Vivien Leigh A Biography (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 319 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First edition (June 2, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671224964
• ISBN-13: 978-0671224967
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #972,497 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Tormented, July 27, 2006

By	Stephanie DePue (Carolina Beach, NC USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Scarlett O'Hara will live as long as women dream romantic dreams. And Vivien Leigh, the young woman who won that part in the 1939 movie,"Gone With The Wind,"after a long and brilliant campaign,thereby coming to embody the dream for as long as celluloid lasts, must be considered one of the world's great beauties.

Yet, as this excellent biography by Anne Edwards makes clear, Leigh's life eventually took on a darker tinge. Anyone simply enjoying her high-spirited flirtatiousness at Scarlett's Tara, or her highly-charged scenes with Clark Gable's Rhett Butler,
could never imagine the ultimate sadness of her life.

Like almost any other beautiful woman who's ever been queried on the subject, Leigh did not think herself beautiful. She thought her hands too big, her neck too long, her legs too fat. And though she gave the world superlative performances on stage as Ophelia and Cleopatra, and onscreen in "That Hamilton Woman," and "A Streetcar Named Desire," as well as "Gone With The Wind," she never felt herself to be a good actress.

She also never thought herself worthy of Laurence Olivier, the Prince of English Players, whom she won, as lover and husband, after another long and brilliant campaign and a notorious love affair.

Leigh once spent six hours in a dress-fitting session, insisting the designer hide her "too-long" neck: clearly, she thought she had to be perfect.

She loved Olivier with a passionate, tremulous intensity, and felt their life together must also be perfect. If he was the Prince, then the King of Players,she must be the Queen. So she deprived herself --and us--of numerous film parts, making movies only when she needed the money. She hid her Oscar for "Gone With The Wind" until Olivier had one of his own, and so would no longer be jealous. She, in fact, stayed with him regardless, while he thought only of his career.

Mind you, he repaid her love and loyalty for many years, staying with her even after her serious emotional problems became apparent. She drank too much, smoked too much, worked too hard, and slept too little.

Friends and family learned to chart the terrible manic/depressive cycles. She'd fight the onset of her attacks courageously, then be overwhelmed-- scream obscenities and groundless accusations against her friends. Tear her clothes off and have to be physically restrained. She fantasized "guiltless sex" with working class men, made advances to taxi drivers and delivery men. She identified herself so strongly with Blanche du Bois, her part in "Streetcar Named Desire," that she used Blanche's dialogue as her own, without realizing it.

The treatments prescribed for her illness were as terrible as the attacks; electroshock, immersion of her body in ice, then in water as hot as she could stand. However, she never lost her courage, even after Olivier left her for another woman. Her final illness left an important part open for Elizabeth Taylor in "Elephant Walk."

Edwards has handled Leigh's life with remarkable sensitivity amd perception. She's fair to Leigh, and to the other people in her life, most especially Olivier. Her language is sometimes lazy-- how many times can you describe Olivier as "manly," or say that Leigh "had never looked more beautiful," but I have to say, this is that rare book that's even better than its jacket promises.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars not happy, January 18, 2009

By	Carla J. Tunstall - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I purchased this book on 12/13/08 for my daughter for Christmas, never received it until 1/8/09. I was suppose to be new, my receipt states new but when the book finally arrived it was missing the cover was old and had writing in it. When I e-mailed the seller they said to return it for a full refund but it's not worth my time at this point, won't order from them again.