Vivian Mary Hartley was born in Darjeeling, India, on November 5th 1913 to parents Earnest and Gertrude. While her father was of French ancestry and her mother Irish, it is mostly unknown as to where her origins lie but she always felt a profound connection to India, despite living so short a time there. Born an only child, her mother went to great lengths to ensure that the young Vivian was never alone and that she was always entertained. This idealism was short lived.
An English Education
When she was just six years of age, Vivian was sent to England to be formally educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton. Vivian missed her parents and her life in India dreadfully but, being the youngest in the school, founded herself pampered and doted on by the nuns. She was also very popular and soon had many friends including future actress Maureen O’Sullivan.
When reaching her teens, Vivian was voted the prettiest girl in school. A modest girl, without a hint of vanity, Vivian saw how her appearance could possibly be inhibiting to others and therefore put special effort into counteracting that. According to her goddaughter, actress Juliet Mills, Vivian “did everything she could to make people feel at ease.”
Pursuing Ambitions
Vivian developed a wide range of interests while as school including playing the cello, ballet and Greek Mythology. However, unlike nearly all her school friends, Vivian was aiming for greater heights than simply marriage. She was determined to have a career and, after having seen the great Elizabeth Bergner on stage, adamant that she would, one day, be a famous actress.
At fifteen Vivian left the Roehampton convent and spent the next three years attending various convents and finishing schools in Germany, Italy and France. Although Vivian delighted in her young life she never forgot her ultimate goal and in May of 1932, when she was eighteen, she enrolled at the highly prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Marriage
That same summer, Vivian met Herbert Leigh Holman. Holman’s junior by about thirteen years, Vivian was determined to marry him and a few months later, the barely nineteen-year-old Vivian and he were married on December 20th. This did not halt her ambitions for a career and she continued her studies at RADA, against her husband’s wishes. Holman felt that where marriage had been an escape from her parents, Vivian used RADA and acting as an escape from him. Vivian took a short break from acting in 1933 to give birth to her daughter, and only child, Suzanne but, as Vivian proved not to be maternal, the child was raised by her grandmother.
The Beginnings of a Career
Vivian then won the first of her film roles in the 1935 film of Things Are Looking Up. Vivian played a school girl and had only one line, but it was a start. After this Vivian took her husband’s middle name as her own and replaced the ‘a’ in hers for an ‘e’. Vivien continued to succeed in obtaining a few small parts but she still had her eyes set firmly on the London stage.
In 1935, Vivien Leigh starred in her second play. The Mask of Virtue in which Leigh played a prostitute posing as an innocent lady of upper society, was and overnight sensation and Vivien’s name was finally up in lights on the streets of London’s West End.
Meeting Laurence Olivier
During the same year a young man was making a name for himself in the film Moscow Nights. Laurence Olivier quickly caught the eye of the now twenty-two-year-old Vivien. The two were first formally introduced in the Savoy Grill where they were dining with their own respective partners. The meeting drew strong emotions from the pair. Olivier, being a fairly moral man, is said to have felt darkly disturbed from the moment he set eyes on her. Vivien, meanwhile, was determined from the outset that she was going to marry him.
In London, the ensuing affair was no real secret. In August of 1936, with Olivier’s wife about to give birth, filming began for Fire Over England starring both Olivier and Leigh in which their characters share a forbidden love. In 1937, Vivien made three more films with producer Alexander Korda, including 21 Days, her second partnership with Laurence Olivier. This film, when made, was so awful that it was not released until the stars were more famous, three years later.
Getting Into America
In May they both went to Denmark to work on a production of Hamlet. During this period each divorced their spouses and on returning to London, moved into an apartment together. Olivier and Leigh were inseparable, so when Laurence was due to go to the states in order to play Heathcliff in the 1939 production of ‘Wuthering Heights’, Vivien requested that director William Wyler give her the part of Cathy. When the response was no and all she received was an offer of the smaller part of Isabella, Vivien replied she would play Cathy or nothing at all.
To this Wyler stated that she was not yet famous enough in the United States. She should take Isabella, he said, because “for a first part, she would never get anything better.”
For the sequel to this article, please click here.
Sources
- Capua,M. - Vivien Leigh: A Biography - McFarland & Co. Inc. - 2003
- Walker,A. - Vivien: Life of Vivien Leigh (Legends) - Orion Books Ltd. - 1994
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