Vivien Leigh Biography

Fast Facts

• Attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roehampton, England, until the age of 13 before embarking on a tour of Europe with her parents; the rest of her education consisted of brief stints in finishing schools
• Met future husband Laurence Olivier playing Ophelia to his Hamlet in 1937
• Was said to have predicted (referring to herself and Olivier), "Larry won't play Rhett Butler, but I shall play Scarlett O'Hara
• Wait and see
• " Katharine Hepburn was her maid of honor at her small 1940 wedding to Olivier
• The British beauty ironically found her greatest fame and acclaim playing two belles of the American South: Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire
• Struggled for decades with bipolar disorder, which affected her both professionally and personally, and with the chronic tuberculosis that eventually ended her life
• In 1993, her Best Actress Oscar for Gone With the Wind was sold at auction for more than a half million dollars