Was Vivien Leigh really that great?

her other big scene

She wasn't even pretty.

She was superb in Streetcar. It is an immortal performance. I'm neutral on her GWTW performance because the character never interested me much.

What r2? She was gorgeous. Other than GWTW and ASND, she doesn't have that many memorable films. WATERLOO BRIDGE and THAT HAMILTON WOMAN come close. She saved her finest performances for the stage. But she was heartbreakingly lovely 😊 to me anyway...

She was stunningly beautiful, and quite mad towards the end. A very tragic figure.

This photograph is a stunner.... I mean, anybody can be made to look better but this is a terrific portrait no matter the subject.

I agree with R6. Not my ultimate favorite ever, but Leigh was a very capable actress and quite lovely. She had a strong screen presence and the camera loved her.

but I never thought she looked well smiling... it fattened her face.

I love The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.

r8, fattened her face?! What are you, a fucking freak? She looks completely beautiful.

her cheeks pop like a chipmunk's. she s beautiful but not when she smiles.

Nuts or berries?

Her cheeks are delightful. She was the prettiest actress who ever lived.

Gorgeous ...

She was stunning, one of the most beautiful women of the twentieth century, and her performance in GWTW lived up to the expectation and the hype.

I'd like to see a proper Netflix series about Larry and Viv, done in the style of The Crown.

For me, she's stunningly beautiful, too beautiful in fact for the part of Scarlett O' Hara. In the book, 'Scarlett O'Hara was not pretty but men seldom realised that.' Nevertheless I thought she played the part brilliantly. In real life she had bipolar and it got progressively worse as she grew older. Very sad.

She got a lot of cock in her day. I like her just for that.

She was suberp as Kayty Skarlet o'hareem

R16, I agree. I said it in another thread, that their marriage would make for an excellent miniseries.

Thang about Lord Larry is that his life was also one full of theater management and government service eg National Theatre : not likely to make a very good plot unless you're a fan of CP Snow

Adequate?

Shit.

Anyone who has watched her Scarlett and Blanche, "Waterloo Bridge," "Ship of Fools, "Caesar & Cleopatra," "Dark Journey," or even "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" would have to acknowledge her amazing gift. Whatever she was away from the camera, she had everything an actress needs for brilliant performances.

The "adequate" people here either haven't seen her in anything by GWTW or are just the usual useless asses of the DL millennial cesspit.

millennial cesspit - my, what is that exactly?

During her lifetime, Vivien Leigh was always better regarded in the US than in the UK. To the British she was merely adequate.

Yeah. They thought Benny Hill was an artiste too.

Vivian Leigh not pretty and just an average actress. My Gawd? There is certainly room for differences of opinion but that one is on the far end of any bell curve.

Vivien Leigh, a British actress, won 2 Oscars for playing Southern Belles. She was a superb actress who really immersed herself in her roles and brought them to life. One of the greats.

If her performance in "Waterloo Bridge" doesn't break your heart, then you don't have one.

Great in GWTW. Stunning in Streetcar.

And, early on, quite beautiful.

In the novel Scarlett is described like this. In fact, it's the first paragraph of "Gone With The Wind":

"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green, without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, casting a startling oblique line in her magnolia white skin, that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns."

Throughout the novel she thought of "pretty" and "beautiful." I thought Vivien Leigh was the perfect choice to play her. As Clark Gable was as Rhett Butler.

Excellent actress and a great beauty.

Her two most famous performances (in two legendary films no less) are deservedly iconic.

She lives up to all the hype and her characters feel real and "lived in".

She was magnetic onscreen, and her performances in GWTW and ASND are perfect examples of excellent "A+ lead actress" performances for the big screen and are timeless.

She was also lucky in that the films she starred in matched the performances she gave--her Oscar winning performances matched the quality of the films she won for. Both films are A+ as well and have stood the test of time (rather than someone like M, who gave award winning performances in just OK films, with OK directors--and aren't really remembered for anything aside from her performance....)

[quote]—Probably also the prettiest English actress ever (they're not typically pretty)

What? I present to you Madeleine Carroll.

R30 sounds like Joan Crawford's face.

Then there are those other unpretty British actresses, (31):

Elizabeth Taylor

Jean Simmons

Deborah Kerr

Joan Collins

Susannah York

Claire Bloom

Julie Christie

Didn't Lucy make her put on 20 pounds?

There was so much more to her, but even if there was only GWTW and Streetcar, it would be enough.

Her performance in Streetcar is in my handful of favourites ever - male or female.

"but I never thought she looked well smiling... "

Your language is as piss-elegant as your judgment.

I would say "as piss-poor."

R34, Taylor was of American stock. Like the Brits could we er put our that one, please

She was born in London, and bios list her as British/American.

Jane Seymour was as pretty as ANY British actress, save for Elizabeth Taylor, hardly gets mentioned in most beautiful discussions or threads. And Jane kept her pretty throughout the 70's, 80's, 90's and aughts. Quite an amazing span to remain leading lady beautiful.

OP, you've schooled and sold me on how remarkably talented and beautiful Vivien Leigh is. I was one of the (non-millennial) guilty who voted her as adequate. I won't sell Leigh short again.

She was great in Streetcar but not much else. Gatwick is terrible now. Long bloated and overreacted. De Havilland gave the best performance

Agree, [R36]. *Strongly* agree. One of the best screen performances ever--male or female.

I'd seen "Streetcar" so many times and at one point it just became so clear to me that it was Vivian's performance (rather than Marlon's performance--which is also quite a thing to behold and equally iconic) that kept me coming back again and again---trying to see if I could *finally* figure out Blanche, and just being completely mesmerized by Leigh's performance of her.

She was completely immersed in that role and basically convinced me that Blanche DuBoise was real. She's that good. And that role is a *very* complicated and challenging part. What she did with is no small feat.

***Blanche DuBois

**Vivien (not Vivian; sorry for misspelled names ☹️)

R32 LOOKS like Joan Crawford's face (with a blonde wig)

Only saw her on stage in the musical "Tovarich," which must have been very difficult because she was not a great singer.. Still, I am very glad to have seen her in person.

[quote]To the British she was merely adequate.

Not true. She's regarded here as a brilliant film actress, but as merely adequate on stage.

That was one cause of friction between her and Larry. He couldn't do what she could do on film, and she couldn't do what he could do on stage.

Wow, [R47], I think that you were indeed fortunate! Impressions?? (Aside from the not great singing?)

Viv doing one of her Tovarich numbers. Charm for days, and for a non-dancer, she moves very well. A queen named Byron Mitchell is the one dancing with her. (Note how Ed Sullivan mispronounces the name of Wilkes-Barre).

Oops - here's the number

The whole film was " meh" to me

Which film? Gone With the Wind? It was dazzling even up into the 1960s. Then other, better written epics (Lawrence of Arabia comes to mind) came along, and GWTW began to fade into the background a bit. Then it was released to TV in the 1970s, and it receded further into people's memories.

When you realize that there was no CGI when it was made, the filmmaking is quite extraordinary - the Train Station scene, for one - today it would all be CGI soldiers lying there.

Think I read that half the "soldiers" in the train station scene were dummies. REAL dummies. The camera pullback in that scene is breathtaking, along with the Steiner music (a transposed version of "Dixie"?). GWTW is a very problematic film for me, in terms of its stereotypes and romanticizing of the Confederacy.

If Olivia deHavilland can hang on to July, she'll be 101!

"GWTW is a very problematic film for me, in terms of its stereotypes and romanticizing of the Confederacy."

Keep in mind that the movie is a period piece. In the South at that time there WERE slaves who were loyal to their masters, like Uncle Peter and Mammy and Pork. The people in the movie did regard the way life was before the civil war as pleasant and reassuring, as wealthy Southern plantation owners and their offspring were wont to do. It's a representation of a time that a lot of people back then thought perfect and not subject to change. I don't think the movie is trying to make the Southern plantation life and the Confederacy seem wonderful; it's trying to convey that some people in that era thought it was.

By the way, the novel GWTW features characters who think the South is backward and ignorant and stupid for going to war: Rhett Butler says as much to the assembled men at the Wilkes barbecue. And in the book, not all the slaves are loyal and content; all the slaves at Tara run off except Pork, Mammy and Dilcey. The book features all types of characters and not all of them are in love with "The Cause", as its called in the book.

I think that what I find difficult is what seems a blurring of 1) the way some people in the Old South felt about their society and 2) the implied viewpoint of the film itself, about that era. There is that nostalgic opening text about the vanished "knights and their fair ladies." That said, I realize that one has to take into account the time period and context in which a film is made. I read the book long ago, and might take another look.

apparently the opening text of the movie was inserted against Margaret Mitchell's wishes r56.

In her era,Leigh should have been the greatest actress in the English speaking world. But, alas and alack, her physical and mental health made that an impossibility. She was only 53 when she died

Vivien Leigh was quite tragic. She seemingly had everything: great beauty, intelligence, talent. She married Laurence Olivier the premier British actor of his time. She won two Oscars in her lifetime. She was blessed wit all that and yet she was doomed due to an incurable mental illness. Poor Viv.

r58, Vivien chose to focus on the stage instead of movies because she regarded theatre as a higher art than film... she had a prolific acting career despite what you think.

I'd give ANYTHING to have seen Vivien's Lady Macbeth on stage. You just know the sleepwalking scene must have been totally her own demons and the character's as one. It's regarded as one of her great acting moments and yet we will never get to see it. Only to imagine it through the available photographs.

Not only the one of the greatest film actress but certainly one of the most beautiful.

And I would delete "one of" if she'd only made more films in her prime.

I've sometimes wondered if the intensity of her performances was in part due to her mental illness. She died of TB, at a time when it was already treatable, I think. Seems odd..

[quote]In her era,Leigh should have been the greatest actress in the English speaking world.

Oh, Christ.

Who is that young man dancing with Vivien in Tovarich? Shocking that she didn't bring him out for the applause with Ed Sullivan and introduce him.

Waterloo Bridge and Streetcar are must-sees. I'm indifferent to GWTW because I'm not a fan of the film.

She wasn't exactly a non-dancer. She wanted to be a prima ballerina but something happened, I don't recall what it was. Maybe she was too short. But you can see a dancer's grace in everything she did.

I thought she was great in SHIP OF FOOLS, too.

She was interesting, at the very least, in everything she did. She was not capable of being boring.

If you ever get a chance to see her with Charles Laughton and Rex Harrison in Sidewalks of London, you should. She plays a busker who makes it to the bigtime and she is so wonderful opposite Laughton. (another national treasure)

Vivien Leigh was a very serious actress. I read an interview with her daughter, Suzanne Holman, in which Ms. Holman said her mother laid in to her when she thought her daughter was taking the audition process for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts too casually. Ms. Holman wondered out loud if her mother had put that much effort and emotion into every day motherhood that she had to the RADA audition process, how much better their relationship might have been

She was incandescent and one of the many actresses not meant for motherhood.

She may not have been considered a great stage actress, but she won a Tony for 'Tovarich' in 1963. The stories about her mental condition are pretty heartbreaking.

Thats quite an article by her daughter. It seems very "confessional" for that time. I wonder if there was any ghosting on it. The daughter lived a long life and I believe was fairly stable.

Her daughter was raised by her father, a barrister named Leigh Holman, who was 13 years Vivien's senior. I don't know why she married him; I don't think there was much love there. I guess she married him because that's what women were expected to do, get married. They were also expected to have children. When she had her daughter she wrote in her diary "Had a baby today. A girl." Doesn't sound like she was that enthusiastic about motherhood. She abandoned her husband and baby to be with Laurence Olivier. Later on, Ingrid Bergman would do the same thing, that is, abandon her husband and baby daughter for a man. Actresses, obviously, are totally self centered. Everything is all about them, marriage vows and parental responsibilities be damned.

"Vivian Leigh not pretty and just an average actress. My Gawd? There is certainly room for differences of opinion but that one is on the far end of any bell curve."

It's just typical Datalounge bullshit. Hell, the same thing has been said about Greta "The Divine One" Garbo; that she wasn't good looking and couldn't act. It's just troll bullshit or idiocy.

Not a great beauty--but had an interesting face. At her best in stagey vehicles like Streetcar, which makes sense given her stage background. GWTW is basically spectacle (i.e., high gloss melodrama)--I don't think you can really compare it with something like Streetcar.

Vivian has to play Scarlett from 17 years old to almost 30, [R76], and show her contending with war, loss, motherhood, changing circumstances, etc. I think she did a phenomenal job.

I also think "Gone With the Wind" holds up amazingly well on the big screen, is gorgeously shot, and features one of the best and most complex love stories in film history (an epic love story really) between Rhett and Scarlett.

It really is old Hollywood filmmaking on a grand scale--something that we're unlikely ever to experience again.

(Today the Scarlett walking among the wounded soldiers scene would have been done entirely with computer graphics...)

Her performance in Caesar and Cleopatra deserves to be better known.

Such a fine artist that it is often difficult to notice her perfect beauty. What else is there to say?

Are you insane and/or blind R79? She was no beauty. Pinched features. Dog ugly in Streetcar. And a fucking TERRRRRIBLE actress. Too self conscious.

You're insane, r80, and obviously a troll. Leigh is considered by any number of film historians to have been a great beauty and a great screen actress. By the time of Streetcar, cigarettes, booze, and her mental illness were wreaking havoc with her looks, but she was still lovely. Likewise in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.

Perfect beauty? She wasn't glamorous. She wasn't the girl next door. She wasn't handsome. She didn't ooze "personality" or sensuality And she didn't transcend these usual categories. The best you can say is that she looked interesting and didn't fit the usual categories. As for living through war, motherhood, etc. in GTWT--its all Southern Belle bullshit.

Watch Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire and see how perfect her acting is - something from a real actress.

Watch Ann Margaret do the same movie (made for TV) and watch the quality of the acting go down at least 10 notches. She's not in the same league as Leigh AND never remake a great classic. You can't improve on perfection.

My favorite photo of her. In the '70s, Alexandra de Markoff used it to peddle their Countess Isserlyn Liquid Makeup.

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful but Vivien Leigh certainly was.

She was self conscious about her large hands, which she called "my paws." When being photographed, she tended to obscure them under fabric,etc.

I still don't understand how someone of her standing could die of TB in 1967 in England. Was her mental state such that she neglected treatment?

She was exquisite, breakable and endearing, sexy little Viv.

This is a response to R80 and R82.

I'm sorry, I don't know how to describe this properly. To me, it is clear that I am not demented, but to others, I realise it may not be clear. I am a lit graduate who went through a long time of being obsessed with GWTW the film, thinking Leigh is ugly but capable of looking gorgeous in some certain light, reading the book, thinking about her portrayal of the character, thinking more about her appearance, seeing more photographs of her.

When I see her now I see maybe what people wanted to see when they looked at Greta Garbo, in terms of beauty I think she is maybe the "spiritual successor" to Garbo, but with a less synthetically sculptural appearance.

Also what I see is a woman who is supremely in command of her appearance. It is as though she can decide to appear to be hideous or repulsive or gorgeous or cute or unreachable depending on how she feels and what she decides. Certain images of her are revolting... others are endlessly mesmerising.

All of her features are both ethereal and natural, characteristic only to her. Flawless skin and colouring, delicate bones, nothing proportionally exaggerated. Geometrically, the shapes of her face are like a stylised illustration. She is the progenitor of the "kitten" look, but she could never be so helplessly defined. Film stars today can never hope to resemble her.

Ravings...

Ravings, indeed, r88. Leigh is beautiful. Or was, rather, now she's a rotting corpse and has been for fifty years.

She was considered one of the screen's great beauties. That's the word of basically every film critic/historian who has ever written about her. The fact that you thought Leigh was actually "ugly" speaks volumes. I pity you that your sense of beauty is so skewed.

Reading this thread, I had a memory flash of Walter Cronkite announcing her death on the CBS Evening News. It was no more than a mention of the fact with a photo of her projected on the screen behind Cronkite, and it came well after all the main stories of the night. I guess that says something about how much society has changed since then.

"Gone WIth The Wind" is on TCM tonight! Tune in to see the the gorgeous Vivien Leigh in her prime, in her greatest role.

Thanks, [R91]! Leigh is electrifying as Scarlett and I cannot imagine any other actress--then or now--doing such a magnificent job with such an iconic and epic role!

According to Karl Malden, Marlon Brando was upset that Jessica Tandy wasn't cast as Blanche in the 1951 film version of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Malden said that Brando couldn't stand Leigh and her convent school manners.

Malden said that Jessica Tandy hadn't much of an impression as a film actress up to that time. He said that if Brando, who had made only one other film before STREETCAR, and Tandy had made STREET, he (Malden) and Kim Hunter would not have been cast.

Malden wouldn't pick sides on the Tandy vs. Leigh casting debate, He said that film acting differs from stage acting. He noted that Leigh got rave reviews when she did Blanche in London (in a production directed by her husband, Laurence Olivier). Malden said that because of GONE WITH THE WIND, everyone in Hollywood knew what caliber actress Leigh was

gorgeous

Bring out your Hellman's

Bring out the best!

R94, that gif looks like it's taken from [italic]That Hamilton Woman[/italic]. I think Vivien is at the very peak of her beauty in that, even more so than in GWTW. Leigh had an affair with the film's director and producer Alexander Korda despite being very recently married to Olivier, whom she outshines effortlessly in every way. [italic]That Hamilton Woman[/italic] also features a great performance by Gladys Cooper, who is fantastically bitchy as Nelson's wife.

To get an idea what Scarlett O'Hara might have looked like to help him cast the part, David O. Selznick commissioned a portrait of Scarlett based on the various descriptions in the novel. The composite portrait that the artist created looked almost, if not exactly like Leigh

I'd love to see that portrait!

Selznick looked from the acres of burning rubble to a young actress standing beside Laurence Olivier. Firelight seemed to accentuate the hint of pale green in the light blue of her eyes, the green that Margaret Mitchell has ascribed to the eyes of her heroine. He knew that she was Vivien Leigh, an English actress, and that she and Olivier were in love. He also knew that several months ago her name had been mentioned to him by one of his talent executives, and he'd screened two pictures she made in Britain,Fire Over Englandand A Yank at Oxford,and thought her excellent but in no way a possible Scarlett. Seeing her now, the moment turned into a scene from his own A Star Is Born. "I took one look and knew that she was right—at least right as far as her appearance went," he said later. "If you have a picture of someone in mind and then suddenly you see that person, no more evidence is necessary ... I'll never recover from that first look."

Isn't the first line of the GONE WITH THE WIND the novel: "Scarlett O'Hara wasn't beautiful ..."

I was lucky enough to see GWTW on the big screen a couple of years ago and Vivien was simply electric. She had the audience enthralled throughout the demanding running time.

If she's not a beauty, then I don't know who is.

Her performance in GWTW ihas been wildly praised, but its actually uneven. She's so mannered and annoying when she's being flirtatious and coy, and she comes off as overdoing it. But she's excellent in the quieter and more serious scenes--one of my favorites is when she takes over Frank Kennedy's sawmill and has to give the speech to the working men. She's at her finest there.

Her best film is almost undoubtedly "A Streetcar Named Desire"--she really owns that role. She played too many minxes in her career, but that's her best of them.

[quote] Firelight seemed to accentuate the hint of pale green in the light blue of her eyes,

MARY!!!

The difference in the arches of her eyebrows at r92 is dramatic and yet her beauty remains outstanding. No one ever commanded a close up like Vivien.

The story about Selznick "discovering" her the night of the filming of the fire in Atlanta was all press agentry. it was a deliberate set up. He'd had his eyes on her as a possible Scarlett since 1937. And then when she got to Hollywood that night with his brother Myron as her agent, her last minute screen tests blew everyone else off the screen, including the probable runner up Paulette Goddard, who couldn't prove the legitimacy of her marriage to then husband Charles Chaplin. Some of the scenes in the finished film are inferior to her black and white screen tests of the same scenes. The rigors of filming had taken their toll.

No she was way over rated.

There are very few truly great actresses from that era. You have your Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland/Joan Fontaine and a few others but most simply are a product of the times or simply had great writing.

That's were people like Bette Davis come in. She can take an awful script and make it watchable, though no one can take an awful script and make it good, she does make bad things watchable.

I'd love to have seen a 16 year old Ava Gardner as Scarlett.

[quote] She's so mannered and annoying when she's being flirtatious and coy, and she comes off as overdoing it.

SCARLETT overdoes it. Because it's so insincere, since Scarlett is as tough as nails. Vivien is *perfect*.

So in "Hamilton" Leigh played a married woman having an affair, while she was a married woman having an affair.

In "Waterloo Bridge," from about the same time, she was exquisite. The movie has to be one of the saddest ever.

Re "rotting,corpse" above, Leigh was cremated.

Has anyone mentioned her Anna Karenina? It's a beautiful film, with great performances from Leigh and Ralph Richardson as Anna's husband. Richardson makes the character's stern stance clear without turning him into a monster. There's a beautiful actor as Vronsky, too.

So in two of her movies she commits suicide. In another she attempts suicide. In a 4th she maybe is going to commit suicide by murderous lover. She also gets sent to the looney bin. Then there's the one where she ends as a drunken wreck. And the one where she's an Egyptian queen who will eventually commit suicide.

I loved her as Ethel in I Love Lucy.

She was exquisite.

Right, R107. Scarlett is so transparent whenever she's trying to flirt and manipulate people that it's funny. Her syrupy wheedling makes me laugh, especially when Mammy is there to puncture it with a look-- they're such a fantastic double act.

Remember when Scarlett first sees Rhett when she's on the staircase with some other belle who says that Rhett went out buggy riding with some girl? Scarlett whispers something to her friend, who says, "No, but she was ruined just the same." What was the whispered question?

In which movie does she try to commit suicide?

Yes, the first line in Gone With The Wind is "Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were." But all throughout the novel she is referred to as being pretty and both Ashley and Rhett tell her that she's beautiful. So she must have been very good looking, very attractive.

"Remember when Scarlett first sees Rhett when she's on the staircase with some other belle who says that Rhett went out buggy riding with some girl? Scarlett whispers something to her friend, who says, "No, but she was ruined just the same." What was the whispered question?"

The question is "did she have a baby?" Seems Rhett took some girl on an outing and the carriage got in an accident or something and he didn't get her home until after dark. The honorable thing to do would have been to marry her in order to salvage both their reputations (it's assumed that he had sex with her, but he didn't), but Rhett considers her "a boring fool" and refuses to marry her. Her brother considered his sister's honor compromised and he challenged Rhett to a duel and Rhett kills him. It was considered quite a scandal.

he not only got the girl back after dark but he had taken her out WITHOUT A CHAPERONE.

Loving this thread! [R119]'s post and gif made me lol! ;)

Looks like a gaggle of geese.

That was the scene where widow Scarlett dances at the fundraising ball. Scandalous!

Jeremy Spencer (b 1938) was in two films with her

Anna Karenina (1948), in which he played "Giuseppe."

Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, where's he the beautiful sinister young man.

He was also the son of Olivier in Prince..

The moment in the red gown, in the doorway at Melly's party, silent and so beautiful. I do not know how to post a picture. She is breathtaking!

Here ya go, r123.

And the dress.

Thank you r124!! She is elegance!

I watched Gone with the Wind the other day. Hadn't seen it in decades. The movie needless to say is so badly dated, so blatantly racist I'm surprised it's even shown. The acting in it was atrociously over the top and God, was Scarlett a bitch. But Leigh was good in a very unsympathetic role, as were Hattie McDaniel and Olivia de Havilland. Gable was awful. Leslie Howard too.

It's really about the friendship of the two women.

"Gable was awful."

No, he wasn't He was perfect. I don't think any actor could have played Rhett Butler better than him. And his delivery of the line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" is also sheer perfection.

Leslie Howard was a good actor, but terribly miscast; much too old, not the right type at all to play Ashley Wilkes.

As for the "over the top acting"...well, you must not like ANY movie from that era, because the acting in GWTW was the way acting was done in the movies at that time. Have you ever seen silent movies? I guess you would consider those films to be "atrociously over the top", too.

Agree, [R129], Gable was "perfection" in GWTW; he gave an excellent and complex performance as Rhett Butler and deserved the Best Actor Oscar that year...

r127, oh great, here comes the politically correct bullshit. Just because a film or drama may portray a racist society, that does not take away from the power of the drama. You'd have anything you deem offensive taken out of movies and the rest would be characters with absolutely no grey areas or any arc of growth on which to be taken. You fucking moron.

Thank you, [R131]; I never know how to respond to these people.

Magnificent actress. If she 'd made even just a few more films in the 1940s she'd have outshone Bette Davis as the best film actress of the Golden Age.

*it's like a new kind of book burning with some people; there is no "middle ground". They want everything "offensive" and not up to date politically and socially to be "purged" from art and history--forever.

You can appreciate the phenomenal artistry involved with a film (and the amazing characters created--along with the fine acting, directing, etc., contributed to the movie) and still recognize that the society that the characters in the film lived in had *major* flaws and problems--without banning the film outright!🙄

R133 - Barbara Stanwyck.

Crazy too

OP needs attention. Anyone who ever read GWTW knows how great she was. She even topped herself after that. She was absolutely outstanding in streetcar, in fact, no one has been better, ever, and equally astonishing in ship of fools and mrs Stone. And quite intersting in some of her early films. St martin's lane is intriguing. And in her hollywood period she was the most beautiful woman in the world.she still takes my breath away

When Joan Crawford was “ill” during the production of “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte”, Vivien Leigh was mentioned as Crawford’s replacement. Bette Davis said that Vivien Leigh was British and she could not authenticly play a Southern character.

Bette hated Vivien because once she was invited to Notley Abbaye, Vivien 's castle in the country, and Vivien 'forgot' to tell her that dinner was formal. So Bette appeared in slacks, looking like a slob, in the dining hall, where EVERYONE else was in tux and couture gowns. She never forgave Vivien

She was amazing when she was within her range, but it was a limited range.There's a screen test for her with laurence Olivier for the lead role in "Rebecca" where she's hilarious wrong--she plays the 2nd Mrs. de Winter as a flirty minx, just like Scarlett o'Hara, and it's the absolute opposite of what the part called for.

Oddly, she's at her worst in GWTW when she's asked to be vixenish and flirty--she overdoes it, and indicates too much what she's doing. Her best scenes are when she's showing actual quiet strength, like when she take control of the Kennedy lumber mill, or her famous scene eating the rotten turnips.

I think her best roles were actually AFTER GWTW--"Waterloo Bridge," "Ship of Fools," "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," and "A Streetcar named Desre."

[quote] Bette Davis said that Vivien Leigh was British and she could not authenticly play a Southern character.

And famously Leigh said to the press after sh turned the role down, "I can just about stomach the thought of having to look at Joan Crawford's face at 6AM for shooting, but not Bette Davis's."

Back to Tovarich, I was thrilled to see Vivien Leigh on stage but the musical was otherwise just average, or below average. She was not Merman, a memorable singer. And by then, Ms. Leigh did not command the stage. But, she was a working actress, and that was good considering her mental condition

I don't think anyone else would have been as good. Someone else could have done the role adequately (Miss Paulette Goddard, for example), but it wouldn't have been so luminous.

I do not think she would have done well as The 2nd Mrs. DeWinter in REBECCA. She could have played Rebecca herself, had the character appeared in a flashback, but not the mousy 2nd wife.

I do disagree that she could have played Isabella in WUTHERING HEIGHTS, but I think she would have upstaged Oberon; I would have liked to see an Olivier/Leigh Heathcliff and Cathy.

Oh yes, she is divine in STREETCAR. Irene Selznick fought for her to play Blanch, as Kazan was very against the casting. Irene had been at her husband's side through GWTW, and believed Vivien's specific talents were right for the part.

excuse me, BlanchE.

Who did Kazan want for Blanche, r144?

R137, I agree with you about Leigh's beauty. Others claim that Hedy Lamar, who has similar coloring and a science genius background/famous nudie picture, is more beautiful, but I disagree. I think even Joan Bennett, another light eyed brunette, in her prime was lovelier than Lamar (whose name was inspired by Barbara Lamar, the "Girl Who was Too Beautiful")

Yes, R146. I would like to have seen Miss Tandy, personally, but I can't imagine her Blanche was as spectacular.

She was very good in the tests for Rebecca. That cunt Cukor wanted to market her as a bitch and mocked her. The tests are somewhere in youtube. See for yourself. She was brave enough to take broadway in a musical when no other major screen star would have dared, and opened that trail for the Hepburns / bacall and all. She won a tony. And she would have been a magnificent Cathy, except Olivier always looked bland and stiff opposite her. And I love Merle

It's funny, when my husband and I were first dating, I asked him who his favorite actress was, especially look-wise (me being a self-conscious pale and brunette twenty something at the time), and he said Vivien Leigh. I know he meant during her younger years such as GWTW, but that connected us even more, because I must have watched ASND at least a hundred times during my college years, and thought of her as the absolutely best actress of any current or bygone era, just from that film alone, and still do. And I'm a GEn-Xer, so take that as you will. She really is the best of the bunch, with Davis being a close second.

And on an unrelated note, does anyone think that the picture posted twice above from her GWTW "arched eyebrow" look not look uncannily like the first Barbie doll (you know- the one with the slanted sideway eyes and the zebra swimsuit that also comes in a BRUNETTE version?) I can almost swear that Ms. Handler was going after a Vivien Leigh reproduction instead of some obscure German doll at the time!

[quote] It's funny, when my husband and I were first dating, I asked him who his favorite actress was, especially look-wise (me being a self-conscious pale and brunette twenty something at the time), and he said Vivien Leigh.

MARYS, the both of you! You must have known you were MEANT for each other!

Vivien would have been great as Catherine in Wuthering Heights--she would have been much better than Merle Oberon.

There have always people ridiculous enough to say that Vivien Leigh was not pretty or a bad actress. When she was obviously the best actress ever and the most beautiful. These people usually are bitter old queens who secretely wish they were half as fascinating, and had half as many cocks as she did. Starting with that silly cunt Cecil Beaton. Her performance as Blanche is prodigious and still, by any standard, the most spectacular tour de force ever recorded on film by an actress, past or present.

R140, go over and introduce yourself to R107.

Didn't Bette Davis do a Broadway musical long before Leigh? Not to mention Roz Russell, Maureen O'Hara etc.

I think Davis was in some iil fated review in the 50s called Two's Company, with Gary Merrill. How much singing, I'm not sure. But there is her immortal "They're Either Too Young or Too Old."

I love Leigh, but as for range, in the Golden Era of film, I think Davis had it.

overrated

Davis and Leigh are both amazing actresses. But they really can't be compared. Davis was a screen actress who did broadway. Leigh was a stage actress who did hollywood. To say that Davis had more range is not correct in my opinion. Leigh was one of the most versatile actresses esp on stage. But in films, she was typecast as the tragic princess. Davis had a shtick that she relied on too much. I think there are both in the top 3 of Hollywood best actresses ever. If only for blanche and baby jane. Hepburn is the one who's overrarted IMO.

GWTW is free on Amazon I just watched GWTW was amazed by her beauty and performance .Tthere may be other stars as beautiful as her but wouldn't say anyone was more beautiful.

I read the trivia and the director Victor Fleming wanted Scarlet to be a total bitch so Vivien fought for her interpretation . She also on the weekends got tips from Cukor ..

The ONLY reason Leigh is sometimes not considered in the same light as contemporaries Davis, Hepburn Crawford and Stanwyck is because she made so few films compared to them. But her best work in GWTW, Streetcar and Ship of Fools absolutely stands up to, if not supersedes, anything the others did.

In which universe is she not compared to these ladies ? Oh but in America. Well she was british, and here we consider her one of the absolute top of the tops hollywood stars ever

I love Bette Davis but anyone who says he should have won Oscar for Dark Victory is insane .

I don't think they were in competition. Davis couldn't do anna karenina or cleopatra, Leigh would have been awkward in some of Davis's parts. I love them both.

Dark Victory came out in 1939 they were both nominated for Best Actress .

I can't see Bette as Scarlett.

But Viv could have given us a brilliant Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes. Not when Bette did it in the early 1940s, Viv looked too young then. But 10 years later, yes!

Viv would have also made Mr. Skeffington more palatable if she was willing to do the age makeup for the later scenes.

It would have been fascinating tom see Viv opposite Bette in The Man Who Came to Dinner instead of Ann Sheridan. Wasn't that role originally based on Gertrude Lawrence?

But most of all, I would have loved to see what Viv would have done with The Letter! Can you just imagine?

Vivien Leigh as Margot Channing =3rd oscar. Vivien Leigh in death on the nile = Endless joy