By Kendra Bean

Foreword by Claire Bloom

$30.00

$34.50 CAD

Format

Format:

Hardcover $30.00 $34.50 CAD
ebook $15.99 $20.99 CAD

Also available from:

Vivien Leigh’s mystique was a combination of staggering beauty, glamour, romance, and genuine talent displayed in her Oscar-winning performances in Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire. For more than thirty years, her name alone sold out theaters and cinemas the world over, and she inspired many of the greatest visionaries of her time: Laurence Olivier loved her; Winston Churchill praised her; Christian Dior dressed her.

Through both an in-depth narrative and a stunning array of photos, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait presents the personal story of one of the most celebrated women of the twentieth century, an engrossing tale of success, struggles, and triumphs. It chronicles Leigh’s journey from her birth in India to prominence in British film, winning the most-coveted role in Hollywood history, her celebrated love affair with Laurence Olivier, through to her untimely death at age fifty-three in 1967.

Author Kendra Bean is the first Vivien Leigh biographer to delve into the Laurence Olivier Archives, where an invaluable collection of personal letters and documents ranging from interview transcripts to film contracts to medical records shed new insight on Leigh’s story. Illustrated by hundreds of rare and never-before-published images, including those by Leigh’s “official” photographer, Angus McBean, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait is the first illustrated biography to closely examine the fascinating, troubled, and often misunderstood life of Vivien Leigh: the woman, the actress, the legend.

Genre:

"A worthy tribute to an eternally fascinating star."
--Kirkus Reviews
“More than an organized compilation of facts, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait takes its reader wholly into the past and showcases Vivien's life in an explosion of colorful detail. There's a quality to the book that could be described as atmospheric, raising the bar not only for how illustrated biographies are presented, but also for how they make us feel. In the case of An Intimate Portrait, a gorgeous and thoughtfully-rendered letter of admiration and affection, the reader can expect to find themselves fully immersed in Vivien's stratosphere, a passenger in the life of a tremendous woman who left an unprecedented mark on theater, cinema, and the world at large.”
--LiteraryInklings.com
“a stunning and thoroughly researched tribute.”
--Rage Monthly
“Classic movie-lovers will be thrilled by Kendra Bean's lavishly illustrated and sympathetic biography.”
--Bay Area Reporter

On Sale: Oct 15, 2013
Page Count: 272 pages
Publisher: Running Press
ISBN-13: 9780762450992

By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

Kendra Bean

About the Author

Kendra Bean is a historian and curator. She is the author of Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait. She runs the popular classic film blog VivAndLarry.com. Her writing has also been published by the British Film Institute and Bright Lights Film Journal, and she has lectured on cinema at the National Portrait Gallery (London), Victoria and Albert Museum, the BFI, the San Francisco Presidio Officers’ Club, and the Walt Disney Family Museum. She lives in London.

Learn more about this author

×

Contributors

Formats and Prices

Price

Price

Format

Format:

Also available from:

Description

Genre:

Praise

Details

You May Also Like

Newsletter Signup

Kendra Bean

About the Author