1 Vivien Leigh Quotes

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"Vivian Mary Hartley", later known as "Vivien Leigh", was an English stage and film actress. She won two Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Actress/Best Actress for her performances as "Southern belles" Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (film)/Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951 film)/A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End theatre/West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical/Tony Award for her work in the Broadway theatre/Broadway version of Tovarich (musical)/Tovarich (1963).

After her drama school education, Leigh appeared in small roles in four films in 1935 and progressed to the role of heroine in Fire Over England (1937). Lauded for her beauty, Leigh felt that it sometimes prevented her from being taken seriously as an actress. Despite her fame as a screen actress, Leigh was primarily a stage performer. During her 30-year stage career, she played roles ranging from the heroines of Noël Coward and George Bernard Shaw comedies to classic William Shakespeare/Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra VII/Cleopatra, Juliet Capulet/Juliet and Lady Macbeth. Later in life, she played character roles in a few films.