1941 is a 1979 period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and featuring an ensemble cast including Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Lee, and Toshiro Mifune. The film is about a panic in the Los Angeles area after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

Although not as financially or critically successful as many of Spielberg's other films, it received belated widespread popularity after an expanded version aired on ABC, and its subsequent successful home video reissues, raising it to cult status.^[2]

Co-writer Gale stated the plot is loosely based on what has come to be known as the Great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942 as well as the shelling of the Ellwood oil refinery, near Santa Barbara by a Japanese submarine. Many other events in the film were based on real incidents, including the Zoot Suit Riots and an incident in which the U.S. Army placed an anti-aircraft gun in a homeowner's yard on the Maine coast.^[3]

Plot[link]

On Saturday, December 13, 1941 at 7:01 a.m., a woman goes swimming somewhere on the California coast, only to find a Japanese submarine surfacing beneath her. The submarine crew realizes they have arrived in Hollywood, and the vessel submerges while the woman swims to safety.

Later that morning, a 10th Armored Division tank crew, consisting of Sergeant Frank Tree, Corporal Chuck Sitarski, and Privates Foley, Reese, and Henshaw, are at a restaurant where dishwasher Wally Stephens works. Wally is planning to enter a dance contest with Betty Douglas, against the wishes of her father Ward. Sitarski dislikes Wally almost immediately, and trips him. A fight ensues, leading Wally to lose his job. Later, Wally takes his friend Dennis shopping for zoot suits and steals a suit.

In Death Valley, Army Air Corps Captain Wild Bill Kelso lands his Curtiss P-40 fighter near a grocery store and gas station; while refueling, Kelso accidentally blows up the station.

In Los Angeles, Major General Joseph W. Stilwell attempts to bring order. At a press conferences at Daugherty Field in Long Beach, Captain Loomis Birkhead is attracted to the General's secretary Donna Stratten. He lures her into a bomber to seduce her but she knocks him out, he lands on the bomb release control, sending a bomb rolling towards the podium just as the General promises "there will be no bombs dropped here." The bomb explodes, though Stilwell escapes.

That afternoon, at the Douglas family home in Santa Monica, Wally is told by Betty and her friend Maxine, both USO hostesses, that he cannot enter the USO dance that night because he is not a serviceman. Wally is forced to hide in the garage loft when Ward shows up. Soon after, Tree and his tank crew arrive to deliver an anti-aircraft battery; Sitarski spots Betty and is attracted to her. He is just about to ask Betty to go to the dance with him when Wally falls from the loft. Ward and Sitarski dump him into a garbage truck.

The Japanese submarine becomes lost trying to find Los Angeles when the ship's compass is broken. A landing party captures Hollis "Holly" Wood who will only give them his name, occupation, and social security number. They see he has a small Cracker Jack compass, but he swallows it, and then escapes, hoping to find the authorities.

That night, Stilwell goes to see Dumbo. Birkhead and Donna are at the 501st Bomb Disbursement Unit at Barstow, where Colonel "Mad Man" Maddox shows them the unit's aircraft. Maddox, convinced the Japanese are sending parachutists into the hills near Pomona, lets Birkhead and Donna borrow a plane, assuming they are going on a reconnaissance.

Outside the USO, Sitarski kicks Wally and drags Betty into the dance. Maxine tags along. Wally sneaks in with a stolen Shore Patrol uniform, steals Betty away, and they win the dance contest whilst evading Sitarski, who is pursued by Maxine. Sitarski punches Wally, inciting a brawl. Tree arrives with his team, just as L.A. goes to Red Alert with an unknown aircraft in the air. At the Douglas' home, Ward spots the sub. As Birkhead and Donna fly over L.A., anti-aircraft batteries open fire. Kelso shoots down Birkhead's plane, then sees the submarine, only to be shot down by two spotters who mistake his plane for a Japanese fighter.

Sitarski drags Betty under a tank, but Wally rescues her, knocking Sitarski out. They find Kelso, who informs them about the sub. Wearing an army uniform, Wally commandeers Tree's tank and heads toward Pacific Ocean Amusement Park. Ward begins firing at the submarine, destroying his house in the process. The submarine returns fire, hitting the ferris wheel, which careens into the ocean. The tank sinks when the pier collapses. Kelso drives a motorbike into the ocean and swims to the submarine, where he is captured by the Japanese.

On Sunday morning, December 14, Stilwell arrives at the remains of the Douglas home. Tree predicts to Stilwell that 1942 will be "the 'really big' year of the war." The General simply mutters: "It's gonna be a 'long' war."

Cast[link]

Production[link]

According to Steven Spielberg's appearance in the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Kubrick suggested that 1941 should have been marketed as a drama rather than a comedy. The chaos of the events following Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 is summarized by Dan Aykroyd's character, Sgt. Tree, who states "he cannot stand Americans fighting Americans."^[3]

1941 is also notable as one of the few American films featuring Toshirō Mifune, a popular Japanese actor. It is also the only American film in which Mifune used his own voice in speaking Japanese and English. In his previous movies, Mifune's lines were dubbed by Paul Frees.^[3]

Both John Wayne and Charlton Heston were originally offered the role of Major General Stilwell with Wayne still considered for a cameo in the film. After reading the script, he decided not to participate, due to ill health, but also urged Spielberg to not pursue the project. Both Wayne and Heston felt the film was unpatriotic. Spielberg recalled, "He was really curious and so I sent him the script. He called me the next day and said he felt it was a very un-American movie, and I shouldn't waste my time making it. He said, 'You know, that was an important war, and you're making fun of a war that cost thousands of lives at Pearl Harbor. Don't joke about World War II'." ^[4]

Despite John Wayne's opposition to the film, the use of the Irish folk tune The Rakes of Mallow as background music during the riot scenes was something of an homage to his film The Quiet Man, in which the same tune was used during the protracted fistfight between Wayne's character and Victor McLaglen's.

Susan Backlinie reprised her role as the first victim in Spielberg's Jaws by playing the young woman seen at the beginning of the film.^[3] Inadvertent comedic effects ensued when John Belushi in character as Captain Wild Bill Kelso slipped off the wing of his aircraft after being lifted by two soldiers. It was a real accident and was left in the movie as it fit his eccentric character. During the USO riot scene, when the naked MP is tossed into the window of the restaurant from the fire truck, John Belushi plays the patron eating spaghetti. He is in makeup to look like Marlon Brando in The Godfather, which he famously parodied on the sketch comedy TV series Saturday Night Live. Belushi told Spielberg he wanted to appear in another part of the movie and the idea struck Spielberg as very humorous.^[3] At the beginning of the USO riot scene, one of the "extras" dressed as sailors, is actor James Caan; the film also featured the acting debut of Mickey Rourke as Private First Class Reese of Sgt. Tree's tank group.^[5]

The M3 tank Lulu Belle (named after a race horse) and fashioned from a mocked-up tractor, paid homage to its forebear in Humphrey Bogart's 1943 movie Sahara where an authentic M3 named Lulubelle was prominently featured.^[6]

Renowned modelmaker Greg Jein worked on the film, and would later use the hull number "NCC-1941" for the starship USS Bozeman in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. ^[7]

1941 is dedicated to the memory of Charlotte "Charlsie" Bryant, a longtime script supervisor at Universal Studios. She had served in that capacity on both Jaws and Close Encounters, and would have reprised those duties with this film had she not unexpectedly died.^[8]

Special effects[link]

The Oscar-winning team of L. B. Abbott and A.D. Flowers were in charge of the special effects on 1941. Careful consideration for production values was indicated in "...there are no tell-tale lines around any element of the composite photography. This is blue-screen work at its best."^[9] 1941 is widely recognized for its Academy Award-nominated special-effects laden progressive action and camera sequences.^{[10][N 1]}

There was a scene shot for the end of the film, in which Slim Pickens's Hollis Wood character caught Christopher Lee's Nazi officer. A still from this scene appeared in the September 1990 issue of Starlog magazine. Lee said: At the end of 1941, I'm the first Nazi captured in the US by Slim Pickens.

Trailer[link]

The advance teaser trailer for 1941, directed by the film's executive producer/co-story writer John Milius, featured a voice-over by Aykroyd as Belushi lands his plane and gives the audience a pep-talk to join the armed forces, else they will find one morning that "the street signs will be written in Japanese!" In the trailer, Kelso's name is Wild Wayne Kelso.^[12]

Musical score and soundtrack[link]

The musical score for 1941 was composed and conducted by John Williams. The titular march is used throughout the film and is perhaps the most memorable piece written for it. (Spielberg has said it is his favorite Williams march.) The score also includes swing composition titled "Swing, Swing, Swing" composed by John Williams. In addition, the score includes a sound-alike version of Glenn Miller's "In the Mood," the soundtrack uses two songs by The Andrews Sisters, "Daddy" and "Down by the Ohio," and the Irish song "The Rakes of Mallow" is used during the ballroom fight. The following tracks were released on the initial Arista Records LP (and later issued on CD by Varese Sarabande Records):

1. The March From 1941
2. The Invasion
3. The Sentries
4. Riot At The U.S.O.
5. To Hollywood And Glory
6. Swing, Swing, Swing
7. The Battle Of Hollywood
8. The Ferris Wheel Sequence
9. Finale of 1941

The LaserDisc and DVD versions of the film have isolated music channels with additional cues not heard on the first soundtrack album.

In 2011, La-La Land Records, in conjunction with Sony Music and NBCUniversal, issued an expanded 2-CD soundtrack of the complete John Williams score as recorded for the film, plus never-before-heard alternate cues, source music, and a remastered version of the original album. Disc One, containing the film score, presents the music as Williams originally conceived based on early cuts of the movie.^[13][14][15]

Alternate versions[link]

The film was previewed at approximately two and a half hours, but Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios, who both had a major financial investment in the film, felt the film was too long to be a blockbuster. The initial theatrical release was edited down to just under two hours, against Spielberg's wishes.^[16] After the success of his 1980 "Special Edition" of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg was given permission to create his own "extended cut" of 1941 to represent his original director's cut. This was done for network television (it was only shown on ABC one time, but it was seen years later on The Disney Channel). A similar extended version (with additional footage and a few subtle changes) was released on LaserDisc, VHS, and later on DVD.^[17]

Reception[link]

The film was a box office success, but it did not turn out to be the blockbuster film the two studios were hoping for. It was considered a flop in comparison to Spielberg's previous record on Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Writer Bob Gale defended it in a DVD documentary about the film:

It is down in the history books as a big flop, but it wasn't a flop. The movie didn't make the kind of money that Steven's other movies, Steven's most successful movies have made, obviously. But the movie was by no means a flop. And both Universal and Columbia have come out of it just fine.

Spielberg joked at one point that he considered converting 1941 into a musical halfway into production and mused that "in retrospect, that might have helped."^[18]

Parodies of 1941 have cropped up in a number of unusual ways, including one by Spielberg himself. In an episode of Spielberg's Animaniacs, where Yakko, Wakko, and Dot inhabit a giant video store, a video copy of 1941 is used as a weapon, an exploding bomb.^[19]

According to Jack Nicholson, Stanley Kubrick allegedly told Steven Spielberg that 1941 was "great, but not funny."^[20]

Accolades[link]

The film received three nominations at the 1980 Academy Awards.^[21][22]

Nominated:

• William A. Fraker, A.D. Flowers and Gregory Jein for Best Effects Visual Effects
• William A. Fraker for Best Cinematography
• Robert Knudson, Robert Glass, Don MacDougall and Gene S. Cantamessa for Best Sound

References[link]

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links[link]

• 1941 at the Internet Movie Database
• 1941 at AllRovi
• Time Out, New York: Review of 1941 (1979)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2012)

John Adam Belushi ( /bəˈluːʃi/; January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982) was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live and starring alongside Dan Aykroyd in the comedy film The Blues Brothers. He was the older brother of James "Jim" Belushi.

Early life[link]

John Belushi was born in Chicago. He was the son of Agnes (née Samaras), who was of Albanian descent, and Adam Belushi (1918–1996), an Albanian immigrant and restaurant operator who left his native village, Qytezë, in 1934 at the age of sixteen. John was raised in a Chicago suburb, along with his three siblings: younger brothers Billy and Jim and his sister, Marian.^[1][2][3][4] The family's name at the time of immigration was Bellios, or Belliors.^[4] Belushi was raised in the Albanian Orthodox church and grew up outside Chicago in Wheaton. He attended Wheaton Central High School, where he met his future wife, Judy Jacklin.

Career[link]

Belushi's first big break as a comedian occurred in 1971, when he joined The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago. He was cast in National Lampoon's Lemmings, a parody of Woodstock, which played Off-Broadway in 1972 and showcased future Saturday Night Live (SNL) performers Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest.

In 1973, Belushi and Jacklin moved together to New York. From 1973 to 1975, National Lampoon Inc. aired The National Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program syndicated across the country on approximately 600 stations. Belushi was a regular player on the show. Other players included future SNL regulars Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray and Chevy Chase. Jacklin became an associate producer for the show, and she and Belushi were married on December 31, 1976. A number of comic segments first performed on The Radio Hour were transformed into SNL sketches in the show's early seasons.

1975–1979[link]

Belushi achieved national fame for his work on Saturday Night Live, which he joined as an original cast member in 1975. Between seasons of the show, he made one of his best-known movies, Animal House.

When interviewed for retrospectives on John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd told stories of John often finishing SNL rehearsals, shows or film shoots and John being exhausted, simply walking unannounced into nearby homes of friends or strangers, scrounging around for food and often falling asleep, unable to be located for the following day's work.^[5] This was the impetus for the SNL horror-spoof sketch "The Thing That Wouldn't Leave",^[6] in which Belushi torments a couple (played by Jane Curtin and Bill Murray) in their home looking for snacks, newspapers and magazines to read, and taking control of their television. During the opening of the SNL episode that aired on December 17, 1977, Belushi, while in character as himself, quipped, "I plan to be dead by the time I'm 30."^[7] SNL also featured a short film by writer Tom Schiller called "Don't Look Back In Anger",^[8] where Belushi, playing himself as an old man and the last-surviving SNL cast member, visits the graves of his now-former cast members.

Belushi left Saturday Night Live in 1979 to pursue a film career. Belushi made four more movies; three of them, 1941, Neighbors, and most notably The Blues Brothers were made with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd.

Other movie projects[link]

Dan Aykroyd wrote the roles of Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters and Emmett Fitz-Hume in Spies Like Us with Belushi in mind. The roles were eventually played by Belushi's former SNL castmates Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, respectively.

Released in September 1981, the romantic comedy Continental Divide starred Belushi as Chicago home town hero writer Ernie Souchack, who gets put on assignment researching a scientist studying birds of prey in the remote Rocky Mountains.

At the time of his death, Belushi was pursuing several movie projects, including Noble Rot, an adaptation of a script by former Mary Tyler Moore Show writer and producer Jay Sandrich entitled Sweet Deception.

Belushi recruited the band Fear and brought them to Cherokee Studios to record songs for the soundtrack of Neighbors, a film he and Aykroyd were starring in. Cherokee Studios was a regular haunt for the original Blues Brothers back in the early days of the band. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd became fixtures at the recording studio, while fellow Blues Brother and guitar player Steve Cropper called Cherokee his producing home. "John was a crazy guy, but a heavy drinker. At times, he would drink an entire fifth of Jack Daniel's in less than five minutes," Aykroyd commented. Whenever they needed a bass player, they were joined by another Blues Brother, Donald "Duck" Dunn. During this time, Cropper along with producing partner and Cherokee owner Bruce Robb, worked on a number of music projects with the two comedian/musicians, the band Fear and later Aykroyd's movie Dragnet. "What can I say? John was excessively talented, and I guess you could say he sort of lived life 'excessively.' I think what happened to John had a sobering effect on a lot of people, me included," said music producer Bruce Robb.

Death[link]

On March 5, 1982, Bill Wallace found Belushi dead in his room, Bungalow #3 at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California.^[9] The cause of death was a speedball; the combined injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams^[10] and Robert De Niro,^[11] each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Catherine Evelyn Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Dr. Ryan Norris among others, and while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.

Two months later, Smith admitted in an interview with the National Enquirer that she had been with Belushi the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. After the appearance of the article "I Killed Belushi" in the Enquirer edition of June 29, 1982, the case was reopened. Smith was extradited from Toronto, arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 15 months in prison.^[12]

Shortly before Belushi's death, he appeared in a cameo for the comedy series Police Squad! At the suggestion of the show's producer, Robert K. Weiss, Belushi was filmed, face down in a swimming pool, dead. The footage was part of a running gag wherein the episode's "special guest star" would not survive past the opening credits without meeting some gruesome end. The scene was cut after his death and the footage is believed to have been lost.

Belushi and his friend Dan Aykroyd were slated to present the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 54th Academy Awards, an event held less than four weeks after his death.

Belushi was slated to appear on the well-known Canadian comedy show SCTV, which was by then being syndicated to the United States, but according to Dave Thomas, one of whose best-known characters on SCTV was Doug McKenzie in the "Great White North" sketches, they were "planning him into their set, when suddenly, they received a phone call that Belushi had died in his hotel room. We stopped our work and just stared at each other, not being able to believe what had happened. John Candy began to cry, for Belushi as a friend, but also because it, to him, signaled the end of that era of comedy TV, now that one of their greats was dead." The segments he was to be in were scrapped, and the show continued without him. An earlier SCTV sketch had starred Tony Rosato as Belushi.

Belushi's wife arranged for a traditional Orthodox Christian funeral which was conducted by an Albanian Orthodox priest^[13] and he is interred at Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. His tombstone, a New England classic slate design, complete with skull and crossbones, reads, "I may be gone but Rock and Roll lives on."^[14] He also is remembered on the Belushi family stone marking his mother's grave at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois. This stone says, "He Gave Us Laughter."^[15]

The manner in which Belushi died has spawned a term in popular culture. For example, in the CSI episode titled "Way to Go (Part 2)" (season 6, episode 141), CSI Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) investigates the death of a Civil War aficionado, whose body was found in a hotel room, and who seemed to have been drugged. Forensic evidence leads Willows to ask a call girl if she had "Belushied" the victim.

Tributes[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

John Belushi's life is detailed in the 1985 biography Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward. Many friends and relatives of Belushi, including his wife Judy, Dan Aykroyd and James Belushi, agreed to be interviewed at length for the book, but later felt the final product was exploitative and not representative of the John Belushi they knew. The book was later adapted into a feature film in which Belushi was played by Michael Chiklis. Belushi's friends and family boycotted the film, the publicity from which helped cause the movie to be a box-office flop.

The Grateful Dead performed the song "West L.A. Fadeaway" beginning in late 1982. The song, penned by long time lyricist Robert Hunter and sung by Jerry Garcia, contains fairly explicit references to Belushi's death, especially the line "Looking for a chateau, 21 rooms but one will do.^[16]

Belushi was portrayed by actors Eric Siegel in Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, Tyler Labine in Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (which also features his friendship with Robin Williams), and Michael Chiklis in Wired.

His widow later remarried and is now Judith Belushi Pisano. Her biography (with co-biographer Tanner Colby) of John, Belushi: A Biography is a collection of first-person interviews and photographs, and was published in 2005.

On April 1, 2004, 22 years after his death, Belushi was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, after a ten-year lobbying effort by James Belushi and Judith Belushi Pisano. Among those present at the ceremony were Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, and Tom Arnold.

In 2006, Biography Channel aired the "John Belushi" episode of Final 24, a documentary following Belushi in the last 24 hours leading to his death. In 2010, Biography aired a full biography documentation of the life of "John Belushi".

The 1987 song "Efilnikufesin (N.F.L)", by the American thrash metal band Anthrax was dedicated to John Belushi.

Several characters in Neil Gaiman's short story "The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories" reference Belushi's death with varying (and incorrect) details.

Belushi's gravestone is also discussed in great length in the Tony Kushner play Reverse Transcription.

Belushi's alma mater, the College of DuPage, has established an annual performing arts scholarship in his honor.

Credits[link]

• National Lampoon's Lemmings (1973) (Stage)
• The National Lampoon Radio Hour (1973–1974) (Radio) (also Creative Director)
• The National Lampoon Show (1975) (Stage)
• The Beach Boys: It's OK (1976) (TV)
• Saturday Night Live (1975–1979) (TV)
• Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle (1975) (voice)
• Goin' South (1978)
• National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
• The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978) (TV)
• Old Boyfriends (1979)
• 1941 (1979)
• The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Continental Divide (1981)
• Neighbors (1981)

[edit] SNL characters and impersonations

Recurring characters

• Samurai Futaba
• Captain Ned, one of Miles Cowperthwaite's cronies
• Jacob Papageorge alias 'Joliet' Jake Blues, from the Blues Brothers
• Jeff Widette, from the Widettes
• Kevin (from The Mall sketches)
• Kuldorth (from The Coneheads)
• Larry Farber (one half of the Farber couple [the wife, Bobbi, was played by Gilda Radner])
• Lowell Brock, from the H&L Brock commercials
• Matt Cooper, from the Land Shark sketches
• Pete, from the Olympia Cafe
• Steve Beshekas (who was in real life a good friend of Belushi's since community college)
• Frank Leary, one of St. Mickey's Knights of Columbus

Celebrity impersonations

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (January 2010)

• John Belushi at the Internet Movie Database
• John Belushi at AllRovi
• John Belushi at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• John Belushi at Find a Grave Grave
• John Belushi at Find a Grave Family marker
• Interview (MP3) with biographer Tanner Colby and Judith Belushi Pisano on the public radio program The Sound of Young America regarding their book, Belushi. Includes clips from Belushi's work on The National Lampoon Radio Hour.
• Belushi: A Biography, official website for the book
• John Belushi Cult Turns 25 from The Conservative Voice
• Blues Brothers
• Top SNL performer from Maxim
• Noble Rot the "lost" screenplay of Novello and Belushi, from Subterranean Cinema

Lady Vivien Leigh Olivier
1955 photo
Born	Vivian Mary Hartley (1913-11-05)5 November 1913 Darjeeling, Bengal Presidency, British Raj
Died	8 July 1967(1967-07-08) (aged 53) London, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1933–67
Spouse	Herbert Leigh Holman (1932–1940) Laurence Olivier (1940–1960)
Partner	John Merivale (1959-1967)
Children	Suzanne Farrington, born 12 October 1933

Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier (5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967) was an English actress.^[1] She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark Gable, in the epic American Civil War drama Gone with the Wind.

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.^[2] 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.

She is ranked 16th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list, unveiled on 15 June 1999 by the American Film Institute.

Early life and acting debut[link]

Leigh was born Vivian Mary Hartley in the campus of St. Paul's School, Darjeeling, Bengal, India (British India), to Ernest Hartley, an officer in the Indian Cavalry, and Gertrude Robinson (Yackjee).^[3] Leigh's parents were married in Kensington, London, in 1912.^[4]

In 1917, Ernest Hartley was transferred to Bangalore, while Gertrude and Vivian stayed in Ootacamund.^[5] Young Vivian 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 (now Woldingham School) in 1920, from Loreto Convent, Darjeeling by her devoutly Catholic mother. One of her friends there was future actress Maureen O'Sullivan, two years her senior, to whom Vivian expressed her desire to become "a great actress".^[6][7]

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 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.^[8]

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.^[9]

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.^[10] John Betjeman, the future Poet Laureate, also wrote about her, describing her as "the essence of English girlhood".^[11] 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.^[12] 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."^[13]

Meeting Laurence Olivier[link]

Leigh with Laurence Olivier in Fire Over England (1937), their first collaboration

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."^[14]

Despite her relative inexperience, Leigh was chosen to play Ophelia to Olivier's Hamlet in an Old Vic Theatre production staged at Elsinore, Denmark.^[15] 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.^[16] 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[17] Her next role was in St. Martin's Lane (1938) with Charles Laughton.

Achieving international success[link]

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.^[18]

Leigh in the trailer for Gone with the Wind (1939)

Hollywood was in the midst of a widely publicized 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.^[19]

as Scarlett O'Hara

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!"^[20]

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."^[21]

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."^[22] 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[link]

From Waterloo Bridge (1940)

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.^[23] 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.

Leigh in a early 1940s publicity still.

She and Olivier mounted a stage production of Romeo and Juliet for Broadway. The New York press publicised the adulterous nature of 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."^[24] 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.^[25]

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."^[26]

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.^[27]

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.

Leigh and Olivier arriving in Brisbane, Australia, June 1948

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.^[28]

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.

As Blanche DuBois, from the trailer for the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

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,^[29] among them Noël Coward who described Leigh as "magnificent."^[30]

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."^[31] 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."^[32]

Struggle with illness[link]

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.^[33]

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."^[34]

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."^[35]

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."^[36]

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."^[2]

Final years and death[link]

Leigh photographed in 1958

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".^[37] 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).^[38]

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.^[39] 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.^[40] 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 on to the bed. Olivier paid his respects, and "stood and prayed for forgiveness for all the evils that had sprung up between us",^[41] before helping Merivale make funeral arrangements.

Vivien Leigh's death certificate gave her date of death as 8 July, but some references give the date 7 July.

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.^[42]

Critical comments[link]

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 an impediment to being taken seriously as an actress, 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."^[13]

George Cukor commented that Leigh was a "consummate actress, hampered by beauty",^[43] 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."^[44] 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."^[45]

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."^[13]

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",^[46] 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,^[47] and in 1998 wrote that "she lives in our minds and memories as a dynamic force rather than as a static presence."^[48] Leonard Maltin described the film as one of the all-time greats, writing in 1998 that Leigh "brilliantly played" her role.^[49]

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.^[50] 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."^[51]

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."^[52] 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.^[53]

In 1969, a plaque to Leigh was placed in the Actors Church, St Paul's, Covent Garden; 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".^[54]

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.^[55]

Awards and nominations[link]

List of works[link]

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

Notes[link]