The success Vivien had fought so hard to earn, she would find a greater challenge to maintain. Vivien was known the world over as Scarlett O’Hara, an association eclipsing all that Olivier had done to date. As soon as Vivien had received her Oscar for Gone With The Wind, Laurence had not won his for Wuthering Heights, Olivier turned down many of the potentially successful film roles which came their way, instead taking Vivien back to the stage, where they belonged, he said. Vivien went willingly for, as well as theatre being her great love, Olivier’s advice was to her, gospel, and there was nothing more important.
Olivier planned for them to star in a Broadway production of Romeo and Juliette intending to make Vivien Leigh the “best Juliette yet”. The couple invested $96,000 in the play and it opened on May 9th, 1940 to extremely varied reviews. After only 35 performances, the play closed.
Vivien Leigh's Marriage to Laurence Olivier
Despite this, the couple had found happiness in their personal lives, having been granted divorces from their spouses. Vivien remained friendly with her ex-husband Leigh Holman, who retained custody of their daughter, Suzanne. Friends of Vivien have commented that she spoke little of her daughter then, that the actress perhaps felt guilt at having left her husband and only child, choosing to act instead.
Vivien and Olivier went to Santa Barbara, California, and were married on August 30th, 1940, soon after midnight. The ceremony was small, with only Katharine Hepburn and Garson Kanin as witnesses. The honeymoon was spent on Ronald Colman’s yacht and Vivien Leigh was finally Mrs. Laurence Olivier.
Return to England
In September, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, and Europe fell into World War Two. The Oliviers felt it was their patriotic duty to return to England and keep up morale. Vivien left the United States with her new husband, breaking the seven year contract she held with David O. Selznick. Had she stayed in the States and taken up some of the stunning film roles offered to her, Vivien may have been able to avoid her future despairs but this actress was in constant search for new challenges and things to learn. She was also determined to not be without Olivier and therefore endeavoured to stay with him, on stage as well as off.
Soon after returning to England, Vivien received a role in George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma. The play opened in London on March 4th, 1942 and ran for a year and a half. The play success came from the public who, having just seen Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind, now realised they could see Scarlett O’Hara live on stage. Vivien has been described as a popular and efficient actress; talented but by no means one of the greats. She was not a critic’s actress but she was definitely a people’s actress and it was by keeping her public spellbound that she found her success.
Health and Happiness
The Oliviers moved into their English country home of Notley Abbey where they were blissfully happy. They led very social lives and, Vivien especially, liked always to have people around her. Her social circle was huge and accepting of all, from fellow actors to Winston Churchill. She was a fabulous hostess and enormously entertaining, her parties always great fun and full of jokes, but she, however, could never relax. Vivien was an insomniac, able to get by on only three hours a night, sometimes none at all. Olivier, unfortunately was not, but he was reportedly a light sleeper which meant that he was kept awake far too often by his wife. He found this extremely trying as his career was on the point of skyrocketing. In 1944, Henry V was released in which Olivier more than proved himself as a serious actor and director.
In that same year, Selznick loaned Vivien to Gabriel Pascal for his production of Caesar and Cleopatra. During filming Vivien fell pregnant, a dream come true for both she and Olivier. Tragically, Vivien slipped during a scene and two days later she miscarried. It is likely that this event brought forward the depression which was to take over her life. The trouble this caused her marriage and the illness itself were carefully concealed from the public.
After very little rest, Vivien was keen to get back to work and so signed for a part in The Skin of Our Teeth, a play by Thornton Wilder to be directed by Laurence Olivier. The reviews she received were good but she left the show after only 38 performances, her friends noticing how strangely overtired and alarmingly thin she had become. Doctors soon discovered tuberculosis on her left lung and after six weeks in hospital she returned to Notley Abbey for nine months of recuperation. The problems in her marriage grew as her mental condition worsened and Olivier’s single-minded commitment to his work increased.
The Beginning of the End
In 1947, Olivier worked on Hamlet and Vivien on a version of Anna Karenina. Reviews criticized her lack of emotion for the part and the film was described as “a beautiful failure”. Just as her film career was dwindling so Olivier’s was on a constant rise. At forty, he became the youngest British actor to be knighted by the King. Vivien felt strained to keep up with him, feeling that he didn’t think her very good. To those who knew the couple, and well read biographers, Vivien was the more rounded and interesting of the two. According to biographer Hugo Vickers, Vivien “read everything and could talk about anything.”
Sir and Lady Olivier were theatre royalty and the pair embarked on an eight month tour of Australia and New-Zealand. Sadly, it was then that their happy marriage began to die. “Somewhere, somehow on this tour,” wrote Olivier in his autobiography, “I knew that Vivien was lost to me.”
Sources
Laurence Olivier - Confessions of An Actor - Orion - 1994
Walker,A. - Vivien: Life of Vivien Leigh (Legends) - Orion Books Ltd. - 1994
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