The Portrait Of A Lady

Vivien Leigh & The Stage

Vivien Leigh has long been regarded as one of the most beautiful, gracious and talented leading ladies of our stage, but she has never been thought of as a fiery personality. Last month, however, the announcement that the St. James's Theatre in London was to be demolished to make way for a block of offices brought out a fighting spirit in Vivien Leigh that made us change our minds about her.

Theatre lovers throughout Britain have been busy for weeks bemoaning the fate of St. James's, but none of them has taken any positive action to stop this act of vandalism. Sadly shaking their heads, they felt that nothing could be done. Vivien Leigh, obviously made of sterner stuff, decided that something could de done - and she set about it with confidence, courage and magnificent audacity.

She first joined forces with Athene Seyler and Alan Dent on a protest march down Fleet Street with banners calling for support for the campaign to save the St. James's. When this sortie failed to rouse the public's imagination, she decided on more daring action. She brought drama to the House of Lords in a smoothly executed frontal attack. This august and usually sleepy little assembly received the shock of their lives when she interrupted their proceedings from the public gallery by declaring in a firm, clear voice: "My Lords, I wish to protest about the St. James's Theatre being demolished".

Shorther than any part she has played on the stage, Vivien Leigh's dramatic appearance at the House of Lords won her more publicity than her greatest successes in the theatre have ever done. Daily papers brushed aside war, crime and scandal to make a theatrical cause their front-pages headlines. There could no longer be any doubt what players and playgoers felt about the St. James's, and their champion had been found in a distinguished actress commanding respect throughout the world.

This action has significance too, in Vivien Leigh's career, for it emphasises the sincerity and depth of her regard for her profession. Even though she started her career in films, she has been first and foremost a stage artist. Success came in The Mask Of Virtue at the Ambassadors' Theatre. Two years later, in 1937, she played Ophelia in the Old Vic's Hamlet at Elsinore, and in 1940 she enhanced her reputation as a Shakespearean actress by playing Juliet at the 51st Street Theatre in New York.

For a time she alternated between such classical roles as Lady Teazle in The School For Scandal and parts in modern American plays, notably The Skin Of Our Teeth and A Streetcar Named Desire. At the St. James's, in 1951, she appeared with Sir Laurence Olivier in the Cleopatra plays by Shakespeare and Shaw, and the husband-and-wife partnership won further laurels two years ago at Stratford in Macbeth, Twelfth Night and Titus Andronicus.

2003 � Vivien Leigh & The Stage.

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