Vivien Leigh's stepson talks candidly about the troubled star and Hollywood icon

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Every leading lady in Hollywood fought for the role of Scarlett O’Hara, the wilful Southern belle in Gone With The Wind. But unexpectedly it went to a beautiful, little-known English actress, Vivien Leigh, who justified the casting by giving an Oscar-winning performance.

If ever an actress was born to play a woman who toyed with the affections of men it was the raven-haired, blue-eyed Vivien, who radiated a dark sexuality that was excitingly un-English.

In the 1939 film Scarlett’s husband, Rhett Butler, catches her embracing a married man, Ashley Wilkes, wearing a garnet-red gown that gloriously revealed her screen recklessness. 

This infidelity mirrored that of Vivien’s real life – she stole Laurence Olivier from his wife Jill Esmond, leaving her husband Leigh Holman, with whom she had a daughter, Suzanne, to become the actor’s mistress and then second wife. 

As Vivien Leigh's life is celebrated this month, her stepson talks about the troubled star who became a Hollywood icon

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