Tea at Trianon: Where Madness Lies: The Double Life of Vivien Leigh

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Where Madness Lies: The Double Life of Vivien Leigh

I just finished listening to Where Madness Lies by Lyndsy Spence on Audible. I have read other biographies about actress Viven Leigh but this one analyzes her mental illness in more detail than most others. The consensus is that she suffered from bipolar disorder although Larry Olivier was convinced that she was also schizophrenic. She was better off at her lovely country house since exhaustion from performing seemed to trigger her manic episodes. But she kept returning to the stage. Ultimately, she died of tuberculosis. I found the book well-written but unutterably sad. From Kirkus Reviews:

Drawing on unpublished material, historian Spence aims to go deep into her subject’s life. She writes that her goal is authenticity and a “theatrical air with symbolism and subtext” in order to “give Vivien her power back.” Spence begins her biography of the two-time Academy Award winner in 1953, when Leigh (1913-1967) had a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed with manic depression. Leigh was in Ceylon making a film with Peter Finch. She really didn’t want to do the movie, was miserable, and missed her husband, Sir Laurence Olivier, resulting in an affair with Finch. Both Leigh and Olivier were married before they first met and had affairs going on. Spence’s storytelling technique is to go into detail—how people feel, what they say and even think—as she describes Leigh’s falling to pieces. After returning to Hollywood, Leigh’s condition worsened. She was hospitalized in London, receiving electroconvulsive therapy treatments. Throughout, Spence intermittently touches on Leigh’s earlier years, her family, and previous roles. This back and forth sometimes makes for a bumpy ride. In 1955, her “mental health was on a downward spiral” while she was trying to rekindle her relationship with Finch; she did, which Olivier accepted amid his own flings. After a miscarriage and filming Anna Karenina, she fell into a deep depression, and her tuberculosis was making her ill. In 1958, Olivier was now in love with Joan Plowright and wanted a divorce. Leigh was experiencing more manic episodes and endured more ECT. Two years later, she gave in to Olivier. Spence shows her final years as sad ones, fraught with psychosis and stage fright, dying at 53 in 1967 from chronic pulmonary tuberculosis. (Read more.)

Here is a excerpt featured in Town and Country:

So, there it was once more: the present woman was marred by her past self and the exhaustion of living up to the public’s expectations. A year earlier, she had attended the reunion of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta to mark the centenary of the American Civil War. She drank mint juleps and wore a ball gown reminiscent of Scarlett O’Hara and framed her face with kiss curls, but she was in a bad way as she toured the Cyclorama of Gettysburg. She would never forget the three-day celebrations in December 1939, when the picture premiered in Atlanta to frenzied crowds who lined the streets to catch a glimpse of her as the motorcade made its way to Peachtree Street. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Vivien had said to the public, some of whom waved Confederate flags and wore Antebellum costumes, “I’ve spent quite a good deal of my time on Peachtree Street this year. And now that I’m here it feels just as if I were coming home.”
Nothing could distract her: her mind was on Larry and his new life with Joan Plowright. Why could she not cast him aside, to exorcise herself of him, as he had done? Maybe she did not want to. She was still Lady Olivier; her luggage carried the monogram VLO, and she was addressed as such in formal settings.
To the onlooker, only the star existed: fame was a good friend and a cruel master. What was the point of trying to change direction, acting-wise, when everything pulled her back to the past? Nostalgia seemed to be the selling point when it came to her audience. Whether she liked it or not, she had enormous star quality but a chequered career. She wanted the audiences to accept her for who she was at that moment: a seasoned actress secure in her singular identity and not the product of a famous marriage. It was the mantra she told herself, to justify the professional rut she was in. “The theatre in London is flourishing,” she said, optimistic the public would support the tour. “So, I imagine some people leave their homes to go to the theatre—thank goodness.” (Read more.)

A article on Vivien and her cats, HERE.