Trivia of Vivien Leigh

Trivia of Vivien Leigh

*When Leigh was 19, she married a wealthy barrister named Leigh Holman. Her new position as wife didn’t deter her acting ambition one bit.Her agent wanted her to pick a stage name and made several suggestions, including “April Morn.” Instead, she settled on Leigh, her husband’s name, and changed the spelling of her first name from Vivian to the more feminine Vivien.

*In the late 1930s and early 1940s, she and Joan Bennett were often considered look-alikes of Hedy Lamarr, who brought the dark-haired, blue-eyed type of beauty to Hollywood. The three actresses appear on the cover of the May 1939 issue of Picture Play Magazine.

*Was the first British actress to receive an Academy Award. She won the Best Actress Oscar for Gone with the Wind (1939) in February 1940.

*Her most favorite role not Scarlett O'Hara, but was that of Myra Lester, which she played in Waterloo Bridge (1940) with Robert Taylor.

*Most Vivien Leigh fans already know that That Hamilton Woman (1941) was one of Winston Churchill’s favorite movies. By the end of 1941, Churchill had purportedly watched it approximately half a dozen times. Coincidentally, it was also one of Joseph Stalin’s favorite movies.

*Vivien Leigh hated tea!.Even though she was British and born in the tea capital of the world, Darjeeling, Vivien didn’t enjoy the drink. She even remarked once that she thought the tea-time ritual was a waste of time!.

*Eventually, Vivien needed shock therapy to control her manic depression. Sometimes, she would go on stage just hours after her treatments, without missing a beat in her performance.