Vivian Mary Hartley

 Vivian Mary Hartley, later known as Vivien Leigh and Lady Olivier (November 5, 1913 – July 8, 1967)

She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress for her performances as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), a role she had also played on stage in London's West End in 1949. She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway version of 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 Shakespearean characters such as Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet, and Lady Macbeth. Later in life, she played character roles in a few films. To the public at the time, Leigh was strongly identified with her second husband Laurence Olivier, to whom she was married from 1940 to 1960. Leigh and Olivier starred together in many stage productions, with Olivier often directing, and in three films.

She earned a reputation for being difficult to work with, as for much of her adult life she suffered from bipolar disorder as well as recurrent bouts of chronic tuberculosis, first diagnosed in the mid-1940s, which ultimately claimed her life at the age of 53. Leigh's last screen appearance in Ship of Fools was both a triumph and emblematic of her illnesses taking root. Producer and director Stanley Kramer who ended up with the film, planned to star Leigh but was initially unaware of the fragile mental and physical health of his star. On the night of July 7, 1967, Leigh was found on her bedroom floor. She had been attempting to walk to the bathroom and, as her lungs filled with liquid, they collapsed and she suffocated.