Where Madness Lies
The Double Life of Vivien Leigh
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Vivien Leigh was one of the greatest film and theatrical stars of the twentieth century. Her Oscar-winning performances in Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire have cemented her status as an icon of classic Hollywood.
Her meteoric rise to fame launched her into the gaze of fellow rising star Laurence Olivier. A tempestuous relationship ensued that would last for twenty years and captured the imagination of people around the world.
Behind the scenes, however, Leigh's personal life was marred by bipolar disorder, which remained undiagnosed until 1953. Largely misunderstood and subjected to barbaric mistreatment at the hands of her doctors, she also suffered the heartbreak of Olivier's infidelity. Contributing to her image as a tragic heroine, she died at the age of 53.
Where Madness Lies begins in 1953, when Leigh suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalised. The woeful story unfolds as she tries to rebuild her life, salvage her career and save her marriage.
Featuring a wealth of unpublished material, including private correspondence, bestselling author Lyndsy Spence reveals the woman behind the legendary image: a woman who remained strong in the face of adversity
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biographer Spence (Cast a Diva) delivers a moving account of British actor Vivien Leigh's struggle with mental illness in the 14 years before her death from tuberculosis at age 53 in 1967. Beginning with Leigh's 1953 mental breakdown while filming Elephant Walk in Ceylon, Spence recounts how the actor was subsequently dismissed from the movie, admitted to a London psychiatric hospital, and diagnosed with what was then called manic depression. Spence chronicles how Leigh sought to salvage her marriage to actor Laurence Olivier—who, engaged in an affair and overwhelmed by the demands of Leigh's illness, divorced her in 1960—and rebuild her career as her symptoms waxed and waned (during a 1960 performance of the play Duel of Angels, burn marks from electroconvulsive therapy were visible on Leigh's temples). Flashbacks to Leigh's younger days recreate her childhood in India, her passionless first marriage to barrister Leigh Holman, and her strained relationship with her daughter, whom she had with Holman when she was 19 and ceded custody of after secretly marrying Olivier in 1940. Spence has a novelist's flair for pacing and detail, though the afterword discussing what Leigh's spirit allegedly told her medium about her thwarted plans for the future will raise some eyebrows. Still, Spence succeeds in bringing Leigh to vivid life.
