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Dark Star
- A Biography of Vivien Leigh
- Narrated by: Alasdair Buchan
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
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Dark Star
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Publisher's Summary
Bloomsbury presents Dark Star by Alan Strachan, read by Alasdair Buchan.
Winner of the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize 2020
Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the 20th century. As Scarlett O’Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history.
Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously unseen sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work.
Revealing new aspects of her early life as well as providing glimpses behind-the-scenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, this book provides the essential and comprehensive life-story of one of the 20th century’s greatest actresses.
Front cover: Angus McBean Collection, MS Thr 581. © Houghton Library, Harvard University.
What the critics say
"What makes this account of a familiar story outstanding is that Strachan wins the reader’s trust. As an experienced man of the theatre, he suggests, qualifies and adds interesting views of his own." (The Spectator)
"[Vivien Leigh’s] life, lived to the full at every second, will never be better told than it is in these pages." (The Sunday Times)
"A gripping new biography." (The Daily Mail)