#flickdaily

"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

"People forget how beautiful she was. Her enormous eyes were lovely pools that naturally drew your attention. She was stunning and, because she was beautiful, I think people forget she could act.” -Ann Blyth

“Not long after Vivien’s death, Gertrude and Jack received letters from Consuelo Langton-Lockton, who had cast Vivien's horoscope as early as 1938. She was anxious to ‘expose herself’ as a channel for any messages Vivien’s spirit might wish to convey from across the divide….Vivien returned to her. This proved a highly emotional session, during which Vivien continually asked how Larry was…it was Olivier who was drawing her back to earth. She was begging for forgiveness and wanted Olivier to know she loved him still. The channel concluded, 'If he should 'go’, she will be waiting. Love is stronger than death- and things get sorted out on that side. Thank God.”

“I’m sure she was very sensual. She must have been passionate and was surely erotic. On the set I saw one thing that surprised me. Someone had an engraved antique cameo ring of an erotic subject...she was always so cool, so polite, so exquisite, so raffin`ee – and then suddenly she was told about the ring, and said ‘Let me look at it! Let me look at it!’ It was quite surprising that she looked at this rather explicit carving and took a strange, lascivious, and very obvious pleasure in looking at it. It was out of character with all this tremendous coolness. A frank, spontaneous ‘low-down’ reaction in front of the crew, when normally, her attitude was one of ladylike, exquisite discipline.” -Olivia de Havilland

"Letters from fans were beginning to arrive- just a trickle at first, but before long, a tide. What a thrill! I had never gotten letters from strangers before, so I tried to answer them all. My mother and I spent whole evenings figuring out what to say. I liked responding, but the day soon came when I could no longer handle the volume myself." -Lana Turner "Mother's cameo as herself in 'The Youngest Profession' evinced the fan mania that was growing in response to her recent hit films and her news-making activities off screen. It's an odd little movie, all about professional autograph hounds. They show Mother reading and answering fan mail, an aspect of her job she took very seriously. All my life I remember there was a part of her day dedicated to autographing photos and responding to special pieces of fan mail that were brought to her attention." -Cheryl Crane

"Mother's connection with her fans was special. On the whole, their devotion to her, even when the headlines were unflattering, didn't waver. In fact, her ups and downs seemed to endear her to them all the more. They saw that she had her problems, too. There were some stars that seemed unreal, but for all her glamour, Mother retained an approachable side that her fans sensed. I think she was seen by them as Cinderella, who through a combination of luck and beauty of face and form, landed in movies. These qualities, combined with her personality, were embraced by the public and produced an enduring star.

"For her part, Mother respected her fans and recognized that the public makes a star. From the time she was very young, she appreciated the fan letters sent to her from people all over the world. In the beginning she read and answered as many pieces of mail as she could herself, but it quickly got out of hand and had to be managed by studio personnel. During a nine-month period in 1944 in which MGM monitored the fan letter flow to each of the stars, Mother and Judy Garland were shown to be ahead of the rest by far, each receiving close to 200,000 letters. After she left the studio, Mother hired a personal secretary for the first time and she dedicated a certain part of every day to signing photos, reading the mail, and dictating responses to her secretary. She took this very seriously. There were rare occasions when she was scared by a bizarre fan, but more commonly, there were special fans with whom she became comfortable enough to strike up regular correspondence, or even make telephone friends." -Cheryl Crane