May21st
Here’s a new article for your reading pleasure! It’s a charming little article about Vivien on the 1960s Australia/New Zealand Old Vic tour. It’s sprinkled with direct quotations and contains fascinating information about her costumes and clothing. For example, did you know Vivien dislikes egg yellow? Thanks to Diane for sending V-L.com the article!
January28th
It’s Day 4 so here’s Article #4! It comes from a 1957 Plays & Players magazine and is featured under their ‘new plays’ section. It’s titled: “The Oliviers: Titus Andronicus and his daughter Lavinia.” A noteworthy quote is about Vivien Leigh:
To say that Miss Leigh is at her most moving when her Lavinia cannot speak is only to remind the reader that she is, as it were, the Fonteyn of Drama, taking direction as a river takes rain and so absorbing it into her art that who is to know what she found in herself and what she has been lent. In a swift, resonant and amber-hued production she was most moving.
January16th
Have you ever wondered what article is contained behind this beautiful, colorful Screen Guide magazine cover? Wonder no longer, thanks to Eric Caron! He recently sent Vivien-Leigh.com the article, and it’s now available to read in the Article Database. It’s a short 2 page spread and is titled “War Victims!”
Click HERE to view or visit http://www.vivien-leigh.com/vivienleigharticles/?page_id=304.
December30th
Here’s another new article for VIVIEN-LEIGH.COM. I hope Vivien found some sort of paradise during her lifetime.
Noted actress Vivien Leigh wants to find ‘an island paradise’
Written By: Unknown
Published In: Herald (Melbourne, Australia) on July 3, 1961
She’s combing the Pacific- on paper at the moment- for an island where she can relax.
She’s even prepared to “go native” to get her perfect holiday and live in a hut.
She said today: “I don’t care how isolated the island is. I’ll get there somehow.”
But it must be off the tourist routes, be good for swimming and it must have a sandy beach, not coral.
IN GARDEN
Eight weeks ago she bought a ‘Queen Anne’ house in Sussex with its own mill stream, lake and river, and a whole hillside of daffodils.
At week ends she leaves her theatre life to work in the country garden.
During the next size months she’ll have two 10 day breaks and will spend each away from the cities- one at the Barrier Reef and the other “out of Perth.”
Melbourne people will see her in three totally different roles- as the wicked woman in “Duel of Angels,” the tragic Marguerite in “The Lady of the Camellias,” and Viola in “Twelfth Night.”
The first general rehearsal will be on Wednesday.
The rest of the 37-strong company will arrive late today.
Here are the details of the company’s Melbourne season:
July 12-22: “Duel of Angels”
July 25-August 5: “Twelfth Night”
August 8-26: “Lady of the Camellias”
The company will tour Brisbane, Sydney, Adelside and Perth later. It is due to open in New Zealand January 24, 1962.
December29th
I’ve added a new article to the Vivien Leigh Article Database- here’s a sneak peek! I found it interesting that she said Cleopatra was her favorite role. She talks about Scarlett, the critics, and the best compliment she’s ever received.
Written by: Alan Dent
Appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, July 9, 1961
The dismantled music hall would have been a somewhat depressing ambiance if it had not been for the presence of Vivien Leigh in a white crinoline, reclining in a yellow armchair.
She was talking to me between scenes of Dumas’s “The Lady of the Camellias,” being rehearsed at the Finsbury Park Empire before leaving for Australia to begin a two-year tour with a specially chosen Old Vic company. This opens on Wednesday with “Duel of Angels.”
“Let me babble.” she said babbled delectably of what might almost be described as the grandest tour ever. The first part takes in the Antipodes and the far East, Tokyo, Manila, Bombay, Bangkok. Then, after a rest at home, in 1962, “we begin the second half of the world tour starting in Paris where we have been invited to play in Jean-LouisBarrault’s theatre. Furthermore when I introduced myself to Madam Furtszeva the other day she said she would be delighted if we went to Russia, and I hope that will be arranged. From there onwards the tour is planned to take in South and North America.
“The idea of this tour was mine originally,” she said “I suggested it to Bobby Helpmann, who suggested it to the Old Vic which could hardly agree more. About half of the company are Old Vic players.”
Besides the Dumas, the touring repertoire will include “Twelfth Night” and Giraudoux “Duel of Angels.”
The success of the latter, a “difficult” play, did not surprised her as much as it has surprised some other people.
” The first time I read it- there are only two new plays I have ever read which have kept me awake- one was ‘The Skin of Our Teeth’ by Thornton Wilder and the other was ‘Duel of Angels.’ I remember telephoningBinkie Beaumont the next morning and saying ‘I want to do it. I don’t mind which part I play. I just think it is the most wonderful play.”
To continue reading this article, please visit the Vivien Leigh Article Database, or CLICK HERE.
