Vivien Leigh Page 18

  The Old Vic was scheduled to take its current program to New York in May 1946, and, of course, that meant Olivier with it. Vivien could not bear the thought of leaving Notley, nor could she imagine herself separated from Larry by an ocean for the length of a summer. Also she had become concerned about him. He looked exhausted, thin, and seemed too nervous. She worried endlessly that he might have infected himself with her disease. The doctor assured her that was not true, but he did feel that Olivier was approaching a nervous collapse if he did not slow down his pace.

  That convinced Vivien. She would go and care for him in New York.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vivien’s spells of hysteria, though infrequent, had occurred even during the nine peaceful months at Notley. At those times Olivier experienced helplessness and terror. He was beginning to note a pattern. For a few days prior to an attack Vivien would be exceptionally nervous, all of her reactions—speech, laughter, gestures—accelerated. Then would come the insane outburst, lasting several hours, followed by a severe depression, and finally a humble, embarrassed contrition. He had thought it had some relation to alcohol intake. Exceptionally small amounts could set her off. But as far as he knew, she had followed the doctor’s dictum and not touched alcohol or cigarettes during her rest cure. Yet the bonds that inextricably linked them were as strong as ever. He deeply loved Vivien, and Vivien continued to regard him as the center of her universe. By the side of her bed there was a picture of him as well as several boxes containing gifts he had given her and notes he had written to her, and they remained there even when he himself was by her side.

  It was difficult for him not to feel some share of responsibility for her condition. The physical illness was something he could cope with, but the descents into hysteria were out of his reach and grasp, and left him feeling stranded. Under the circumstances it was no wonder that he feared the act of falling through space.

  Vivien’s decision to accompany him to New York presented something of a dilemma. On the one hand, he was relieved that he could keep his eye on her; on the other, he was not sure how he was going to cope with both his performance and his concern for her.

  They flew to New York, each with mixed and deep emotions. Neither had been back since the war, since the time as Romeo and Juliet, as Scarlett and Heathcliff, when they had been the most famous lovers of the day. Much had happened in America in the six years they had been away. President Roosevelt had died. Harry Truman was President. There had been long years of casualty lists, then the bombing of Hiroshima, the long-awaited victory, and peace. It did not seem that with all the recent national upheaval they would be remembered in America with any degree of their past attention; but there was a mob of fans to greet them at the airport, and crowds were standing outside their hotel and the theatre.

  Vivien was glowing and happy, and more beautiful than ever. As always, wherever she went she carried some of their lovely possessions to insure a sense of home even in a hotel suite. She dressed in exquisite taste, impeccably, the white gloves spotless, shoes never permitted a scuff, stockings the sheerest made, her hair shining, a cloud of perfumed air wherever she was. There were masses of flowers in their rooms, many from well-wishers, but as many were bouquets that Vivien ordered and personally and fastidiously arranged. From the moment she awoke (always early, even if they had been out until dawn) she seemed to be charged with vitality. She was on the telephone by nine making plans for the day. Her breakfast tray had to be perfect, with fresh cut flowers on it. Her clothes had to be as carefully attended as the roses at Notley. No soiled clothes were permitted to remain or accumulate, and she still covered the garments she had worn the night before with a satin and lace square, as she had done when a child in the convent.

  All day she would exude energy and shop endlessly like an excited child on a round of Christmas buying. She adored beautiful things and could not resist them and wanted to bring presents to everyone at home. She accompanied Olivier every night to the theatre, arranged special dinners afterward; and even if he was exhausted and excused himself to retire, she would talk animatedly with friends until three of four in the morning. By eight she was up, making sure that room service got the breakfast tray exactly right; and at nine, bathed and dressed and bubbling with enthusiasm, she made plans for the new day.

  Olivier was in a constant state of anxiety that the tension would suddenly break, that Vivien, like some exquisite, fragile piece of porcelain, would crack and disintegrate, His neurosis and the recurring nightmare of falling to his death were intensified. He was worried more than ever about money and took on a weekly radio show to help pay for their enormous hotel bill. The last night he played Mr. Puff he somersaulted from the side of the curtain and fell to the floor. Experiencing severe pain, he nonetheless rose to his feet for his curtain call and then hobbled back to his dressing room. A doctor who was called diagnosed a torn Achilles tendon in his heel.

  He could barely walk, but somehow the accident took a great weight off his mind. He was certain, having now fallen from a height, that nothing further would occur. Therefore he insisted they fly to Boston the next day, where he was to accept an honorary degree by Tufts College as “the real interpreter of Shakespeare of our age.” The ceremony extended longer than anticipated; and Olivier, fearful they would miss their return flight, sent Vivien ahead to the airport to make arrangements for him to bypass the check-in counter if he arrived late, while he went through the remaining formalities.

  At Logan Field Vivien managed to detain the plane and arrange to facilitate his immediate boarding. But she herself boarded to wait for him. Finally the pilot could wait no longer, the motors were revved, the stairs withdrawn, the doors sealed. Olivier arrived at that moment, his academic hood with its brown and light blue lining over his arm. An ill-defined panic overcame him at the thought of Vivien alone on the plane. He limped painfully onto the field, shouting at the plane as it moved down the runway for take-off; and then, losing control of himself for the first time, he broke down and stood there sobbing. A girl reporter helped him back inside the terminal and to a private office to wait for the next plane to follow Vivien to New York.

  He rested in the hotel for two days after his return; but though neither his foot nor his nerves were healed, he decided they should fly home, where they could spend a month at Notley, ostensibly for him to relax. But also, if Vivien’s behavior indicated, as he thought it might, an attack of hysteria to come, he wanted to control her and keep the matter private. But Olivier claimed later that they could not have remained anyway as they had less than twenty dollars between them.

  Late in the afternoon of June 19, 1946, they boarded a giant Pan American Clipper with forty-one other passengers and a crew of ten. They were only in the air a short time when Vivien let out a terrified scream and rose from her window seat. Olivier attempted to calm her, and then noticed for the first time that the wing of the plane was on fire. The passengers were informed by the staff that an engine had dropped off and the wing ignited but that they were close to a field and would attempt a landing.

  The huge plane crash-landed on tiny Windham Field near Willimantic, Connecticut, at six-ten P.M., a little more than an hour from its New York take-off. The wing was still on fire when the ship pancaked onto the field. Miraculously, no one was injured; the passengers were driven to Hartford, and by nine that evening were put aboard a relief Constellation Clipper for England.

  It was their first summer at Notley and the fates were kind. The sun shone, the roses bloomed and Vivien never did have the awesome attack Olivier feared she would. A life style developed on the beautiful estate reminiscent of the golden days at Pickfair when Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks had still been married. During the week, Vivien would weed the flower beds and Olivier would supervise the management of the new cattle and the planting and tilling of the land in his role as gentleman farmer. But on the weekends, Notley’s hallowed halls glittered with the presence of the aristocracy of the English theatre and
film worlds. Cecil Beaton, Noel Coward, John Gielgud, the Redgraves and the Millses, the Kordas and the Fairbanks Juniors, David Niven, Tyrone Guthrie, Alec Guinness, and Margaret Leighton—the Notley guest book was a theatre Who’s Here. There were bucolic pleasures during the day, walks by the Thame, picnics on the bank, croquet and tennis, bicycling into the neighboring villages (not, however, by Vivien, who could not coordinate well on the vehicle), breakfast and lunch on the terrace, tea in the small garden room, cocktails in the drawing room, and lavish dinners in the dining room. Then there would be games until the wee hours. Vivien still adored games—card games and checkers and charades—and was masterful at all of them. It was all a bit like life in a Noel Coward song.

  Everyone’s here and frightf’lly gay

  Nobody cares what people say . . .

  I’ve been to a marvelous party,

  I must say the fun was intense,

  We all had to do what the people we knew

  Would be doing a hundred years hence.

  Noel was always inventing new games, and Vivien was the happiest when playing hostess, seeing after her guests, supervising the meals, selecting the linens, the silver, the china, and arranging the flowers she would pick herself. She had curbed her smoking and drank only small quantities of red wine. The doctor said her lung was healing nicely. There seemed no reason why, in this state of calmed nerves and growing good health, she could not return to the stage in the fall.

  Olivier was busy with his own ambitious plans to produce and appear with the Old Vic Company in September as Lear. That meant he could not spend much time at Notley in the fall, and certainly the weekend guest list would dwindle. It seemed more provident for Vivien to move back to Durham Cottage for the months to come so that they would be close. And it did make sense that she would be better off if occupied. His decision was to revive The Skin of Our Teeth to open in September. It was a wise compromise because Vivien already knew the role, most of the original cast were available, and the play, unlike a new production, would not have to be taken first on the road.

  The play reopened at the Piccadilly Theatre on September 11. King Lear premiered at the New Theatre with Alec Guinness, Margaret Leighton, Pamela Brown, Joyce Redman, and George Relph in fine support of Olivier, whose reviews the next morning were brilliant. He had infused Lear with “tender humor.”

  “If there is a better, a more impressive Lear in human recollection, it is certainly not in my experience,” wrote Alan Dent in the News Chronicle. The Times review began “Mr. Laurence Olivier, lately come to the plenitude of his powers, plays the part with the magnificent ease which testifies that it is for him a completely solved problem.” He was hailed not only as a great Lear, but as England’s greatest contemporary actor.

  It was exactly what Vivien had always believed. Olivier had been the Prince of Players. Now he was the King. But this would make it even more difficult then for her to become Queen.

  Gertrude had returned to London with Suzanne the previous summer. At thirteen the girl attended a boarding school and was back in Leigh’s custody during holidays. Vivien felt a curious remoteness toward her daughter. She was a warm, fair-haired young girl, a bit awkward, but she was cheerful, good natured, and not the least bit spoiled. It is hard to know what was responsible for Vivien’s aloofness to Suzanne during that time. There could have been many reasons— a sense of guilt and of inadequacy as a mother, the long separation that had caused a lack of shared experience, the natural competitiveness often existing between mother and daughter, the confrontation of her being faced with a thirteen-year-old child when she thought of herself as still very young, or perhaps, simply that Suzanne as a young woman had little in common with her mother.

  Leigh had come through the war unscathed, and Vivien had remained in touch with him. They were, in fact, quite good friends, and his approval of what she was doing was extremely important to her. Never once did Leigh chastise her for the past. He was devoted to her and concerned about her health, her career, and her security. The fall of 1946 was a particularly difficult time for her, as after forty-eight performances Olivier took King Lear to Paris, and Leigh’s presence was a steadying influence.

  The success of the revival of The Skin of Our Teeth did not seem in her mind to match Olivier’s achievements. This was an ongoing and recurring pattern between them now. She would do Cleopatra, even though it was a film role, because it was Shaw, and then he would do Henry V. She would meet with good critical notices as Sabina, and then he would be readying Hamlet for the cameras. Hollywood offered them Cyrano de Bergerac; and though they could well have used the high salaries the roles of Cyrano and Roxanne would command, Olivier was obsessed with the idea of filming Hamlet.

  Vivien had a spell of hysteria just before Christmas. After it passed, Olivier for the first time tried to get her to consult a psychiatrist, but Vivien would not hear of it. As an alternative, Olivier thought a holiday would be an escape for her. They were low on cash, and he managed to convince Filippo Del Giudice, the producer (he had also backed the highly acclaimed Henry V) who was arranging the financing of Hamlet with Rank, to include a working vacation on the Italian Riviera as part of the budget.

  England was suffering through one of the coldest winters modern England had known. The gas and coal supply had not lasted, and there was so little fuel that Vivien walked around Durham Cottage in a fur coat and gloves trying to keep warm, and Olivier was fearful her frail health might regress.

  Del Giudice came through, and within a month Vivien and Olivier were on their way to Santa Margherita Ligure, a small, beautiful seaside village near Portofino, with sandy beaches and magnificent views; and though February, even in the Mediterranean, was certain to bring rain and cool breezes, there would be hope that the sun might on occasion break through. Del Giudice took a five-room suite for them at the Miramare Hotel and decorated all the rooms with rented antique furniture, which he thought would please Vivien.

  The journey by train was slow and the cars badly heated, and Vivien felt some minor discomfort in her chest that worried them. Fortunately, the sun was shining over the Gulf of Rapallo when they reached Santa Margherita. They were to have ten days to themselves before Alan Dent arrived to work with Olivier on the script. They would be alone for that time, able to think of nothing but each other, to walk among the olive trees, the yews, and the sea pines, to take short drives along winding scenic roads, and to go into the lovely small fishing port of Portofino, with its artists’ colony and lively cafes.

  What Olivier dreaded was the discussion to come on the casting of Ophelia, a point he knew was totally absorbing Vivien’s thoughts when she was not gazing across the blue gulf waters. Vivien was thirty-three years old, and though still one of the great beauties of the world it was doubtful she could convey the teenage youthfulness of Ophelia on film. That was not the only reason that casting her in the role was impossible. She was a great international film star, recognized immediately and anywhere she went as Scarlett O’Hara. Olivier was concerned that she would destroy the balance of the production, just as Tyrone Guthrie had been hesitant about her appearing with the Old Vic Company.

  Ninety-four girls were interviewed and thirty tested before a lovely eighteen-year-old with natural ability but not much previous training was chosen by Olivier to play Ophelia. Her name was Jean Simmons, and, as it happened, she resembled Vivien slightly.

  Once Alan Dent arrived, Vivien was left much to herself, although she listened in on story conferences. Giudice also joined them, staying on a lower floor in the same hotel. Giudice, very much in awe of Olivier, listened like a hypnotized schoolboy to Olivier’s production plans and to his perfect diction as he read a speech. The sun did Vivien much good physically, but being merely an appendage to Olivier—the star, the great director, the greatest Shakespearean actor in the English theatre—was difficult for her emotionally. Hamlet also evoked too many memories of the past—happy days for sure, but ones when she was still young enough to have pl
ayed Ophelia and hopeful enough to believe that someday she would equal Olivier’s stature on the stage.

  Olivier and Vivien returned to London before the spring. Hamlet was to go into production on the first of May at Denham Studios, and it promised to involve a long shooting schedule and would consume Olivier’s time almost completely for months to come. Vivien was in an extremely depressed state when Alexander Korda came to see her to discuss the possibility of her appearing in the remake of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

  The idea of playing Anna appealed tremendously to her, though from the start she was worried about comparisons to Garbo’s Anna, made only twelve years before. She was also pleased to be working with Korda again. The new script had been written first in the South of France by Jean Anouilh, the French playwright, and Julien Duvivier (the French director of Pépé le Moko, Un Carnet de Bal, and Korda’s Lydia), who had transposed the story to France. Korda was passionate in his loyalty to Tolstoy and brought in a young writer, Guy Morgan, to work with Duvivier to return the story to its original Russian setting. Morgan was inexperienced, but Sir Alexander defended his selection on the basis that the young man could therefore be depended on to write as he was told. Having signed Vivien, Korda scheduled the film for immediate production.

  Cecil Beaton was to do the costumes; and unable to find couturiers in London who could obtain the proper fabrics, Korda dispatched Vivien and Beaton to Paris to have her clothes for Anna made there. Vivien, Gertrude (who Olivier insisted accompany her), and Beaton were guests of British Ambassador Alfred Duff Cooper (known as Duff) and the flamboyant and beautiful Lady Diana Cooper at the ornate, heavily gilded grand British Embassy on the Rue Faubourg St. Honoré. The two women had a great deal in common. Lady Diana had for many years been renowned as England’s greatest beauty. She was a perfectionist, a superb hostess who adored parties, games of wit, and shopping expeditions—an apparently extroverted woman who was fundamentally a serious person and appeared to exist mainly for her husband. The embassy was alive with the electric presence of these two women.