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Winner of the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize 2020
Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the twentieth century. As Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history. Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously unseen
sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work. Revealing new aspects of her early life as well as providing glimpses behind-the-scenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, this book provides the essential and comprehensive life-story of one of the twentieth century's greatest actresses.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
1. A Child of the Raj
2. Hours Nearer Death
3. Young Wife and Mother
4. Enter Olivier
5. Altered States
6. Printing a Legend
7. Star-Crossed
8. Wartime Dramas
9. From Sabina to Anna
10. Down Under
11. The Kindness of Strangers
12. Two on the Nile
13. Crack-Up
14. Avonside
15. At Court
16. Ending A Legend
17. Worlds Elsewhere
18. Last Acts
Epilogue
Appendix Facts/“False Facts”
Notes on Sources
Select Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 25 Oct 2018 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 376 |
| ISBN | 9781786734563 |
| Imprint | I.B. Tauris |
| Illustrations | 28 bw images in 16pp mono plates |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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