Dark star : a biography of Vivien Leigh / Alan Strachan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Strachan, Alan, author.

Contributor:

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Series:

I.B. Tauris Film & Media Studies 2018

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Leigh, Vivien, 1913-1967.

Leigh, Vivien.

Actresses--Great Britain--Biography.

Actresses.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxii, 354 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

London, England : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

Place of Publication:

London, England : I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2018.

Summary:

Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the twentieth-century. As Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history. Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously-unseen sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work. Revealing new aspects of her early life as well as providing glimpses behind-the-scenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, this book provides the essential and comprehensive life-story of one of the twentieth century's greatest actresses.

Contents:

List of Plates

Acknowledgements

Prologue

1. A Child of the Raj

2. Hours Nearer Death

3. Young Wife and Mother - 4. Enter Olivier

5. Altered States

6. Printing a Legend

7. Star-Crossed

8. Wartime Dramas

9. From Sabina to Anna

10. Down Under

11. The Kindness of Strangers

12. Two on the Nile

13. Crack-Up

14. Avonside

15. At Court

16. Ending A Legend

17. Worlds Elsewhere

18. Last Acts

Epilogue

Facts/False Facts

Notes on Sources

Select Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 336-339) and index.

Print version record.

ISBN:

9781788316057

1788316053

9781786724564

1786724561

9781786734563

1786734567

OCLC:

1082864435