Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Women We Love: Vivien Leigh

Object of our affection: Vivien Leigh, actress.

- Her iconic performances as two tragic southern belles — Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire — won her a pair of Academy Awards and cinematic immortality.

- She also played Blanche on the London stage; during her extensive stage career, she played parts that ranged from Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw heroines to classic Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia and Lady Macbeth.

- Broadway roles include Romeo's Juliet and Cleopatra twice, all opposite her then husband, Laurence Olivier. However, her Tony Award was for the musical Tovarich.

- Other notable films include Dark Journey, A Yank at Oxford, Waterloo Bridge, That Hamilton Woman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Anna Karenina, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and Ship of Fools.

- In addition to awards from the Venice Film Festival, the New York Film Critics Circle and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, she was named one of the top 50 screen legends of all-time by the American Film Institute.

2 comments:

leigh said...

Thanks for this tribute!

Alexa Leigh said...

Great post! Vivien Leigh was a magnificent actress and the true definition of a legend. Talent burned brightly in her. I just finished watching "Anna Karenina" and I must say she never fails to become the character she's portraing. An incredible performance, as always. Thank you again!