller, observing Gable on location, noted that "no hint of affront ever showed on his face".

Others have blamed Gable's crash diet before filming began. The 6'1" (185 cm) Gable weighed about at the time of ''Gone with the Wind'', but by his late 50s, he weighed . To get in shape for ''The Misfits'', he dropped to 195 lbs (88 kg). In addition, Gable was in poor health from years of heavy smoking (three packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day over thirty years, as well as cigars and at least two bowlfuls of pipe tobacco a day).

Gable is interred in The Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California beside his wife, Carole Lombard.

Posthumous

In a photo essay of Hollywood film stars, ''Life Magazine'' called Gable: "All man... and then some."

Doris Day summed up Gable's unique personality, "He was as masculine as any man I've ever known, and as much a little boy as a grown man could be – it was this combination that had such a devastating effect on women."

Longtime friend, eight time co-star and on-again, off-again romance Joan Crawford concurred, stating on David Frost's TV show in 1970, "he was a king wherever he went. He walked like one, he behaved like one, and he was the most masculine man that I have ever met in my life."

Actor Robert Ryan, in character as Nathan Stark in the 1955 film: "The Tall Men" paid Gable what is probably his best tribute: "He's what every boy thinks he's going to be when he grows up, and wishes he had been when he's an old man."

Robert Taylor said Gable "was a great, great guy and certainly one of the great stars of all times, if not the greatest. I think that I sincerely doubt that there will ever be another like Clark Gable, he was one of a kind."

Filmography

Gable is known to have appeared as an extra in 13 films between 1924 and 1930. He then appeared in a total of 67 theatrically released motion pictures, as himself in 17 "short subject" films, and he narrated and appeared in a World War II propaganda film entitled ''Combat America'', produced by the United States Army Air Forces.

In popular culture

Warner Bros. cartoons sometimes caricatured Gable. Examples include ''Have You Got Any Castles?'' (in which his face appears seven times from inside the novel ''The House of the Seven Gables''), ''The Coo-Coo Nut Grove'' (in which his ears flap on their own), ''Hollywood Steps Out'' (in which he follows an enigmatic woman), and ''Cats Don't Dance'' in which he appears on a billboard promotion for ''Gone With The Wind''.

In the film ''Broadway Melody of 1938'', Judy Garland (aged 15) sings "You Made Me Love You" while looking at a composite picture of Gable. The opening lines are: "Dear Mr. Gable, I am writing this to you, and I hope that you will read it so you'll know, my heart beats like a hammer, and I stutter and I stammer, every time I see you at the picture show, I guess I'm just another fan of yours, and I thought I'd write and tell you so. You made me love you, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it..."

Bugs Bunny's nonchalant carrot-chewing standing position, as explained by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Bob Clampett, originated in a scene in the film ''It Happened One Night'', in which Clark Gable's character leans against a fence, eating carrots rapidly and talking with his mouth full to Claudette Colbert's character. This scene was well known while the film was popular, and viewers at the time likely recognized Bugs Bunny's behavior as satire.

The Postal Service's album ''Give Up'' (2003) features a track entitled "Clark Gable".

Portrayals

James Brolin in ''Gable and Lombard'' (1976)

Gene Daily in ''The Rocketeer'' (1991)

Bruce Hughes and Shayne Greenman in ''Blonde'' (2001)

Charles Unwin in ''Lucy'' (2003)

Larry Pennell in ''Marilyn: The Untold Story'' (1980)

Edward Winter in ''Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara War'' (1980)

Boyd Holister in ''Grace Kelly'' (1983)

Gary Wayne in ''Malice in Wonderland'' (1985)

Bibliography

Harris, Warren G. (2002). ''Clark Gable: A Biography''. New York: Harmony. ISBN 0-609-60495-3.

Lewis, Judy. ''Uncommon Knowledge'' (book by Gable's daughter with Loretta Young). (Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster 1994), ISBN 0-671-70019-7

Spicer, Chrystopher (2002). ''Clark Gable: Biography, Filmography, Bibliography''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864–1124-4.

Clark Gable in the 8th Air Force, ''Air Power History'', Spring 1999

Garceu,Jean.(1961) "Dear Mr.G-" (Four square/The new English library Ltd Barnard's INN London)

References

External links

Snopes on the false rumor of Gable killing a pedestrian while he was driving drunk

''Combat America'' at the Internet Archive:

* Part 1

* Part 2

* Part 3

* Part 4

Category:1901 births Category:1960 deaths Category:20th-century actors Category:People from Cadiz, Ohio Category:Actors from Ohio Category:American film actors Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:Recipients of the Air Medal Category:American people of German descent Category:American silent film actors Category:Best Actor Academy Award winners Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:California Republicans Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Kentucky colonels Category:Ohio Republicans Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) Category:United States Army Air Forces officers Category:First Motion Picture Unit personnel

ar:كلارك غيبل an:Clark Gable bs:Clark Gable bg:Кларк Гейбъл ca:Clark Gable cs:Clark Gable cy:Clark Gable da:Clark Gable de:Clark Gable el:Κλαρκ Γκέιμπλ es:Clark Gable eo:Clark Gable eu:Clark Gable fa:کلارک گیبل fr:Clark Gable ga:Clark Gable gd:Clark Gable gl:Clark Gable ko:클라크 게이블 hr:Clark Gable io:Clark Gable id:Clark Gable it:Clark Gable he:קלארק גייבל ka:კლარკ გეიბლი la:Thomas Mitchell (Actor) hu:Clark Gable mk:Кларк Гејбл nl:Clark Gable ja:クラーク・ゲーブル no:Clark Gable oc:Clark Gable pl:Clark Gable pt:Clark Gable ro:Clark Gable ru:Гейбл, Кларк simple:Clark Gable sk:Clark Gable sl:Clark Gable sr:Кларк Гејбл sh:Clark Gable fi:Clark Gable sv:Clark Gable ta:கிளார்க் கேபிள் th:คลาร์ก เกเบิล tr:Clark Gable uk:Кларк Гейбл vi:Clark Gable zh:克拉克·盖博

Name	Clark
Meaning	Clerk, scribe, secretary
Region	England
Language	Old English
Related names	Clarke, Clerk
Footnotes	Frequency Comparisons }}

Clark is surname in the English language, ultimately derived from the Latin ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educated. ''Clark'' evolved from "clerk". First records of the name are found in 12th century England. The name has many variants.

The name is often, especially within the British Isles, considered to be Scottish due to the name occurring more often in Scotland than many other places. ''Clark'' is the twenty-seventh most common surname in the United Kingdom.

According to the 1990 United States Census, ''Clark'' was the twenty-first most frequently encountered surname, accounting for 0.23% of the population.

Clark is also an occasional given name.

List of people with surname Clark

People with the surname Clark include:

Abraham Clark (1725–1794), American politician and Revolutionary War figure

Alan Clark (1928–1999), British Conservative politician and author, son of Kenneth Clark

Allen George Clark (1898–1962), British businessman

Andy Clark (musician), British musician

Anne Clark (born 1960), poet-songwriter

Benjamin S. W. Clark (1829–1912), New York politician

Bob Clark (Benjamin "Bob" Clark) (1941–2007), American director

Brian Clark (disambiguation), several people

Buddy Clark (1911–1949), American singer

Carmel Clark (born 1965), New Zealand swimmer

Catherine Clark (born 1976), Canadian television host

Charles Clark (disambiguation), several people

Chris Clark (disambiguation), several people

Christian Clark (born 1979), Australian actor

Claudine Clark, R&B; singer and performer of the 1962 hit record "Party Lights"

Colin Clark, British economist

Corrie Clark (born 1982), American breaststroke swimmer

Dallas Clark, American football player

Daniel Clark (Canadian politician and actor), Canadian actor

Daniel Kinnear Clark (1822–1896), British railway mechanical engineer

Darius Clark (1798–1871), New York physician and politician

Dave Clark (musician) (born 1942), drummer of The Dave Clark Five

David Clark (disambiguation), several people

Davis Wasgatt Clark (1812–1871), American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Dick Clark (born 1929), entertainer and producer

Dick Clark (disambiguation), several people

Douglas Clark (disambiguation), several people

Duncan Clark (1910–2007), an American public health specialist

Duncan Clark (athlete) (1915–2003), Scottish hammer thrower

Dwight Clark, American football player

Ernest Clark (1912–1994), British actor

Eugene Clark (disambiguation), several people

Frank Clark (footballer), English football player

Frank M. Clark (1915–2003), American Congressman

Gavin Brown Clark (1846–1930), MP for Caithness

George Clark (disambiguation), several people

Gerry Clark (1927–1999), New Zealand sailor and ornithologist

Ginger Clark (1879–1943), American baseball pitcher

Glenn Clark (born 1969), Canadian coach of Toronto Rock

Helen Clark (born 1950), Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008

Hilda Clark (1872–1932), American Coca-Cola advertising spokesperson

Hugh Massey Clark (1886–1956), person of New York

Hilda Margery Clarke (born 1926), English painter and curator

Hulda Regehr Clark, alternative medicine practitioner

Isabella Clark, wife of Prime Minister of Canada Sir John A. Macdonald

Jack Clark (disambiguation), several people

James Clark (disambiguation), several people

Jeff Clark (disambiguation), several people

Joe Clark (born 1939), former Prime Minister of Canada

John Clark (disambiguation), several people

Jonas Gilman Clark (1815–1900), American businessman and the founder of Clark University

Joseph Clark (disambiguation), several people

Joshua Clark, (born 1980), American writer

Karen Clark (born 1945), American politician from Minnesota

Katy Clark (born 1967), British politician and trade union official

Kenneth Clark (psychologist) (1914–2005), African American psychologist who testified in ''Brown v. Board of Education''

Kenneth Clark (1902–1983), British art historian; creator of the series ''Civilisation''

Leslie J. Clark (1924–2003), British engineer and founder of Parvalux

Louis Clark, musician and conductor with the Orchestra (former members of ELO and ELO Part II)

Manning Clark (1915–1991), Australian historian

Marcus R. Clark (born 1956), Louisiana Supreme Court justice

Mark Wayne Clark (1896–1984), American Army General in WW2 (Italy) and the Korean War

Nancy B. Clark, person of Marstons Mills, Massachusetts

Naomi Clark, fictional character from The CW primetime drama 90210, the fourth series of the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise

Ocky Clark (born 1960), American middle distance runner

Otey Clark (born 1915), American baseball pitcher

Ramsey Clark (born 1927), American Attorney General and activist

Ranza Clark (born 1961), Canadian middle distance runner

Roger Clark, British rally driver

Ryan Clark (disambiguation), several people

Samuel Clark (disambiguation), several people

Samuel Delbert Clark (1910–2003), Canadian sociologist

Sherman Clark (1899–1980), American Olympic rower and Rear Admiral

Simon Clark, English horror novel writer

Steve Clark (1960–1991), British guitarist for Def Leppard

Stuart Clark (born 1975), Australian cricketer

Theresa Maria Clark (c.1890–1953), person of New York

Thomas Clark (disambiguation), several people

Tom Clark (journalist), Canadian television journalist

Tom C. Clark (1899–1977), Attorney General of the United States, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, father of Attorney General Ramsey Clark

Tracy Clark, fictional character from The CW primetime drama 90210

Wendel Clark (born 1966), retired Canadian ice hockey player

Wesley K. Clark (born 1944), American Army General in the Vietnam War and Kosovo

Wilfrid Le Gros Clark (1895–1971), British palaeanthropologist

Will Clark (born 1964), American baseball player

William Clark (disambiguation), several people

The Clark Sisters, American gospel vocalists from Detroit

References

External links

Clark(e) Surname DNA Project

See also

Clark (taxonomic authority)

Clarke

Clerke (disambiguation)

Category:English-language surnames Category:Lists of people sharing a surname Category:Occupational surnames Category:Surnames originating in England

de:Clark (Familienname) sv:Clark vi:Clark

birth name	Harlean Harlow Carpenter
birth date	March 03, 1911
birth place	Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
death date	June 07, 1937
death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S. Interred: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
spouse	Charles McGrew (1927–1929) (divorced)Paul Bern (1932) (his death)Harold Rosson (1933–1934) (divorced)
occupation	Actress
years active	1928–1937
website	}}

Jean Harlow (March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" (due to her platinum blonde hair), Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute. Harlow starred in several films, mainly designed to showcase her magnetic sex appeal and strong screen presence, before making the transition to more developed roles and achieving massive fame under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Harlow's enormous popularity and "laughing vamp" image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, and ultimately her sudden death from renal failure at age 26.

Early life

Harlow was born Harlean Harlow Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri. The name is sometimes incorrectly spelled Carpentier, which came from later studio press releases in an attempt to sound more aristocratic, and the inaccuracy has been constantly repeated. Her father, Mont Clair Carpenter (1877–1974), was a dentist. He came from a working-class background and attended dental college in Kansas City. Her mother, Jean Poe Carpenter (née Harlow), was the daughter of a wealthy real estate broker, Skip Harlow, and his wife Ella Harlow (née Williams). The marriage was arranged by Skip Harlow in 1908. Jean Carpenter, an intelligent and strong-willed woman, resented it, and became very unhappy in the marriage. The couple lived in Kansas City in a house owned by Skip Harlow.

Harlean was nicknamed "The Baby", a name that would stick with her for the rest of her life. She did not learn that her name was actually Harlean and not "Baby" until the age of five, when she began to attend Miss Barstow's Finishing School for Girls in Kansas City. Harlean and Mother Jean, as she became known when Harlean became a film star, remained very close to each other; the relationship eased Mother Jean's empty existence and unhappy marriage. "She was always all mine," she said of her daughter. Harlean's mother was extremely protective and coddling, instilling a sense that her daughter owed everything she had to her.

With her daughter at school, Mother Jean became increasingly frustrated and filed for divorce, which was finalized, uncontested, on September 29, 1922. She was granted sole custody of Harlean, who loved her father but would rarely see him for the rest of her life.

Mother Jean moved with Harlean to Hollywood in 1923 with hopes of becoming an actress. Harlean attended the Hollywood School for Girls and met some of Hollywood's future figures, including Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joel McCrea and Irene Mayer Selznick. Mother Jean's dream of stardom did not come true; she was too old at age 34 to begin a film career in an era when major roles were usually assigned to teenage girls. Facing dwindling finances, the pair returned to Kansas City within two years after Skip Harlow issued an ultimatum: either they returned or he would disinherit her. Harlean dropped out of school in Hollywood in the spring of 1925. Several weeks later, Skip Harlow sent her to a summer camp called Camp Cha-Ton-Ka in Michigamme, Michigan, where Harlean became ill with scarlet fever. Mother Jean traveled to Michigan to care for Harlean, rowing herself across the lake to the camp when she was told that she could not get to her daughter.

Marriage

Harlean attended the Ferry Hall School (now Lake Forest Academy) in Lake Forest, Illinois. Mother Jean had ulterior motives for Harlean's attendance at the school, as it was close to Chicago where Mother Jean's beau, Marino Bello, was living. Freshmen were paired with a "big sister" from the senior class, and Harlean's big sister introduced her to Charles "Chuck" McGrew, heir to a large fortune, in the fall of 1926. The two started dating. On January 18, 1927 Mother Jean married Bello, although Harlean was not present.

Sixteen-year-old Harlean and twenty-year-old McGrew eloped on September 21, 1927. McGrew turned 21 two months after the marriage and received part of his large inheritance. The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1928, settling into a home in Beverly Hills, where Harlean thrived as a wealthy socialite. McGrew hoped to distance Harlean from her mother with the move. Neither McGrew nor Harlean worked, and both, especially McGrew, were thought to drink heavily.

Career beginnings

In Los Angeles, Harlean befriended Rosalie Roy, a young aspiring actress. Lacking a car, Roy asked Harlean to drive her to Fox Studios for an appointment. It was there that Harlean was noticed by Fox executives while sitting in the car waiting for her friend. Harlean was approached by the executives, but stated that she was not interested. She was given dictated letters of introduction to Central Casting. Recounting this story a few days later, Rosalie Roy made a wager with Harlean that she did not have the nerve to go back and audition for roles. Unwilling to lose a wager and pressed by her enthusiastic mother, Harlean drove to Central Casting and signed in under her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow.

After several calls from Central Casting, who had called for "Miss Harlow", and a number of rejected job offers, Harlean was pressured by her mother, now relocated to Los Angeles, into accepting work. Harlow then appeared in her first film, ''Honor Bound'', as an unbilled extra for $7 a day. This led to bit parts in silent films such as ''Moran of the Marines'' (1928), ''Chasing Husbands'', ''Why Is a Plumber?'' (1927) and ''Unkissed Man''. In December 1928, she signed a five-year contract with Hal Roach Studios for $100 per week. She had more substantial roles in Laurel and Hardy's short ''Double Whoopee'', and appeared in two other films alongside the double act. In March 1929, however, she parted with Roach, who tore up her contract after Harlow told him, "It's breaking up my marriage; what can I do?" In June 1929, Harlow separated from her husband and moved in with her mother and Bello.

After her separation, Harlow worked as extra in several movies, and was cast as an extra in ''The Love Parade'' (1929), followed by small roles in ''This Thing Called Love'' and ''The Saturday Night Kid'' (1929), a Clara Bow movie. Her next extra work was in ''Weak But Willing'' (1929). During filming of ''Weak But Willing'' in 1929, she was spotted by James Hall, an actor filming a Howard Hughes film called ''Hell's Angels''. Hughes, re-shooting the film from silent into sound, needed a new actress because the original actress, Greta Nissen, had a Norwegian accent that proved undesirable for a talkie. Harlow made a test and got the part.

Hughes signed Harlow to a five-year, $100 per week contract on October 24, 1929. ''Hell's Angels'' premiered in Hollywood on May 27, 1930 at Grauman's Chinese Theater. During the shooting, Harlow met MGM executive Paul Bern. The movie made Harlow an international star and a sensation with audiences, but critics were less than enthusiastic. ''Variety'' was a bit more charitable in remarking, "It doesn't matter what degree of talent she possesses ... nobody ever starved possessing what she's got." ''The New Yorker'' called Harlow "plain awful." She was again an uncredited extra, in the 1931 Chaplin film City Lights.

With no projects planned for Harlow, Hughes sent her to New York, Seattle and Kansas City for ''Hell's Angels'' premieres. In 1931, loaned out by Hughes' Caddo Company to other studios, Harlow began to gain more attention when she appeared in ''The Secret Six'' with Wallace Beery and Clark Gable, ''Iron Man'' with Lew Ayres and Robert Armstrong, and ''The Public Enemy'' with James Cagney. Though the films ranged from moderate to smash hits, Harlow's acting ability was damned by critics as awful and was mocked. Concerned, Hughes sent her on a brief publicity tour, which was not a success, as Harlow dreaded such personal appearances.

Harlow was next cast in ''Platinum Blonde'' (1931) with Loretta Young. Hughes convinced the producers of ''Platinum Blonde'' to rename it from its original title of ''Gallagher'' in order to promote Harlow's image, for whom the tag had just been invented by Hughes's publicity director. Many of Harlow's female fans had begun dyeing their hair platinum to match hers. To capitalize on this craze, Hughes' team organized a series of "Platinum Blonde" clubs across the nation, with a prize of $10,000 to any beautician who could match Harlow's shade. However, Harlow herself denied her hair was dyed.

Harlow next filmed ''Three Wise Girls'' (1932), after which Paul Bern arranged to borrow her for ''The Beast of the City'' (1932). When the shooting wrapped, Bello booked a ten-week personal appearance tour in the East Coast. To the surprise of many, especially Harlow herself, she packed every theatre she appeared in, often appearing multiple nights in one venue. Despite critical disparagement and poor roles, Harlow's popularity and following was large and growing, and in February 1932 the tour was extended for additional six weeks.

Apprised of this, Paul Bern, by now romantically involved with Harlow, spoke to Louis B. Mayer about buying out her contract from Hughes and signing her to MGM. Mayer would have none of it. MGM's leading ladies were presented in an elegant way, and Harlow's silver screen image was that of a floozy, which was abhorrent to Mayer. Bern then began urging close friend Irving Thalberg, production head of MGM, to sign Harlow, noting Harlow's pre-existing popularity and established image. After initial reluctance, Thalberg agreed, and on March 3, 1932, Harlow's twenty-first birthday, Bern called her with the news that MGM had bought Harlow's contract from Hughes for $30,000. Harlow officially joined the studio on April 20, 1932. Her first task at MGM would be a screen test for ''Red-Headed Woman''.

According to Fay Wray, who played Ann Darrow in the classic ''King Kong'' (1933), Harlow was the original choice to play the screaming blonde heroine. Because MGM put Harlow under exclusive contract during the pre-production phase of the film, she became unavailable for ''Kong'', and the part went to the brunette Wray, wearing a blonde wig.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Harlow became a superstar at MGM. She was given superior movie roles to show off not only her beauty but also what turned out to be a genuine comedic talent. In 1932, she had the starring role in ''Red-Headed Woman'', for which she received $1,250 a week, and ''Red Dust'', her second film with Clark Gable. These films showed her to be much more at ease in front of the camera and highlighted her skill as a comedienne. Harlow and Gable worked well together and co-starred in a total of six films. She was also paired multiple times with Spencer Tracy and William Powell. As her star ascended, the power of Harlow's name was sometimes used to boost up-and-coming male co-stars, such as Robert Taylor and Franchot Tone.

At this point, MGM began to distance Harlow's public persona from that of her screen characters, changing her childhood surname from common "Carpenter" to chic "Carpentier", claiming that writer Edgar Allan Poe was one of her ancestors, and publishing photographs of Harlow doing charity work. MGM tried to change her image from a brassy, exotic platinum blonde to the more mainstream, all-American type preferred by studio boss Mayer. Her early image proved difficult to change, and once Harlow was heard muttering, "My God, must I always wear a low-cut dress to be important?" Though Harlow's screen image changed dramatically throughout her career, one constant was her apparent sense of humor.

During the making of ''Red Dust,'' Harlow's second husband, MGM producer Paul Bern, was found shot dead at their home, creating a lasting scandal. Initially, the Hollywood community whispered that Harlow had killed Bern, though Bern's death was officially ruled a suicide. Harlow kept silent, survived the ordeal, and became more popular than ever.

After Bern's death, Harlow began an indiscreet affair with boxer Max Baer. Although he was separated from his wife, Dorothy Dunbar, at the time of their affair, Dunbar threatened divorce proceedings, naming Harlow as a correspondent for "alienation of affection", a legal term for adultery. MGM defused the situation by arranging a marriage between Harlow and cinematographer Harold Rosson. Still feeling the aftershocks of Bern's mysterious death, the studio did not want another Harlow scandal on its hands. Rosson and Harlow were friends, and Rosson went along with the plan. They quietly divorced seven months later.

After the box office hits ''Hold Your Man'' and ''Red Dust'', MGM realized it had a goldmine in the Harlow-Gable teaming and paired them in two more films: ''China Seas'' with Wallace Beery and Rosalind Russell and ''Wife vs. Secretary'' with Myrna Loy and young James Stewart. Other co-stars included Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor and William Powell.

By the mid-1930s, Harlow was one of the biggest stars in America and, it was hoped, MGM's next Greta Garbo. Still young, her star continued to rise while the popularity of other female stars at MGM, such as Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, waned. Harlow's movies continued to make huge profits at the box office, even during the middle of the Depression. Some credit them with keeping MGM profitable at a time when other studios were falling into bankruptcy.

Following the end of her third marriage in 1934, Harlow met William Powell, another MGM star, and quickly fell in love. Reportedly, the couple were engaged for two years, but differences kept them from formalizing their relationship (she wanted children; he did not). Harlow also said that Louis B. Mayer would never allow them to marry.

Late career and death

Harlow was a registered Democrat and in the year of her death she had the pleasure of visiting Franklin D. Roosevelt on his birthday.

Harlow complained about ill health on May 20, 1937 when she was filming ''Saratoga''. Her symptoms – fatigue, nausea, water weight and abdominal pain – did not seem very serious to her doctor, who believed she was suffering from gall bladder infection and flu. However, he was apparently not aware of Harlow’s ill health during the previous year: a severe sunburn, bad flu attack and septicemia after a wisdom tooth extraction. In addition, her friend and co-star Myrna Loy had noticed Harlow’s grey complexion, fatigue and weight gain. On May 29, Harlow was shooting a scene in which the character she was playing had a fever. Harlow was clearly sicker than her character, and when she leaned against her co-star Clark Gable between scenes she said, "I feel terrible. Get me back to my dressing room." Harlow requested that the assistant director phone William Powell, who left his own set to escort Harlow back home.

On May 30, Powell checked on Harlow, and when she did not feel any better, her mother was recalled from a holiday trip and Dr. Fishbaugh visited Harlow at her home. Harlow even felt better on June 3. Co-workers expected her back on the set by Monday, June 7. Press reports were contradictory, with headlines like "Jean Harlow seriously ill" and "Harlow past illness crisis". When Harlow said on June 6 that she could no longer see Powell properly, he called a doctor. As she slipped into a deep slumber and experienced difficulty breathing, the doctor finally realized that she was suffering from something other than gall bladder infection or flu. Hospital records mention uremia.

For years, rumors circulated about Harlow’s death. It was claimed that her mother had refused to call in a doctor because she was a Christian Scientist, or that Harlow herself had declined hospital treatment or surgery. It was also rumored that Harlow had died because of alcoholism, a botched abortion, over-dieting, sunstroke, poisoning due to platinum hair dye, or various venereal diseases. However, based on medical bulletins, hospital records and testimony of her relatives and friends, it was proven to be a case of kidney disease. However, Harlow’s mother prevented some people from seeing her, such as the MGM doctor who later stated that it was because they were Christian Scientists. It has been suggested that she still wanted to control her daughter, but it is untrue that she refused Harlow medical care.

Harlow's kidney failure could not have been cured in the 1930s. Death rate from acute kidney failure has decreased to 25% only after antibiotics, dialysis and kidney transplantation, and Harlow’s grey complexion, recurring illnesses and severe sunburn were signs of the disease. Her kidneys had been slowly failing and toxins started to build up in her body, exposing her to other illnesses and causing symptoms included swelling, fatigue and lack of appetite. Toxins also adversely impacted her brain and central nervous system.

News of Harlow’s death spread fast. Spencer Tracy wrote in his diary, "Jean Harlow died today. Grand gal." One of the MGM writers later said: ”The day Baby died there wasn’t one sound in the commissary for three hours.” MGM closed down on the day of Harlow’s funeral on June 9. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California in the Great Mausoleum in a private room of multicolored marble which William Powell bought for $25,000. She was buried in the gown she wore in ''Libeled Lady'', and in her hands she held a white gardenia and a note in which Powell had written: ”Goodnight, my dearest darling.” Drawers in the same room were reserved for Harlow’s mother and William Powell. but Powell remarried in 1940 and was buried elsewhere when he died in 1984. There is a simple inscription on Harlow’s grave, "Our Baby".

MGM planned to replace Harlow in ''Saratoga'' with another actress, but because of public objections the film was finished by using three doubles (one for close-ups, one for long shots and one for dubbing Harlow’s lines) as well as writing her character off some scenes. True to their star right til the end, fans came out in droves to see Harlow's last movie, ''Saratoga''. The film was MGM's highest grossing picture of 1937 and proclaimed to be her best film. Ever since, viewers watching the film have tried to spot these stand-ins and signs of Harlow’s illness.

Film portrayals

In 1965, two films about Jean Harlow were released, both called ''Harlow''. One starred Carroll Baker and the other, Carol Lynley. Both were poorly received and did not perform well at the box office. In 1978, Lindsay Bloom portrayed her in ''Hughes and Harlow: Angels in Hell''. More recently, Gwen Stefani briefly appeared as Harlow in Martin Scorsese's 2004 Howard Hughes biopic ''The Aviator''.

Filmography

+ Film
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1928	''Honor Bound''		Uncredited unconfirmed
1928	''Moran of the Marines''		Uncredited
1929	''New York Nights''	Party Guest	Uncredited
1929	''This Thing Called Love''		Uncredited
1929	''Fugitives''		Uncredited
1929	''Why Be Good?''		Uncredited
1929	''Close Harmony''		Uncredited
1929	''''	Pearl	Uncredited
1929	''''	Lady-in-Waiting	Uncredited
1929	''Weak But Willing''		Uncredited
1930		Helen	as Jean Harlowe
1931	''City Lights''	Extra in restaurant scene	Uncredited
1931	''''	Anne Courtland
1931	''''	Gwen Allen
1931		Rose Mason
1931		Goldie
1931		Anne Schuyler
1931	''Beau Hunks''	Jeanie-Weenie (in photo)	Uncredited
1932	''Three Wise Girls''	Cassie Barnes
1932	''''	Daisy Stevens, aka Mildred Beaumont
1932	''Red-Headed Woman''	Lillian 'Lil'/'Red' Andrews Legendre
1932	''Red Dust''	Vantine
1933	''Hold Your Man''	Ruby Adams
1933		Kitty Packard
1933		Lola Burns
1934	''''	Eadie
1935		Mona Leslie
1935		Dolly 'China Doll' Portland
1936		Hattie
1936	''Wife vs. Secretary''	Helen "Whitey" Wilson
1936		Suzy
1936	''Libeled Lady''	Gladys Benton
1937		Crystal Wetherby
1937		Carol Clayton

+ Short subjects
! Year	! Title	! Role	Notes
1928	''Chasing Husbands''	Bathing beauty	Uncredited
1929		Woman in cab	as Harlean Carpenter
1929	''Why Is a Plumber?''
1929	''''		Uncredited
1929	''Double Whoopee''	Swanky blonde
1929	''Thundering Toupees''
1929	''Bacon Grabbers''	Mrs. Kennedy
1929	''Weak But Willing''
1932	''Screen Snapshots''	Herself
1933	''Hollywood on Parade No. A-12''	Herself
1933	''Hollywood on Parade No. B-1''	Herself
1934	''Hollywood on Parade No. B-6''	Herself
1937	''''	Herself	Uncredited

Notes

Bibliography

Golden, Eve: ''Platinum Girl: The Life and Legends of Jean Harlow''. Abbeville Press, 1991.

Stenn, David. ''Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow''. Bentam Doubleday Dell Publishing, New York, 1993.

Viera, Mark A. Rooney Darrel, Harlow in Hollywood: The Blonde Bombshell in the Glamour Capital, 1928-1937. Angel City Press. 2011.

External links

Jean Harlow tribute site

Jean Harlow at Franklin D. Roosevelt's 55th birthday party, 1937

Photographs and literature

Category:1911 births Category:1937 deaths Category:People from Kansas City, Missouri Category:American film actors Category:American silent film actors Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:Deaths from renal failure Category:Former Christian Scientists Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:20th-century actors Category:Howard Hughes Category:California Democrats

an:Jean Harlow da:Jean Harlow de:Jean Harlow es:Jean Harlow fr:Jean Harlow fy:Jean Harlow ko:진 할로우 hr:Jean Harlow id:Jean Harlow it:Jean Harlow ka:ჯინ ჰარლოუ la:Ioanna Harlow lb:Jean Harlow hu:Jean Harlow nl:Jean Harlow ja:ジーン・ハーロウ no:Jean Harlow nds:Jean Harlow pl:Jean Harlow pt:Jean Harlow ru:Джин Харлоу simple:Jean Harlow sr:Џин Харлоу sh:Jean Harlow fi:Jean Harlow sv:Jean Harlow tr:Jean Harlow uk:Джин Харлоу vi:Jean Harlow zh:珍·哈露

name	Carole Lombard
birth name	Jane Alice Peters
birth date	October 06, 1908
birth place	Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.
death date	January 16, 1942
death place	Mount Potosi, near Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.
resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
spouse	William Powell (1931–1933; divorced)Clark Gable (1939–1942; widowed)
occupation	Actress
years active	1921–1942
other names	}}

Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 January 16, 1942) was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s. She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time and was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s, earning around US $500,000 per year (more than five times the salary of the US President). Lombard's career was cut short when she died at the age of 33 in a plane crash.

Queen of the 1930s screwball comedies, she personified the anxiety of a nervous age. Graham Greene praised the "heartbreaking and nostalgic melodies" of her faster-than-thought delivery. "Platinum blonde, with a heart-shaped face, delicate, impish features and a figure made to be swathed in silver lamé, she wriggled expressively through such classics of hysteria as ''Twentieth Century'' and ''My Man Godfrey''."

Ancestry and early life

Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her parents were Frederick C. Peters (1875–1935) and Elizabeth Knight (1877 – January 16, 1942). Her paternal grandfather, John Claus Peters, was the son of German immigrants, Claus Peters and Caroline Catherine Eberlin. On her mother's side, she was a descendant of Thomas Hastings who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. Lombard was the youngest of three children, having two older brothers, Fred C. Peters Jr. and Stuart Peters. She spent her early childhood in a sprawling, two-story house at 704 Rockhill Street in Fort Wayne, near the St. Mary's River. Her father had been injured during a work related accident and was left with constant headaches which caused him to burst out in paroxysms of anger which disturbed the family. Lombard's parents divorced and her mother took the three children to Los Angeles in 1914, where Lombard attended Virgil Jr. High School and then Fairfax High School. She was elected "May Queen" in 1924. She quit school to pursue acting full-time, but graduated from Fairfax in 1927. Lombard was a second generation Bahá'í who formally enrolled in 1938.

Career

Lombard made her film debut at the age of twelve after she was seen playing baseball in the street by director Allan Dwan; he cast her as a tomboy in ''A Perfect Crime'' (1921). In the 1920s, she worked in several low-budget productions credited as 'Jane Peters', and then later as 'Carol Lombard'. Her friend Miriam Cooper helped Lombard land small roles in her husband Raoul Walsh's films. In 1925, she was signed as a contract player with Fox Film Corporation (which merged with Daryl Zanuck's Twentieth Century Productions in 1935). She also worked for Mack Sennett and Pathé Pictures. She became a well-known actress and made a smooth transition to sound films, starting with ''High Voltage'' (1929). In 1930, she won a contract with Paramount Pictures after having been dropped from both Twentieth Century and Pathé.

Lombard achieved a few minor successes in the early 1930s in 1930's ''Safety in Numbers'' with Charles "Buddy" Rogers and 1932's ''No Man of Her Own'' with Clark Gable, but she was continually cast in second-rate films. It was not until 1934 that her career began to take off. That year, director Howard Hawks encountered Lombard at a party and became enamored with her saucy personality, thinking her just right for his latest project. He hired her for ''Twentieth Century'', alongside stage legend John Barrymore. Lombard was at first intimidated by Barrymore, but the two quickly developed a good working rapport. The film bolstered Lombard's reputation immensely and brought her a level of fame that her previously lackluster career had denied her.

Also in 1934, she starred in ''Bolero'' with George Raft and it was for this film that she turned down the role of Ellie Andrews in ''It Happened One Night''. In 1935 she starred in Mitchell Leisen's ''Hands Across the Table'' which helped to establish her reputation as a top comedy actress. 1936 proved to be a big year for Lombard with her casting in the screwball comedy ''My Man Godfrey'' alongside ex-husband William Powell. Her performance earned Lombard an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. It was followed by ''Nothing Sacred'' in 1937, casting her opposite Fredric March and under the direction of William A. Wellman. It was Lombard's only film in Technicolor and was regarded a critical and commercial smash. ''Nothing Sacred'' put Lombard at the top of the Hollywood tier and established her one of the highest paid actresses in the business.

In 1938, Lombard suffered a flop with ''Fools for Scandal'' and moved on to dramatic films for the next few years. In 1939, Lombard took roles opposite James Stewart in producer David O. Selznick's ''Made for Each Other'' (1939) and Cary Grant in ''In Name Only'' (1939). She also starred in the dramatic ''Vigil in the Night'' in 1940.

Audiences did not respond as well to Lombard in dramatic roles and she made a return to comedy, teaming with director Alfred Hitchcock in ''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (1941). The film gave Lombard's career a much needed boost and she followed her success with what proved to be her last film, and one of her most successful, ''To Be or Not to Be'' (1942).

Personal life

In October 1930, Lombard met William Powell. They had worked together in the films ''Man of the World'' and ''Ladies' Man''. Unlike many of Lombard's other suitors at the time, Powell was urbane and sophisticated. He also appreciated her blunt personality and bawdy sense of humor. They married on June 26, 1931. Lombard commented to fan magazines that she did not believe their sixteen-year age difference would present a problem, but friends felt they were ill-suited, as Lombard had an extroverted personality while Powell was more reserved. They divorced in 1933, but remained good friends and worked together without acrimony, notably in ''My Man Godfrey''.

In 1934, following her divorce from Powell, Lombard moved into a house on Hollywood Boulevard. She lived with a friend from the days of Mack Sennett, Madalynne Fields, who became Lombard's personal secretary and whom Lombard called "Fieldsie." Lombard became known as one of Hollywood's great hostesses for her outrageous parties with unconventional themes. During this time she carried on relationships with actors Gary Cooper and George Raft, as well as the screenwriter Robert Riskin.

Also during 1934, Lombard met and began a serious affair with crooner Russ Columbo. Columbo reportedly proposed marriage, but was killed in a freak shooting accident at the age of 26. To reporters, Lombard said Columbo was the love of her life.

Lombard's most famous relationship came in 1936 when she became involved with actor Clark Gable. They had worked together previously in 1932's ''No Man of Her Own'', but at the time Lombard was still happily married to Powell and knew Gable to have the reputation of a roving eye. They were indifferent to each other on the set and did not keep in touch.

It was not until 1936, when Gable came to the Mayfair Ball that Lombard had planned, that their romance began to take off. Gable, however, was married at the time to oil heiress Rhea Langham, and the affair was kept quiet. The situation proved a major factor in Gable accepting the role of Rhett Butler in ''Gone with the Wind'', as MGM head Louis B. Mayer sweetened the deal for a reluctant Clark Gable by giving him enough money to settle a divorce agreement with Langham and marry Lombard. Gable divorced Langham on March 7, 1939 and proposed to Lombard in a telephone booth at the Brown Derby.

On March 29, 1939, during a break in production on ''Gone with the Wind,'' Gable and Lombard drove out to Kingman, Arizona and were married in a quiet ceremony with only Gable's press agent, Otto Winkler, in attendance. They bought a ranch previously owned by director Raoul Walsh in Encino, California and lived a happy, unpretentious life, calling each other "Ma" and "Pa" and raising chickens and horses. They also attempted to have children but were not successful.

Off-screen, Lombard was much loved for her unpretentious personality and well known for her earthy sense of humor and blue language. Friends of Lombard's included Alfred Hitchcock, Marion Davies, William Haines, Jean Harlow, Fred MacMurray, Cary Grant, Jack Benny, Jorge Negrete, William Powell, and Lucille Ball.

Death

When the US entered World War II at the end of 1941, Lombard traveled to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally with her mother, Bess Peters, and Clark Gable's press agent, Otto Winkler. After raising over $2 million in defense bonds, Lombard addressed her fans, saying: "Before I say goodbye to you all, come on and join me in a big cheer! V for Victory!" On January 16, 1942, Lombard, her mother, and Winkler boarded a Transcontinental and Western Airlines DC-3 airplane to return to California. After refueling in Las Vegas, TWA Flight 3 took off and 23 minutes later, crashed into "Double Up Peak" near the level of Mount Potosi, southwest of Las Vegas. All 22 aboard, including 15 army servicemen, were killed instantly.

On January 18, 1942, Jack Benny did not perform his usual program, both out of respect for Lombard and grief at her death. Instead, he devoted his program to an all-music format.

Shortly after her death at the age of 33, Gable (who was inconsolable and devastated by her loss) joined the United States Army Air Forces. After officers training, Gable headed a six-man motion picture unit attached to a B-17 bomb group in England to film aerial gunners in combat, flying five missions himself. Gable attended the launch of the Liberty ship , named in her honor, on January 15, 1944.

Lombard's final film, ''To Be or Not to Be'' (1942), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-starring Jack Benny, a satire about Nazism and World War II, was in post-production at the time of her death. The film's producers decided to cut part of the film in which Lombard's character asks, "What can happen on a plane?" as they felt it was in poor taste, given the circumstances of her death.

At the time of her death, Lombard had been scheduled to star in the film ''They All Kissed the Bride''; when production started, her role was given to Joan Crawford. Crawford donated all of her pay for this film to the Red Cross.

Lombard is interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. The name on her crypt marker is "Carole Lombard Gable". Although Gable remarried, he was interred next to her when he died in 1960. Bess Peters was also interred beside her daughter.

Awards and honors

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Lombard 23rd on its list of the 50 greatest American female screen legends. She received one Academy Award for Best Actress nomination, for ''My Man Godfrey''. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6930 Hollywood Blvd.

Lombard's Fort Wayne childhood home has been designated a historic landmark. The city named the nearby bridge over the St Mary's River the "Carole Lombard Memorial Bridge."

Portrayals

She has been played by:

Jill Clayburgh in ''Gable and Lombard'' (1976)

Sharon Gless in ''Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara War'' (1980)

Denise Crosby in ''Malice in Wonderland'' (1985)

Anastasia Hille in ''RKO 281'' (1999)

Vanessa Gray in ''Lucy'' (2003)

Filmography

Features

''A Perfect Crime'' (1921)

''Gold Heels'' (1924)

''Dick Turpin'' (1925)

''Marriage in Transit'' (1925)

''Gold and the Girl'' (1925)

''Hearts and Spurs'' (1925)

''Durand of the Bad Lands'' (1925)

''The Plastic Age'' (1925)

''Ben-Hur'' (1925)

''The Road to Glory'' (1926)

''The Johnstown Flood'' (1926)

''The Fighting Eagle'' (1927)

''My Best Girl'' (1927)

''The Divine Sinner'' (1928)

''Power'' (1928)

''Me, Gangster'' (1928)

''Show Folks'' (1928)

''Ned McCobb's Daughter'' (1928)

''High Voltage'' (1929)

''Big News'' (1929)

''The Racketeer'' (1929)

''The Arizona Kid'' (1930)

''Safety in Numbers'' (1930)

''Fast and Loose'' (1930)

''It Pays to Advertise'' (1931)

''Man of the World'' (1931)

''Ladies' Man'' (1931)

''Up Pops the Devil'' (1931)

''I Take This Woman'' (1931)

''No One Man'' (1932)

''Sinners in the Sun'' (1932)

''Virtue'' (1932)

''No More Orchids'' (1932)

''No Man of Her Own'' (1932)

''From Hell to Heaven'' (1933)

''Supernatural'' (1933)

''The Eagle and the Hawk'' (1933)

''Brief Moment'' (1933)

''White Woman'' (1933)

''Bolero'' (1934)

''We're Not Dressing'' (1934)

''Twentieth Century'' (1934)

''Now and Forever'' (1934)

''Lady by Choice'' (1934)

''The Gay Bride'' (1934)

''Rumba'' (1935)

''Hands Across the Table'' (1935)

''Love Before Breakfast'' (1936)

''The Princess Comes Across'' (1936)

''My Man Godfrey'' (1936)

''Swing High, Swing Low'' (1937)

''Nothing Sacred'' (1937)

''True Confession'' (1937)

''Fools for Scandal'' (1938)

''Made for Each Other'' (1939)

''In Name Only'' (1939)

''Vigil in the Night'' (1940)

''They Knew What They Wanted'' (1940)

''Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (1941)

''To Be or Not to Be'' (1942)

Short subjects

''Smith's Pony'' (1927)

''Gold Digger of Weepah'' (1927)

''The Girl from Everywhere'' (1927)

''Run, Girl, Run'' (1928)

''The Beach Club'' (1928)

''Smith's Army Life'' (1928)

''The Best Man'' (1928)

''The Swim Princess'' (1928)

''The Bicycle Flirt'' (1928)

''The Girl from Nowhere'' (1928)

''His Unlucky Night'' (1928)

''Smith's Restaurant'' (1928)

''The Campus Vamp'' (1928)

''Motorboat Mamas'' (1928)

''Hubby's Weekend Trip'' (1928)

''The Campus Carmen'' (1928)

''Matchmaking Mamma'' (1929)

''Don't Get Jealous'' (1929)

''Hollywood on Parade No. 11'' (1933)

''Hollywood on Parade No. A-12'' (1933)

''The Fashion Side of Hollywood'' (1935)

''Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 3'' (1936)

''Breakdowns of 1938'' (1938)

''Hollywood Goes to Town'' (1938)

''Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 9'' (1939)

''

References

External links

Carole Lombard

Carole Lombard: Biographie, filmographie, galerie, etc.

Photographs and bibliography

The Carole Lombard Photo Archives

Descendants of Thomas Hastings website

Descendants of Thomas Hastings on Facebook

Category:20th-century actors Category:Accidental deaths in Nevada Category:Actors from Indiana Category:American Bahá'ís Category:American film actors Category:American silent film actors Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:California Democrats Category:Fairfax High School (Los Angeles) alumni Category:American people of German descent Category:American people of English descent Category:Indiana Democrats Category:People from Fort Wayne, Indiana Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the United States Category:1908 births Category:1942 deaths Category:20th-century Bahá'ís

an:Carole Lombard bg:Карол Ломбард ca:Carole Lombard cs:Carole Lombard da:Carole Lombard de:Carole Lombard es:Carole Lombard fr:Carole Lombard id:Carole Lombard it:Carole Lombard he:קרול לומברד ka:კეროლ ლომბარდი nl:Carole Lombard ja:キャロル・ロンバード no:Carole Lombard pl:Carole Lombard pt:Carole Lombard ro:Carole Lombard ru:Кэрол Ломбард sr:Карол Ломбард sh:Carole Lombard fi:Carole Lombard sv:Carole Lombard vi:Carole Lombard

name	Vivien Leigh
birth name	Vivian Mary Hartley
birth date	November 05, 1913
birth place	Darjeeling, Bengal, India
occupation	Actress
death date	July 07, 1967
death place	London, England
spouse	Herbert Leigh Holman (1932–40)Laurence Olivier (1940–1960)
Partner	John Merivale (1959-67)
Children	Suzanne Farrington, born on October 12, 1933
years active	1933–67 }}

Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier (5 November 1913 – 7 July 1967) was an English actress. She won two Best Actress Academy Awards for playing "southern belles": Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939) and Blanche DuBois in ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' (1951), a role she also played on stage in London's West End.

She was a prolific stage performer, frequently in collaboration with her then-husband, Laurence Olivier, who directed her in several of her roles. During her 30-year stage 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.

Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that it sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress. However, ill health proved to be her greatest obstacle. For much of her adult life Leigh suffered from bipolar disorder. She earned a reputation for being difficult to work with, and her career suffered periods of inactivity. She also suffered recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, first diagnosed in the mid-1940s. Leigh and Olivier divorced in 1960, and she worked sporadically in film and theatre until her death from tuberculosis in 1967.

Early life and acting debut

An Anglo-Indian, Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley in Darjeeling, Bengal, British India, to Ernest Hartley, an officer in the Indian Cavalry, and Gertrude Robinson Yackje. Leigh's parents were married in Kensington, London, in 1912. In 1917, Ernest Hartley was transferred to Bangalore, while Gertrude and Vivian stayed in Ootacamund. Vivian Hartley made her first stage appearance at the age of three, reciting "Little Bo Peep" for her mother's amateur theatre group. Gertrude Hartley tried to instill in her daughter an appreciation of literature and introduced her to the works of Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll, and Rudyard Kipling, as well as stories of Greek mythology and Indian folklore. An only child, Vivian Hartley was sent to the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton, England, (now Woldingham School) in 1920 at the age of six-and-a-half. One of her friends at the convent school was the future actress Maureen O'Sullivan, to whom she expressed her desire to become "a great actress".

Vivian Hartley was removed from the school by her father, who took her travelling in Europe; with schooling provided by schools in the areas they travelled, returning to England in 1931. She attended one of Maureen O'Sullivan's films playing in London's West End and told her parents of her ambitions to become an actress. Her father enrolled her at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.

Vivian Hartley met (Herbert) Leigh Holman in 1931. Leigh Holman was a barrister 13 years her senior. Despite his disapproval of "theatrical people", they were married on 20 December 1932, and she terminated her studies at RADA. On 12 October 1933, she gave birth to a daughter, Suzanne, but did not seem to settle to the normal domestic life role. Her friends suggested to her a small role in the film ''Things Are Looking Up'', which marked her film debut. She engaged an agent, John Gliddon, who believed that the name "Vivian Holman" was not suitable for an actress. After rejecting his suggestion, "April Morn", she took "Vivian Leigh" as her professional name. Gliddon recommended her to Alexander Korda as a possible film actress, but Korda rejected her as lacking potential.

Cast in the play ''The Mask of Virtue'' in 1935, Leigh received excellent reviews followed by interviews and newspaper articles. One such article was from the ''Daily Express'', in which the interviewer noted "a lightning change came over her face", which was the first public mention of the rapid changes in mood that became characteristic of her. John Betjeman, the future Poet Laureate, also wrote about her, describing her as "the essence of English girlhood". Korda attended her opening-night performance, admitted his error, and signed her to a film contract, with the spelling of her name revised to "Vivien Leigh". She continued with the play; but, when Korda moved it to a larger theatre, Leigh was found to be unable to project her voice adequately or to hold the attention of so large an audience, and the play closed soon after. In 1960, Leigh recalled her ambivalence towards her first experience of critical acclaim and sudden fame, commenting, "some critics saw fit to be as foolish as to say that I was a great actress. And I thought, that was a foolish, wicked thing to say, because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry. And it took me years to learn enough to live up to what they said for those first notices. I find it so stupid. I remember the critic very well and have never forgiven him."

Meeting Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier saw Leigh in ''The Mask of Virtue'', and friendship developed after he congratulated her on her performance. Olivier and Leigh began an affair after acting as lovers in ''Fire Over England'' (1937), when Olivier was married to actress Jill Esmond. During this time, Leigh read the Margaret Mitchell novel ''Gone with the Wind'' and instructed her American agent to suggest her to David O. Selznick, who was planning a film version. She remarked to a journalist, "I've cast myself as Scarlett O'Hara"; and ''The Observer'' film critic C. A. Lejeune recalled a conversation of the same period in which Leigh "stunned us all" with the assertion that Olivier "won't play Rhett Butler, but I shall play Scarlett O'Hara. Wait and see."

Despite her relative inexperience, Leigh was chosen to play Ophelia to Olivier's Hamlet in an Old Vic Theatre production staged at Elsinore, Denmark. Olivier later recalled an incident when her mood rapidly changed as she was preparing to go onstage. Without apparent provocation, she began screaming at him, before suddenly becoming silent and staring into space. She was able to perform without mishap; and, by the following day, she had returned to normal with no recollection of the event. It was the first time Olivier witnessed such behaviour from her. They began living together, as their respective spouses had each refused to grant either of them a divorce. Under the moral standards then enforced by the motion picture industry, their relationship had to be kept from public view.

Leigh appeared with Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, and Maureen O'Sullivan in ''A Yank at Oxford'' (1938), the first of her films to receive attention in the United States. During production, she developed a reputation for being difficult and unreasonable; and Korda instructed her agent to warn her that her option would not be renewed if her behaviour did not improve. Her next role was in ''St. Martin's Lane'' (1938) with Charles Laughton.

Achieving international success

Olivier had been attempting to broaden his film career. He was not well known in the United States despite his success in England, and earlier attempts to introduce him to the American market had failed. Offered the role of Heathcliff in Samuel Goldwyn's production of ''Wuthering Heights'' (1939), he travelled to Hollywood, leaving Leigh in London. Goldwyn and the film's director, William Wyler, offered Leigh the secondary role of Isabella; but she refused, preferring the role of Cathy, which had been assigned to Merle Oberon.

Hollywood was in the midst of a widely publicised search to find an actress to portray Scarlett O'Hara in David O. Selznick's production of ''Gone with the Wind'' (1939). Leigh's American theatrical agent was the London representative of the Myron Selznick Agency (Myron was David's brother). In February 1938, Leigh asked that she be allowed to play Scarlett O'Hara. Selznick, who watched her performance that month in ''Fire Over England'' and ''A Yank at Oxford'', thought her to be excellent but in no way a possible Scarlett, as she was "too British". Leigh travelled to Los Angeles to be with Olivier and to try to convince Selznick that she was Scarlett. When Myron Selznick, who also represented Olivier, met Leigh, he felt that she possessed the qualities his brother was searching for. Myron Selznick took Leigh and Olivier to the set where the burning of the Atlanta Depot scene was being filmed and introduced Leigh, telling his brother, "Hey, genius. Meet your Scarlett O'Hara." The following day, Leigh read a scene for Selznick, who organised a screen test and wrote to his wife, "She's the Scarlett dark horse and looks damn good. Not for anyone's ear but your own: it's narrowed down to Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, Joan Bennett, and Vivien Leigh". The director, George Cukor, concurred and praised Leigh's "incredible wildness"; she secured her role as Scarlett soon after.

Filming proved difficult for Leigh. Cukor was dismissed and replaced by Victor Fleming, with whom Leigh frequently quarrelled. She and Olivia de Havilland secretly met with Cukor at night and on weekends for his advice about how they should play their parts. She befriended Clark Gable, his wife Carole Lombard, and Olivia de Havilland; but she clashed with Leslie Howard, with whom she was required to play several emotional scenes. Leigh was sometimes required to work seven days a week, often late into the night, which added to her distress; and she missed Olivier, who was working in New York. She said to Laurence Olivier on a long-distance call, "Puss, my puss, how I hate film acting! Hate, hate, and never want to do another film again!"

In 2006, Olivia de Havilland responded to claims of Leigh's manic behaviour during filming ''Gone with the Wind'', published in a biography of Olivier. She defended Leigh, saying, "Vivien was impeccably professional, impeccably disciplined on ''Gone with the Wind''. She had two great concerns: doing her best work in an extremely difficult role and being separated from Larry [Olivier], who was in New York."

''Gone with the Wind'' brought Leigh immediate attention and fame; but she was quoted as saying, "I'm not a film star – I'm an actress. Being a film star – just a film star – is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity. Actresses go on for a long time and there are always marvelous parts to play." Among the 10 Academy Awards won by ''Gone with the Wind'' was a Best Actress award for Leigh, who also won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.

Marriage and joint projects

In February 1940, Jill Esmond agreed to divorce Olivier; and Holman agreed to divorce Leigh, although they maintained a strong friendship for the rest of Leigh's life. Esmond was granted custody of Tarquin, her son with Olivier; and Holman was granted custody of Suzanne, his daughter with Leigh. On 31 August 1940, Olivier and Leigh were married in Santa Barbara, California, in a ceremony attended only by their witnesses, Katharine Hepburn and Garson Kanin.

Leigh hoped to co-star with Olivier and made a screen test for ''Rebecca'', which was to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock with Olivier in the leading role. After viewing Leigh's screen test, Selznick noted that "she doesn't seem right as to sincerity or age or innocence", a view shared by Hitchcock and Leigh's mentor, George Cukor. Selznick observed that she had shown no enthusiasm for the part until Olivier had been confirmed as the lead actor so he cast Joan Fontaine. He refused to allow her to join Olivier in ''Pride and Prejudice'' (1940), and Greer Garson played the role Leigh had wanted for herself. ''Waterloo Bridge'' (1940) was to have starred Olivier and Leigh; however, Selznick replaced Olivier with Robert Taylor, then at the peak of his success as one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most popular male stars. Leigh's top billing reflected her status in Hollywood, and the film was popular with audiences and critics.

She and Olivier mounted a stage production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' for Broadway. The New York press publicized the adulterous nature that had marked the beginning of Olivier and Leigh's relationship and questioned their ethics in not returning to England to help with the war effort. Critics were hostile in their assessment of the production. Brooks Atkinson for the ''New York Times'' wrote, "Although Miss Leigh and Mr. Olivier are handsome young people they hardly act their parts at all." While most of the blame was attributed to Olivier's acting and direction, Leigh was also criticised, with Bernard Grebanier commenting on the "thin, shopgirl quality of Miss Leigh's voice." The couple had invested almost their entire savings into the project, and the failure was a financial disaster for them.

They filmed ''That Hamilton Woman'' (1941) with Olivier as Horatio Nelson and Leigh as Emma Hamilton. With the United States not yet having entered the war, it was one of several Hollywood films made with the aim of arousing a pro-British sentiment among American audiences. The film was popular in the United States and an outstanding success in the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill arranged a screening for a party that included Franklin D. Roosevelt and, on its conclusion, addressed the group, saying, "Gentlemen, I thought this film would interest you, showing great events similar to those in which you have just been taking part." The Oliviers remained favourites of Churchill, attending dinners and occasions at his request for the rest of his life; and, of Leigh, he was quoted as saying, "By Jove, she's a clinker."

The Oliviers returned to England, and Leigh toured through North Africa in 1943. Leigh performed for troops before falling ill with a persistent cough and fevers. In 1944, she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in her left lung and spent several weeks in hospital before appearing to have recovered. Leigh was filming ''Caesar and Cleopatra'' (1945) when she discovered she was pregnant, but she suffered a miscarriage. She fell into a deep depression that hit the low point when she turned on Olivier, verbally and physically attacking him until she fell to the floor, sobbing. This was the first of many major breakdowns she suffered related to bipolar disorder. Olivier came to recognise the symptoms of an impending episode – several days of hyperactivity followed by a period of depression and an explosive breakdown, after which Leigh would have no memory of the event, but would be acutely embarrassed and remorseful.

Leigh was well enough to resume acting in 1946, in a successful London production of Thornton Wilder's ''The Skin of Our Teeth''; but her films of this period, ''Caesar and Cleopatra'' (1945) and ''Anna Karenina'' (1948), were not great successes.

In 1947, Olivier was knighted; and Leigh accompanied him to Buckingham Palace for the investiture. She became Lady Olivier; and, after their divorce, per the style granted the divorced wife of a knight, she became socially known as Vivien, Lady Olivier. By 1948, Olivier was on the Board of Directors for the Old Vic Theatre; and he and Leigh embarked on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand to raise funds for it. Olivier performed ''Richard III'' and also performed with Leigh in ''The School for Scandal'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth.'' The tour was an outstanding success; and, although Leigh was plagued with insomnia and allowed her understudy to replace her for a week while she was ill, she generally withstood the demands placed upon her, with Olivier noting her ability to "charm the press." Members of the company later recalled several quarrels between the couple, the most dramatic occurring in Christchurch when Leigh refused to go onstage. Olivier slapped her face, and Leigh slapped him in return and swore at him before she made her way to the stage. By the end of the tour, both were exhausted and ill; and Olivier told a journalist, "You may not know it, but you are talking to a couple of walking corpses." Later, he would comment that he "lost Vivien" in Australia.

The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first West End appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, ''Antigone,'' included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a tragedy. Leigh next sought the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of Tennessee Williams's ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' and was cast after Williams and the play's producer Irene Mayer Selznick saw her in ''The School for Scandal'' and ''Antigone''; Olivier was contracted to direct. Containing a rape scene and references to promiscuity and homosexuality, the play was destined to be controversial, and the media discussion about its suitability added to Leigh's anxiety, but she believed strongly in the importance of the work.

When the West End production of ''Streetcar'' opened in October 1949, J. B. Priestley denounced the play and Leigh's performance; and the critic Kenneth Tynan commented that Leigh was badly miscast because British actors were "too well-bred to emote effectively on stage". Olivier and Leigh were chagrined that part of the commercial success of the play lay in audience members attending to see what they believed would be a salacious and sensationalist story, rather than the Greek tragedy that they envisioned; but the play also had strong supporters, among them Noël Coward who described Leigh as "magnificent."

After 326 performances, Leigh finished her run. However, she was soon engaged for the film version. Her irreverent and often bawdy sense of humour allowed her to establish a rapport with her co-star Marlon Brando; but she had difficulty with director Elia Kazan, who did not hold her in high regard as an actress. He later commented that "she had a small talent"; but, as work progressed, he became "full of admiration" for "the greatest determination to excel of any actress I've known. She'd have crawled over broken glass if she thought it would help her performance." Leigh found the role gruelling and commented to the ''Los Angeles Times'', "I had nine months in the theatre of Blanche DuBois. Now she's in command of me." Olivier accompanied her to Hollywood where he was to co-star in William Wyler's ''Carrie''.

The film won glowing reviews for her; and she won a second Academy Award for Best Actress, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award, and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Tennessee Williams commented that Leigh brought to the role "everything that I intended, and much that I had never dreamed of"; but, in later years, Leigh would say playing Blanche DuBois "tipped me over into madness."

Struggle with illness

In 1951, Leigh and Olivier performed two plays about Cleopatra, William Shakespeare's ''Antony and Cleopatra'' and George Bernard Shaw's ''Caesar and Cleopatra'', alternating the play each night and winning good reviews. They took the productions to New York, where they performed a season at the Ziegfeld Theatre into 1952. The reviews there were also mostly positive, but the critic Kenneth Tynan angered them when he suggested that Leigh's was a mediocre talent that forced Olivier to compromise his own. Tynan's diatribe almost precipitated another collapse; Leigh, terrified of failure and intent on achieving greatness, dwelt on his comments while ignoring the positive reviews of other critics.

In January 1953, Leigh travelled to Ceylon to film ''Elephant Walk'' with Peter Finch. Shortly after filming commenced, she suffered a breakdown; and Paramount Pictures replaced her with Elizabeth Taylor. Olivier returned her to their home in England, where, between periods of incoherence, Leigh told him that she was in love with Finch and had been having an affair with him. She gradually recovered over a period of several months. As a result of this episode, many of the Oliviers' friends learned of her problems. David Niven said she had been "quite, quite mad"; and in his diary Noël Coward expressed surprise that "things had been bad and getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts." In 1953, Leigh recovered sufficiently to play ''The Sleeping Prince'' with Olivier; and, in 1955, they performed a season at Stratford-upon-Avon in Shakespeare's ''Twelfth Night'', ''Macbeth'', and ''Titus Andronicus''. They played to capacity houses and attracted generally good reviews, Leigh's health seemingly stable. John Gielgud directed ''Twelfth Night'' and wrote, "...perhaps I will still make a good thing of that divine play, especially if he will let me pull her little ladyship (who is brainier than he but ''not'' a born actress) out of her timidity and safeness. He dares too confidently ... but she hardly dares at all and is terrified of overreaching her technique and doing anything that she has not killed the spontaneity of by overpractice."

Leigh took the lead role in the Noël Coward play ''South Sea Bubble'', but she became pregnant and withdrew from the production. Several weeks later, she miscarried and entered a period of depression that lasted for months. She joined Olivier for a European tour with ''Titus Andronicus'', but the tour was marred by Leigh's frequent outbursts against Olivier and other members of the company. After their return to London, her former husband, Leigh Holman, who continued to exert a strong influence over her, stayed with the Oliviers and helped calm her.

In 1958, considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with the actor Jack Merivale, who knew of Leigh's medical condition and assured Olivier he would care for her. In 1959, she achieved a success with the Noël Coward comedy ''Look After Lulu'', with ''The Times'' critic describing her as "beautiful, delectably cool and matter of fact, she is mistress of every situation."

In 1960, she and Olivier divorced; and Olivier married actress Joan Plowright. In his autobiography, he discussed the years of problems they had experienced because of Leigh's illness: "Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness – an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."

Final years and death

Merivale proved to be a stabilizing influence for Leigh; but, despite her apparent contentment, she was quoted by Radie Harris as confiding that she "would rather have lived a short life with Larry [Olivier] than face a long one without him". Her first husband, Leigh Holman, also spent considerable time with her. Merivale joined her for a tour of Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America that lasted from July 1961 until May 1962; and Leigh enjoyed positive reviews without sharing the spotlight with Olivier. Though she was still beset by bouts of depression, she continued to work in the theatre and, in 1963, won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role in ''Tovarich''. She also appeared in the films ''The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone'' (1961) and ''Ship of Fools'' (1965).

In May 1967, she was rehearsing to appear with Michael Redgrave in Edward Albee's ''A Delicate Balance'' when she suffered a recurrence of tuberculosis. Following several weeks of rest, she seemed to recover. On the night of 7 July 1967, Merivale left her as usual, to perform in a play, and returned home around midnight to find her asleep. About thirty minutes later, he returned to the bedroom and discovered her body on the floor. She had been attempting to walk to the bathroom and, as her lungs filled with liquid, collapsed. Merivale contacted Olivier, who was receiving treatment for prostate cancer in a nearby hospital. In his autobiography, Olivier described his "grievous anguish" as he immediately travelled to Leigh's residence, to find that Merivale had moved her body onto the bed. Olivier paid his respects, and "stood and prayed for forgiveness for all the evils that had sprung up between us", before helping Merivale make funeral arrangements.

She was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium; and her ashes were scattered on the lake at her home, Tickerage Mill, near Blackboys, East Sussex, England. A memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields, with a final tribute read by John Gielgud. In the United States, she became the first actress honoured by "The Friends of the Libraries at the University of Southern California". The ceremony was conducted as a memorial service, with selections from her films shown and tributes provided by such associates as George Cukor.

Critical comments

Vivien Leigh was considered one of the most beautiful actresses of her day, and her directors emphasised this in most of her films. When asked if she believed her beauty had been a setback to her acting, she said, "People think that if you look fairly reasonable, you can't possibly act, and as I only care about acting, I think beauty can be a great handicap, if you really want to look like the part you're playing, which isn't necessarily like you."

George Cukor commented that Leigh was a "consummate actress, hampered by beauty", and Laurence Olivier said that critics should "give her credit for being an actress and not go on forever letting their judgments be distorted by her great beauty." Garson Kanin shared their viewpoint and described Leigh as "a stunner whose ravishing beauty often tended to obscure her staggering achievements as an actress. Great beauties are infrequently great actresses — simply because they don't need to be. Vivien was different; ambitious, persevering, serious, often inspired."

Leigh explained that she played "as many different parts as possible" in an attempt to learn her craft and to dispel prejudice about her abilities. She believed that comedy was more difficult to play than drama because it required more precise timing and said that more emphasis should be placed upon comedy as part of an actor's training. Nearing the end of her career, which ranged from Noël Coward comedies to Shakespearean tragedies, she observed, "It's much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh."

Her early performances brought her immediate success in Britain, but she remained largely unknown in other parts of the world until the release of ''Gone with the Wind''. In December 1939, the ''New York Times'' wrote, "Miss Leigh's Scarlett has vindicated the absurd talent quest that indirectly turned her up. She is so perfectly designed for the part by art and nature that any other actress in the role would be inconceivable", and as her fame escalated, she was featured on the cover of ''Time'' magazine as Scarlett. In 1969, critic Andrew Sarris commented that the success of the film had been largely due to "the inspired casting" of Leigh, and in 1998 wrote that "she lives in our minds and memories as a dynamic force rather than as a static presence." Leonard Maltin described the film as one of the all-time greats, writing in 1998 that Leigh "brilliantly played" her role.

Her performance in the West End production of ''A Streetcar Named Desire'', described by the theatre writer Phyllis Hartnoll as "proof of greater powers as an actress than she had hitherto shown", led to a lengthy period during which she was considered one of the finest actresses in British theatre. Discussing the subsequent film version, Pauline Kael wrote that Leigh and Marlon Brando gave "two of the greatest performances ever put on film" and that Leigh's was "one of those rare performances that can truly be said to evoke both fear and pity."

Kenneth Tynan ridiculed Leigh's performance opposite Olivier in the 1955 production of ''Titus Andronicus'', commenting that she "receives the news that she is about to be ravished on her husband's corpse with little more than the mild annoyance of one who would have preferred foam rubber." He was one of several critics to react negatively to her reinterpretation of Lady Macbeth in 1955, saying that her performance was insubstantial and lacked the necessary fury demanded of the role; however, after her death he revised his opinion, describing his earlier criticism as "one of the worst errors of judgment" he had ever made. He came to believe that Leigh's interpretation, in which Lady Macbeth uses her sexual allure to keep Macbeth enthralled, "made more sense [...] than the usual battle-axe" portrayal of the character. In a survey of theatre critics conducted shortly after Leigh's death, several named it as one of her greatest achievements in theatre.

In 1969, a plaque to Leigh was placed in the actors' church, St Paul's, Covent Garden; and, in 1985, a portrait of her was included in a series of postage stamps, along with Alfred Hitchcock, Charles Chaplin, Peter Sellers, and David Niven to commemorate "British Film Year".

The British Library in London purchased the papers of Laurence Olivier from his estate in 1999. Known as ''The Laurence Olivier Archive'', the collection includes many of Vivien Leigh's personal papers, including numerous letters she wrote to Olivier. The papers of Vivien Leigh, including letters, photographs, contracts, and diaries, are owned by her daughter, Mrs Suzanne Farrington. In 1994, the National Library of Australia purchased a photograph album, monogrammed "L & V O" and believed to have belonged to the Oliviers, containing 573 photographs of the couple during their 1948 tour of Australia. It is now held as part of the record of the history of the performing arts in Australia.

Awards and nominations

! Year	! Award	! Work
1939	Academy Award for Best Actress (won)New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress (won)
1951
1963	Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical (won)

List of works

For a full chronology of Leigh's theatre and film work, see ''Vivien Leigh chronology of stage and film performances.''

Notes

References

Berg, A. Scott. ''Goldwyn'', Sphere Books, 1989. ISBN 0-7474-0593-X

Coleman, Terry, ''Olivier, The Authorised Biography'', Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005, ISBN 0-7475-8306-4

Edwards, Anne. ''Vivien Leigh, A Biography'', Coronet Books, 1978 edition. ISBN 0-340-23024-X

Haver, Ronald. ''David O. Selznick's Hollywood'', Bonanza Books, New York, 1980. ISBN 0-517-47665-7

Hartnoll, Phyllis, ''The Concise Companion to the Theatre'', Omega Books, 1972, ISBN 1-85007-044-X

Holden, Anthony. ''Olivier'', Sphere Books Limited, 1989, ISBN 0-7221-4857-7

Kael, Pauline, ''5001 Nights At The Movies'', Zenith Books, 1982, ISBN 0-09-933550-6

McGilligan, Patrick. ''Alfred Hitchcock, A Life in Darkness and Light'', Wiley Press, 2003. ISBN 0-470-86973-9

Olivier, Laurence, ''Confessions Of an Actor'', Simon and Schuster, 1982, ISBN 0-14-006888-0

Selznick, David O.; Behlmer, Rudy, editor. ''Memo from David O. Selznick'', Modern Library, New York, 2000. ISBN 0-375-75531-4

Shipman, David, ''Movie Talk'', St Martin's Press, 1988. ISBN 0-312-03403-2

Taylor, John Russell. ''Vivien Leigh'', Elm Tree Books, 1984. ISBN 0-241-11333-4

Vickers, Hugo. ''Vivien Leigh'' Little, Brown and Company, 1988 edition.

Walker, Alexander. ''Vivien, The Life of Vivien Leigh'', Grove Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8021-3259-6

External links

Vivien Leigh

Viv & Larry

University of Bristol Theatre Collection, University of Bristol

Australian National Library, photographs from Australian tour

Film & Theatre photographs

Photographs and literature

The Search for Scarlett: Vivien Leigh

Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Category:English film actors Category:English stage actors Category:20th-century actors Category:Shakespearean actors Category:Best Actress Academy Award winners Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Tony Award winners Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:People from Darjeeling Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:British Roman Catholics Category:1913 births Category:1967 deaths Category:People educated at Woldingham School

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