EXCLUSIVE: Vivien Leigh — Her Secret Strength… How Hollywood Beauty's Tenacity Helped Her Overcome Lonely Childhood and Health Nightmares
Vivien Leigh's resilience helped her overcome a lonely childhood and serious health struggles.
May 10 2026, Published 8:15 a.m. ET
With her stunning beauty, prodigious talent and unbending determination, Vivien Leigh was born to be a star, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
And she knew it.
"Vivien always wanted to be an actress," recalled school friend Maureen O'Sullivan. "She was single-minded. She was the only girl in school to take ballet, for instance. She took it alone. I thought it was rather brave of her."
That fortitude grew out of Leigh's privileged but lonely childhood. Born in India in 1913, Leigh was sent to a strict convent school in England at the age of 6. "She wouldn't see her parents again for nearly two years," wrote Kendra Bean in Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait.
Vivien Leigh Hid Private Torment
Author Kendra Bean linked Vivien Leigh's early separation from her parents to later struggles with bipolar disorder.
Bean speculates a sense of abandonment may have "contributed to her eventual problematic behavior," for her life was shaped by a struggle with bipolar disorder, which even her passionate 20-year relationship with Laurence Olivier didn't soothe.
But she never let her trials hold her back.
"She was a woman who could go onstage and give a brilliant performance and then break down as the curtain came down," said Darwin Porter, author of Damn You, Scarlett O'Hara: The Private Lives of Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. "Peter Finch once said, 'Vivien is a flawed masterpiece.'"
Trials And Triumph
Leigh was described as as 'a flawed masterpiece' amid her personal challenges.
While Leigh said her mother was "the determined one in the family," the future Scarlett O'Hara first appeared onstage at 3 as Bo Peep and told the audience "that instead of singing her song, she would recite it," Bean said. But after being put in the convent school in London, Leigh spent more time alone.
"During holidays, she was often left behind while her friends rejoined their families," Bean said.
Still, Keith Lodwick of London's V&A Museum, which owns many of Leigh's letters, said: "She was the youngest child in the school, so she received special attention."
And she learned quickly how to make friends. "She was so direct and honest," said Porter, adding later she and husband Olivier knew how "to keep the party going."
Passion Romance Turned Tragically Dark
Laurence Olivier and Leigh began their relationship after co-starring in 'Fire Over England' in 1936.
Meeting Olivier in 1936 changed her life. They costarred in Fire Over England, and Leigh said: "I don't think I have ever lived quite as intensely ever since."
Their passion led them both to divorce their spouses and give up custody of their respective children. And in letters Olivier wrote to Leigh, said Lodwick: "An element of guilt can be detected."
Leigh's health struggles began to surface as early as 1937, when she would verbally attack Olivier and then not remember doing it. "Several times I thought she really was going mad," her secretary Sunny Lash once wrote of Leigh's mood swings.
Leigh Fought Through Crushing Illness
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Despite health battles, Vivien Leigh won an Oscar for 'A Streetcar Named Desire' in 1952.
Alarmed, Olivier reportedly took her to a psychiatrist, but Leigh acted her way out of it, convincing the doctor she was fine. Eventually, she was diagnosed as manic-depressive (bipolar) and suffered several major breakdowns.
Still, after each one – and after a lengthy bout of tuberculosis – she went back to work. "I have always tried to tackle things that I thought were beyond me," she said. In 1952, she won an Oscar for A Streetcar Named Desire.
Leigh died at only 53 from a second bout of tuberculosis seven years after her divorce from Olivier. Two years before she passed away, she said, "I am happy now," explaining her love of "the unexpected challenge" – of which she'd had many in her life. "These are the things that make life exciting."
