Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier: A Love Story

When it comes to the golden era of cinema, one of Hollywood’s most beautiful couples, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, immediately come to mind. They met at a theatre in London, where Olivier first appeared before his future wife in the role of the romantic and passionate Romeo from the famous Shakespearean play. At the end of the play, the young actress exclaimed: ‘That’s the man I’m going to marry!’. And so it came to pass. Neither her own marriage nor her one-year-old daughter Susanna nor the fact that her chosen one was also married could deter Leigh.

Vivien Leigh was born into a prosperous English family in India and declared her desire to become an actress to her parents at an early age. Her father helped her enter the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Her debut work in the cinema did not bring rave reviews to the aspiring actress, but in the theatre she was immediately noticed not only by critics, but also by the then popular actor Laurence Olivier.

By the 1930s, Olivier was a real star of the English theatre. He had appeared in such famous Shakespeare plays as Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, while also acting extensively in films. Olivier was impressed by the young actress’s stage performance, and their acquaintance quickly grew into a friendship, and then into a stormy love affair, which began on the set of "Fire Over England" in 1936. For a long time, Leigh and Olivier’s spouses would not agree to a divorce, and the actors’ producers advised them not to flaunt their relationship, fearing for their reputation.

Despite everything, their acting careers would be a tremendous success. Vivien Leigh was made famous by the legendary Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. There were a huge number of contenders for the role, but it was the English actress who got to play the famous American. After the film premiered, Olivier even felt jealous of his wife, whose popularity eclipsed his fame. Lawrence was given the title of Sir, and the Royal National Theatre’s largest auditorium and theatre award were named after him. Shortly before his death, in his famous memoir Confessions of an Actor, Olivier would write of his relationship with Leigh: ‘That, that was love!’

Nina Shcherbak, the presenter for this lecture, is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Philology and Cultural Linguistics at St Petersburg University, holding a Master of Arts degree from the United Kingdom. A prolific writer and screenwriter, Shcherbak is also a scriptwriter for science TV shows and the author of fifteen monographs and several books on linguistics, literature, language philosophy, and English literature.

This lecture is part of the festivities to commemorate the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg University, a landmark institution that holds the title of being Russia’s oldest university.

The meeting will be held online in Russian with simultaneous interpreting into Spanish.

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