Vivien Leigh

by Anne Edwards

  They remained at Sneden’s Landing while he cast about for a proper stage vehicle that could involve them both. Caesar and Cleopatra was one such idea, but after the failure of Romeo and Juliet it would not be easy to find backers for it. Then Vivien received an offer for the lead in a proposed Theatre Guild production of Marie Adelaide. The part was a tour de force for any actress who played it, and it had been submitted to Ingrid Bergman the previous season. Like Vivien, Bergman was under contract to Selznick, and the Guild had not been able to get him to allow her to play the role. They now approached Vivien, who, after gaining Olivier’s approval of the play, wrote Selznick, who replied:

  Forgive me, Vivien, if I call to your attention that we fought out the matter of your theatrical appearances at the time we made our contract, and that you secured certain important concessions in consideration of giving up the theater. Yet, in spite of this, I permitted you to do Romeo and Juliet solely because of my desire to do something important toward your personal happiness. . . . Even now, I do not regret it, because I know that despite the heartache that you undoubtedly went through as a result of it, it made you happier at the same time to do it. Frankly, though, Vivien, I didn’t expect to get another request so soon.

  His answer was no to both the Theatre Guild and to Vivien’s personal request and he told her, “You must get three or four more films under your belt.”

  They seriously considered returning to England, since the war news had been disheartening and Larry felt he should be more than a tool for British propaganda in America. In the short span of three months the Germans had invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, and France. Holland had capitulated, Belgium had surrendered, France had signed an armistice at Compiegne with the Germans, and Italy had entered the war on Germany’s side.

  Then Olivier received news that three-and-a-half-year-old Tarquin was seriously ill with spinal meningitis and was totally paralyzed from the chest downward. For ten days the child fought the mysterious disease until the paralysis finally left him, but then the doctors feared the danger of mental complications because of pressure of fluid on the brain. Jill had been advised to evacuate with him to America to avoid possible air raids and the associated fear, which could cause permanent damage.

  Having decided that Gertrude should bring Suzanne to America as well, they needed money badly, and Larry and Vivien would have to support them all once they had arrived. Providence appeared in the guise of that charming Hungarian, Alexander Korda. He had arrived back in New York after filming a successful propaganda film—The Lion Has Wings. Vivien and Olivier confessed their woes to him, and not long after he rang them at Sneden’s Landing from California.

  “You know Nelson and Lady Hamilton, eh?” he asked excitedly.

  Olivier thought he was talking about some friends of Korda’s or some social figures and said no, he did not.

  “Yes, Larry, you know them!” Korda insisted and then explained he meant Lord Horatio Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton. “The Battle of Trafalgar, for God’s sake!”

  It was the answer to all their immediate problems. It was not the middle of July, and the film would go into production in Hollywood in October. Korda gave them half their salaries in advance so that they could bring Tarquin and Suzanne over. The film was to be made in six weeks, which would mean that by the end of the year they could be on their way back to England for Larry to join the forces; and with the remaining monies to be paid them, Vivien could live at home without too much financial pressure for a time anyway. As a bonus, Korda deposited money in Canada for the children’s welfare.

  Within a week they had returned to Hollywood and on August 9 Vivien wrote Leigh:

  My darling Leigh . . . Larry and I are to do a picture about Nelson and Lady Hamilton. I am extremely dubious about it. But now one does not plan a career much as it seems futile, and we are certainly only doing this for financial purposes which are useful in these days.

  There was no mention of Tarquin’s illness, of their plans to evacuate the children, or of the fact that that very day Leigh’s divorce from her had become final. She was now free to wed and by August 28 so would Olivier be.

  Both of them steeped themselves in biographies of the famous Nelson and Lady Hamilton while R. C. Sherriff (Journey’s End) and Walter Reisch (Men Are Not Gods) worked on the screenplay. Korda gave his writers instructions that the film was to be a form of propaganda meant to arouse pro-British sentiments in America. There were obvious parallels between the war against Hitler and the Napoleonic wars. “Propaganda needs sugar coating” Korda told them. The love affair of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton was to be that coating.

  As expected, on August 28, 1940, Olivier’s divorce became final. Following the advice of Ronald Colman and his wife, Benita Hume, he and Vivien decided to drive to Santa Barbara, a distance of about eighty miles, register with the County Clerk, who was a man who had no interest in informing the press, and then return three days later, after the legal waiting time, to be married by a judge. Benita Colman also offered to purchase the wedding ring for them as an added ruse to guard their privacy.

  The Colmans planned to meet them after the ceremony in San Pedro, where Colman’s schooner, Dragoon, was anchored and would be waiting to take them on a short honeymoon. First they had a pre-wedding party for their friends, and then with close friends Katharine Hepburn and Garson Kanin, they drove to Santa Barbara. They were married on August 31, at one minute past midnight (the earliest time they could do so legally), by Municipal Judge Fred Harsh in the living room of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Weingand, who were Olivier’s friends from earlier days.

  It was an exceptionally short service, no more than three minutes from the beginning to “I now pronounce you man and wife.” The couple kissed and the judge cried out, “Bingo!”

  Vivien was now Mrs. Laurence Olivier.

  The newlyweds arrived at the side of the Dragoon about four a.m. Colman’s captain lifted anchor almost immediately. Standing at the prow of the ship, with dawn glowing in a summer sky, they headed out for Catalina Island.

  Passage had been arranged (quite by coincidence) for Jill and Tarquin and Gertrude and Suzanne to sail to Canada on the same ship—the Cythia. Jill was anything but happy about the arrangement. She had been having terrible nightmares before boarding in which Vivien was about to be run over and killed by a steamroller and she had had to jump on top of her to save her. The dream had kept recurring and she had not been able to interpret it, but it left her with a strong hostility against Vivien. She avoided a meeting with Gertrude and kept the children apart to the best of her ability. But the children were enjoined to shake sticky hands once during a lifeboat drill. Jill’s plans were to travel with Tarquin by train from Toronto to New York, while Gertrude intended traveling with Suzanne to Vancouver, where she was planning to leave the child at a convent school before returning to Ernest in London.

  Vivien and Larry decided to fly to Canada and meet the ship. However difficult the meeting between Jill and Vivien might have been, the emotion upon sight of the children overshadowed any personal embarrassment. Tarquin’s coordination was poor, and he was pale and thin and undersized for his age. Jill had to tell Olivier that the little boy’s legs did not seem to be growing and that he would require special treatment and exercises that she understood were available in New York. And Suzanne was not much older than Vivien had been when she had been left alone at the convent school in Roehampton.

  They returned to Hollywood heavy-hearted, Vivien not feeling sure that Suzanne should be enrolled but not knowing what else to do, and Olivier concerned for Tarquin’s health. Work on the film began and became a happy release from their personal problems.

  That Hamilton Woman (Lady Hamilton in Britain) was shot in black and white and on a spartan budget. It tended to shift the emphasis of the film from the obvious production values the film might have had to the personal conflicts of the characters. Because of this the film was the closest Korda had come to his grand su
ccess of The Private Life of Henry VIII. Vincent Korda built all the sets—the Hamilton’s lavish Neapolitan villa and the model shots of the Battle of Trafalgar—at the General Service Studio. The script was not completed when shooting began. R. C. Sherriff later wrote:

  . . . only the first sequences were down in dialogue when they began to shoot the picture.

  From then on it was a desperate race to keep up with them. It was like writing a serial story with only a week between your pen and the next installment to be published. We would slog along all day on scenes that would be wanted before the week was over, and I would take them back to my hotel and work most of the night smoothing out the dialogue . . . There wasn’t time for the leisurely script conferences I’d been used to. We’d sit around in the lunch-break eating sandwiches and drinking coffee, and talk about the scenes that Reisch and I had just brought in . . . Sometimes the stuff we wrote didn’t measure up to what Alex Korda and the others wanted. Then Reisch and I would have to go away and spend the afternoon rewriting it.

  Selznick could not have found a better follow-up for Scarlett O’Hara than Korda had in Emma, Lady Hamilton. The Lucky Hungarian had cashed in on Selznick’s hard work, as he had predicted. But Selznick felt no resentment. Instead, he began frantically to look for another story that would reinforce Vivien’s moneymaking potential. He was aware that Olivier planned to return to England but had a curious lack of insight into Vivien. Therefore, he was not prepared for her departure and her total rejection of her contractual commitment to him.

  On October 22 she wrote to Leigh:

  Oh Leigh I don’t think you can possibly realize what it feels like to be away now. The longing to be back is overwhelming.

  And on November 4 she wrote:

  I am so very thrilled because we may be home for Christmas. If I do not come quite yet, I have got permission to come as soon as my next engagement is finished . . . the Nelson film is nearly over. We have rushed thro’ it because apparently after Thursday there is no more money!—Alex’s usual predicament.

  Is Little Stanhope Street still rented? ... I have not told Daddy about coming back yet, as it is not certain. . . . There is a stray cat here that I shall mind leaving (Old Tom).

  The house on Little Stanhope Street was hit with bombs shortly after she wrote the letter and totally demolished.

  Knowing she would never return to America without Olivier, she flew to see Suzanne before their planned departure, now fixed for December 27. Not wanting any publicity on the visit with Suzanne, she booked passage as Mrs. Holman, but the press found out and she was greeted in Vancouver by hordes of reporters, mystified and intrigued by her attempt at secrecy. The Mother Superior at the convent school now refused to keep Suzanne, claiming that she feared kidnapping threats. Vivien thought it might have more to do with her divorce and subsequent remarriage, but there was nothing she could do to reverse the Mother Superior’s decision. This meant Suzanne was forced to go to a day school, at least for the rest of the term, and that Gertrude would now have to be separated for a long period of time from Ernest, which she agreed to but not without inflicting some measure of guilt upon her daughter.

  The Oliviers, after closing up the small house on Cedarbrook Drive where they had lived since August, and leaving behind Old Tom and a shaggy sheep dog who had come with the house, flew to New York. On December 27, as planned, they boarded the American ship Excambion, which had just brought four hundred passengers from Europe and was returning with twenty-three (including the Oliviers). The ship was technically neutral, but the voyage through difficult waters to Lisbon was fraught with tension and quite real fears.

  In Lisbon they managed to secure a flight to Bristol and found the city cloaked in darkness. It had just been raided and all the windows of their hotel were blown out. It was bitter cold and they climbed exhausted into bed fully clothed, Vivien even wearing gloves.

  The bombs began to fall. There was the sound of sirens and antiaircraft guns and falling rubble. Hollywood and Broadway now seemed a million years away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Vivien was in love with excitement, but an England at war did not manage to kindle in her the spirit of battle. She found herself more often than not unutterably depressed. It was not easy for her to accustom herself to rubble and destruction. She would flinch as though seeing a life struck out when she passed a remembered house or church or archway in ruins. It was impossible for her to accept the fact that the house on Little Stanhope Street had been demolished, even when she stood at the corner of Pitt’s Head Mews and stared down the street at the gaping hole where it had once been. It was somehow easier for her to accept death than destruction. The demolition of landmarks, life markings (Here I dreamed my first dreams of stardom, there I saw my first play, under that arch Larry held me in his arms and we waited for the storm to pass and I felt safe, safe), was the unkindest reminder of the temporariness of life.

  She had always slept badly, now she slept less than ever. It seemed easier to lie in bed awake and listen to the sound of the planes overhead than to awake to it. In the beginning she tried to make the sound merge with fantasy. It was only the last bursts of applause after the final fall of the curtain. But the sound continued. The clapping never ceased. And there was the cold. She was constantly numb with it, unable to ever warm her hands and feet. Whatever she thought she might find on returning from Hollywood, whatever she expected war to be, it was not chalk dust and cramping cold and the smell of rancid bacon frying.

  Blast had done some damage to Durham Cottage while they had been absent, and her first task was repairing and putting things back in order. Olivier had applied immediately upon arrival for admission to the Fleet Air Arm and to his shock had been rejected because of faulty hearing in one ear. He knew he had a damaged nerve in his inner ear, but he had never given it serious consideration as a disqualification. For a month he went from one ear specialist to another and finally reversed the Admiralty’s decision. He was accepted for non-operational flying.

  For three months he was based in London. He took a role in a film, 49th Parallel (The Invaders in the U.S.A.), about a French-Canadian trapper, and appeared with Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey under the direction of Michael Powell. It was only a few weeks’ work, and he was idle too soon, as the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve did not seem to be in much of a hurry for his services. His concern was mainly for Vivien. Her curious bouts of “nerves” came and went a bit too frequently now. She took in a stray black and white cat, which she named Tissy, and lavished too much attention on it. He decided she needed activity and convinced her to go see Tyrone Guthrie with the hope that he might accept her for the coming Old Vic season. Even though he knew she was a reliable and fine actress and that her name might serve the box office well, Guthrie had to turn her down because the Old Vic was a repertory company and Guthrie was fearful that her star status would off-balance the productions.

  Before she had time to dwell on the disappointment, Olivier came up with a plan to put them both back on the stage. With Constance Cummings, John Clements, Ben Levy, and Jack Melford they visited airdromes and put on a show for the R.A.F. Benevolent Fund. They played the wooing scene from Henry V together, and Olivier did some comedic sketches.

  In mid-April he received his first orders. He was to go to Lee-on-the-Solent to undergo a three-week conversion course to adapt his American private flying experience to British planes. Vivien refused to consider remaining in London.

  They bought an old open car with a faulty radiator, and with a tow rope attached to Vivien’s old car (which was inoperative after being garaged all during their American stay, and which they had packed full of luggage), they started out. Olivier, now an Acting Sub Lieutenant (A) with the R.N.V.R., drove their old car while Vivien, with Tissy sitting beside her in the front seat, steered her towed car with great dignity.

  In Warsash, just a short distance from Lee-on-the-Solent, Vivien found a Victorian house with a garden and the improbable name of “F
orakers,” which she would spell out when giving directions. The house was sparsely furnished and Vivien was happy she had brought some of their personal treasures. The small Boudin was hung in their bedroom, the Sickert over the fireplace, the narrow Aubusson carpet graced the living-room floor, and books and pictures were placed neatly on the scarred top of the kneehole desk.

  The three weeks were soon up, and Olivier was transferred to Worthy Down, near Winchester, but was still able to return home in the evenings to Warsash in less than an hour’s drive. Vivien was alone a good deal of the time. The raids on London the previous summer had virtually closed down the West End. Most London theatres were dark, with companies staying alive by touring the provinces. But gardening and caring for the old house in Warsash were not enough to occupy Vivien. She felt she should be performing, and an offer from the Theatre Guild in New York to play in Caesar and Cleopatra with Cedric Hardwicke only stimulated this desire.

  Olivier recognized how important it was for her to keep active and began busily casting about for a proper vehicle for her, one that would be within her range. Finally, he suggested the role of Jennifer Dubedat in Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma. Vivien was not immediately drawn to the part or the play. To make Jennifer Dubedat an interesting character would not be easy, and she did not approve of the essential theme of the play or its resolution (the medical murder of an artist of power who was also a social bore). Though supposedly a comedy, she found it instead a rather snide and cold-blooded dissection of the theme of the artist’s value to society.