Life and art imitated one another in the explosive union of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskThe theme of the book, though, is that if this was “the romance of the century”, the runners-up must have been horrible. Leigh overdosed on sedatives while making “Gone With The Wind”, a notoriously long, gruelling and calamity-strewn production. When she won her Oscar, Olivier was “insane with jealousy”, he admitted. Reviews of their “Romeo and Juliet” were, he lamented, crushing in their “sheer, savage, merciless cruelty”.
When their careers separated them, they wrote agonised letters wishing they were together again. When reunited, they were racked by envy, resentment, exhaustion, infidelities, money worries, miscarriages, alcoholism and, in her case, tuberculosis. Leigh craved company, and threw endless parties in their Oxfordshire country home; Olivier wanted to be alone. He, meanwhile, was fixated on scaling ever higher peaks as an actor and director.
Perhaps she and Olivier each needed a more stable helpmate. For all the trauma, though, they were well-matched in some ways. Olivier directed Leigh in several hit plays, and Leigh, a voracious reader, contributed numerous ideas to his productions. Their tumultuous relationship appears to have enriched their performances, too.
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