Vivien Leigh: A Life in Her Own Words

Vivien Leigh began writing this book in a psychiatric clinic where she ended up after a final break with Laurence Olivier. The marriage to the great actor ended for the «Gone with the Wind» star not just in divorce, but in personal catastrophe. From black depression and suicidal thoughts, neither alcohol nor medicines nor electroshock could save her. No one would have recognized the former Scarlett O’Hara in this woman, darkened by grief, who during the worst attacks only repeated: «Why?!» Why did he break her heart and send her to a madhouse? Why didn’t he rejoice in her successes, but envy her loud fame? How could he betray and abandon her as soon as he learned about her incurable illness? Vivien loved Laurence more than life itself—she sacrificed everything for him, even her daughter from her first marriage—yet he not only turned her home into hell, but also branded her in his scandalous memoirs, depicting her as a psychopath and an alcoholic.

She had to answer. She had to explain herself—not even to him, but to herself—in order to believe in herself and in her gift again, to get rid of self-disgust and the feeling of guilt. That’s how this astonishing book was born: the confession of an incredibly strong and talented woman who passed through all the circles of family hell, crawled out of the black pit of madness, and literally rose from ashes—learning, like Scarlett, not to look back and not to regret the past, but to tell herself: «I’ll think about this tomorrow!»