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Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the twentiethcentury. 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 groundbreaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new fulllife portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previouslyunseen 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 behindthescenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, this book provides the essential and comprehensive lifestory of one of the twentieth century´s greatest actresses.

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Alan Strachan is a theatre director. In the West End he has directed over twentyfive productions, and overseas he has worked in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin and New York. He has directed such actors as Alec Guinness, Michael Redgrave, Michael Gambon, Jeremy Irons, Penelope Keith, Maureen Lipman, Dorothy Tutin and Pauline Collins; and plays by authors ranging from Shakespeare, Shaw and Tennessee Williams to Alan Ayckbourn and Tom Stoppard. He is the author of Secret Dreams: A biography of Michael Redgrave and Putting it On: The West End Theatre of Michael Codron.

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