"She devoted herself to being a theatre actress, and everybody always said, 'Oh, well, of course, he [Laurence Olivier] taught her.' She was too bloody beautiful. She'd had to have worn a mask." -Judy Campbell "She was often underrated because she was so beautiful. She was a consummate actress anyway, hampered by beauty- and as a person the complete romantic. She had this great talent for creating beauty around her, she made these exquisite gardens, dressed ravishingly, she had true breeding, and when she invited you to dinner, the food and everything was perfect...[yet] there was something tragic even when she was at her happiest. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised when I heard she died. And Kate Hepburn said, 'Oh, thank God!' because she’d suffered so much and was so miserable, really, from the time her marriage with Olivier broke up to the end of her life. Although most of the time you’d never suspect it. She was Rabelaisian, this exquisite creature." -George Cukor "Something else Vivien had to fight as an actress was her quite incredibly beauty. In Streetcar she wore an unflattering blonde wig, and covered her face with garish make-up; but I, who sat beside her on a bench for twenty minutes every night while she poured out Blanche’s story, could see through the make-up, and there were evenings when, knowing the script as well as she did, the only way I could pretend hearing it for the first time was to concentrate on the line from the bottom of her chin down to her throat. How I wished I was Michelangelo." -Bernard Braden
VIVIEN LEIGH in THAT HAMILTON WOMAN — 1941
