This title is timed for the 100th birthday of
Vivien Leigh and the 75th anniversary of her landmark
film Gone With the Wind. Featuring rare photos and
informed by previously untapped documents from the
Laurence Olivier Archives, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate
Portrait sheds new insight on the woman whose onscreen
performances and dramatic life story can inspire women
today. Vivien Leigh's mystique was a combination of
staggering beauty, glamour, romance, and genuine talent
displayed in her Oscar-winning performances in Gone With
the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire. For more than
thirty years, her name alone sold out theatres and
cinemas the world over, and she inspired many of the
greatest visionaries of her time: Laurence Olivier loved
her; Winston Churchill praised her; Christian Dior
dressed her. Through both an in-depth narrative and a
stunning array of photos, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate
Portrait presents the personal story of one of the most
celebrated women of the twentieth century, an engrossing
tale of success, struggles, and triumphs. It chronicles
Leigh's journey from her birth in India to prominence in
British film, winning the most-coveted role in Hollywood
history, her celebrated love affair with Laurence
Olivier, through to her untimely death at age
fifty-three in 1967. Author Kendra Bean is the first
Vivien Leigh biographer to delve into the Laurence
Olivier Archives, where an invaluable collection of
personal letters and documents ranging from interview
transcripts to film contracts to medical records shed
new insight on Leigh's story. Illustrated by hundreds of
rare and never-before-published images, including those
by Leigh's "official" photographer, Angus McBean, Vivien
Leigh: An Intimate Portrait is the first illustrated
biography to closely examine the fascinating, troubled,
and often misunderstood life of Vivien Leigh: the woman,
the actress, the legend.
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