Her subsequent career was slowed to fits and starts by the tuberculosis which eventually killed her, and by her own emotional instability.įor the rest of her career, Leigh alternated between the stage and screen, giving electrifying, emotional performances in both mediums. She again was a woman of questionable virtue in the biopic of an historical tart in "That Hamilton Woman" (1941, opposite Olivier). The role was the first of many in which her character suffered mental collapse-ironically mirroring her own bouts with mental illness.
#Movie storm in a teacup series#
Through a series of plot machinations, she is reduced to prostitution and has a bittersweet reunion with Taylor, whom she thought was killed during the war. In the fine remake of "Waterloo Bridge" (1940), Leigh's beauty heightened her portrayal of a ballerina in love with an upper-class soldier (Robert Taylor). She starred onstage with Olivier in "Romeo and Juliet" (1940) and made two films. Leigh failed to immediately follow up on her tremendous promise. Despite much flack about a relatively unknown Brit taking the role of the quintessential Southern belle, Leigh was triumphant, won an Oscar and became a bigger star than Olivier (whom she married in 1940). Her Scarlett was a headstrong, willful and colorful portrayal.
When he went to the US in late 1938 to make "Wuthering Heights," Leigh followed and won the much-coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind" (1939). That same year, she displayed her screen charisma and charm as a Cockney petty thief who is befriended by street performer Charles Laughton and romanced by songwriter Rex Harrison in the frothy "Sidewalks of London/Saint Martin's Lane." While making her mark in features, Leigh continued to polish her talents onstage, notably as Ophelia to Olivier's "Hamlet" in 1937.īy this time, Leigh and Olivier were romantically involved. Korda loaned her to MGM for "A Yank at Oxford" (1938), which did more for Robert Taylor than Leigh. After making a hit onstage in "The Masque of Virtue" (1935), she was signed by Alexander Korda and appeared as a pretty ingenue in such films as "Fire Over England" (1937), opposite Laurence Olivier, and "Storm in a Teacup" (also 1937), with Rex Harrison. Despite her heritage, she remains best-known for her two most successful screen roles as American Southern belles.Īfter a childhood traveling Europe, an apprenticeship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and a brief marriage, Leigh began her career in 1935 with several small stage and screen roles. A lovely, petite, fragile stage-trained player whose delicate beauty first graced the screen in 1935, Leigh was born to a British military family stationed in India.
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