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This week, Vivien Leigh would have turned 100. A happy birthday from PBS.

The actress died of tuberculosis in 1967 when she was only 53 years old.

A new exhibit at the V&A Museum.

Professional correspondence includes many letters from playwright Tennessee Williams. One addressed to Leigh in September 1950 enthuses about her role of Blanche DuBois (for which she won an Oscar).

He wrote: 'It is needless to repeat here my truly huge happiness over the picture and particularly your part in it. It is the Blanche I had always dreamed of and I am grateful to you for bringing it so beautifully to life on the screen.'

Related.

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Ms. Vivien is one of my favorite actresses. She is, of course, most famous as Scarlett O'Hara, but I think her greatest film triumph is as Blanche. I've seen scenes from Sidewalks of London but not the whole film, so I'll keep my eyes open for it. Ship of Fools and That Hamilton Woman are also wonderful. How I wish I could have seen her on the stage! Happy Birthday to you, Ms. Vivien Leigh.

~ Karen

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I also like That Hamilton Woman. So did Churchill, for reasons that are clear when you see the picture, and reportedly Hitler liked it too. Leigh was also a popular Soviet pinup girl during the war, so it looks as if she had both the Allies and the Axis bases covered. smile.png

What a great clip, Dirac! I love that scene. It seems to really capture her natural charm, both as a person and as an actress. She acts that scene wonderfully.

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It's hard to think about her as a person who did not have natural affection for her child, her daughter, Suzanne. Everyone always talks about her as the actress, the beauty and the star, but her unnatural attitude towards motherhood is, for me, hard to to accept.

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I wouldn't be too hard on her. She married for the first time at 19. Not unusual in those days but still very early and she was not cut out to be a wife and hostess only. Later in life she miscarried several times.

Motherhood and a full-throttle career are rarely easy to combine but female stars of Leigh's generation seem to have had it particularly tough. Few of them were winning Mother of the Year awards....

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Thank you,Dirac. Although my post may not have reflected my sentiments adequately, I understand the complexity, especially as she also struggled with mental illness. I do think of the child who didn't have her mother, that's all, which is a fact of Vivien's extraordinary life. I understand that Vivien and Susanne did have a good relationship after she'd grown and also enjoyed her grandbabies.

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Don't forget Olivier left his family, including a young child, when he married Leigh. Somehow, there's less hand-wringing when it is a man.

In this link, both children in question comment on their parents:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2483338/As-Vivien-Leighs-life-celebrated-month-stepson-talks-troubled-star.html

That said, Vivien Leigh and Lawrence Olivier are two of my favorite actors. I wish I was able to see this exhibit.

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Thanks for that link, Dale. You are right, men tend to get a pass in these matters. For a time Tarquin Olivier was much closer to Leigh than he was to his father, and he's always been very kind about his second first stepmother. Olivier was also young and inexperienced when he married for the first time, however - his first wife played for the other team, if you catch my drift. Everyone seems to have ended up on decent terms after it was all sorted out.

Which reminds me that I would really like to see the first film version of The Deep Blue Sea again.....

Edited by dirac
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Photo gallery from CNN. Slide 3 is a rather neat color photo taken at the Oscars for 1939, with Jock Whitney (I think), Olivia de Havilland, David O. Selznick, Leigh, and Olivier all looking like very happy campers.

Leigh was also a popular Soviet pinup girl during the war, so it looks as if she had both the Allies and the Axis bases covered.

And I learn from this that Waterloo Bridge was/is huge in China.

There are even audio guides for students to practice their English by reciting dialogue from this film.

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I think the 1941 Waterloo Bridge is a lovely movie of its kind and Leigh is lovely and terrific in it. Obviously not a ballet dancer but she has a neck befitting any Swan Queen. She wanted Olivier to play Roy and got Robert Taylor instead so we can only dream of what might have been, sigh.

There's an earlier version of the story with Mae Clarke (best known today for getting a grapefruit in the face, courtesy of James Cagney). I think there have been a total of 3. It's pre-Code and directed by James Whale, but not as interesting as you might think, although Clarke is excellent. Comparing and contrasting the plot line in both pictures is an interesting exercise.

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