When the Rolling Stones sang about not being able to get enough 'satisfaction', perhaps
they had British actress Vivian Leigh in mind.
Because if the rumors are true, Leigh was such a rampant nympho back in the day that
she would sleep with just about anyone.
Leigh passed away in 1967 at the age of 53, but before her life came to an end, she established
herself as one of the most prolific actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice – first for her career-defining performance
as Scarlett O'Hara in 1939s Gone with the Wind and then again for her role as Blanche
DuBois in 1951s A Streetcar Named Desire.
Leigh additionally won a Tony for her performance in the Broadway musical Tovarich in 1963.
In 1999, the prestigious American Film Institute named her their 16th greatest female film
star of the classic era of Hollywood cinema.
Leigh was lauded for her beauty, but she often feared that her physical attributes prevented
her from being taken seriously in the acting community.
And although she was well-known for sleeping around and being able to bed just about anyone
that she set her sights on, Leigh is often associated with her second husband, Laurence
Olivier, whom she was wed from 1940 to 1960.
Leigh also had a pretty bad reputation for being hard to work with.
Throughout most of her adult life, she suffered from bipolar disorder which often resulted
in her acting somewhat erratically when she was in a manic state.
Arguably, this could have contributed to some of her sexual promiscuity as well.
Either way, she is a star that's hard to pin down just how many partners she had throughout
her life.
Join FactsVerse as we take a closer look at how Vivien Leigh was incapable of finding
satisfaction in her love life – and how this led to her sleeping with just about anyone
in an attempt to scratch that itch.
Vivien Leigh: The Nymphomaniac
One of the primary reasons why Gone With The Wind resonated so much with both critics and
audiences alike was the fact that the film's leads were perfect for their respective roles.
The producer of the film, David O. Selznick, considered dozens, if not hundreds, of women
for the role of Scarlett O'Hara before finally settling on the virtually unknown Brit, Vivien
Leigh.
Teaming up with her ever-so-handsome leading male co-stars, Clark Cable and Leslie Howard,
and the lovely Olivia de Haviland, Leigh, and company managed to achieve a level of
celebrity that few if any stars had managed to find up until that point.
While their lives and careers may have seemed like something out of a fairy tale to outsiders,
off-screen their personal stories were anything but perfect.
Scandals and dark secrets plagued the stars of Gone With The Wind, and Leigh, in particular,
seemed to be plagued with an extra dose of controversy.
In 1932, while she was working as an up-and-coming actress in her homeland of England, Vivien
married a barrister named Herbert Leigh Holman.
The man was 13 years her senior when she walked down the aisle with him at 19.
A year later, Leigh gave birth to a daughter named Suzanne.
Married life wasn't something that Vivien really enjoyed at the time.
She was a rising star and just starting to figure out what she really wanted to do with
her life.
So, in 1936 she started having an affair with fellow-married actor, Laurence Olivier.
Their romance got its start when Leigh attended one of Olivier's stage performances.
Afterward, she went backstage and visited him in his dressing room to confess her adoration.
She immediately started flirting with Olivier and ended up planting a kiss on his neck as
he quickly escaped the room to avoid her advances.
But try as he might, Olivier wasn't able to resist her youthful beauty, and just like
that, a passionate – and scandalous – love affair had begun.
Leigh was still married to her first husband, and her and Oliver's affair was still going
strong when David O. Selznick offered her the much sought-after role of Scarlett O'
Hara in his new film.
She promptly accepted the role, and Olvier would often show up on set to visit her.
Of all the cast members of Gone With The Wind, Leigh had to bear the biggest responsibility.
She had to spend 120 days filming the movie while her co-star Clark Gable only was needed
for a little more than 70.
Frequently she would spend 18 plus hours on the set, and whenever she would have the rare
weekend off, she and her lover, Laurence Olivier, would enjoy their time together secluded away
in hotel rooms.
They would never leave their room and would live entirely off of room service while making
lots and lots of passionate love before Leigh had to return to the Gone with the Wind set.
In 1940, both Leigh and Olivier divorced their respective spouses.
Later that summer, they got married to each other.
But even though they clearly had a strong connection at first, Olivier wasn't able to
keep his wife happy and satisfied.
Soon enough, she was seeing other men behind his back.
Laurence would even admit later that satisfying her had become a burden.
Leigh would continue to attempt to satisfy her sexual desires by sleeping with countless
other lovers, notably the renowned actor Peter Finch who was a close friend to Olivier.
As we mentioned at the outset of this video, many experts believe that Vivien Leigh was
bipolar.
She would continue with her promiscuous ways right up until her death in 1967.
Her list of lovers was just about as long as her equally insatiable Gone with the Wind
co-star, Clark Gable.
After her death, Peter Finch would say that sex Leigh was a lot like a drug – a stimulant
as strong and addictive as anything else.
He also referred to her inability to find satisfaction as a 'sickness'.
In addition to Finch, it's known that Vivien frequently saw English actor John Buckmaster.
He and Leigh spent hours together while he taught her yoga, but rumor has it, his teaching
methods got very hands-on.
Leigh's Nervous Breakdown
In 1953, Leigh and Peter Finch traveled to Ceylon, Sri Lanka to film Elephant Walk.
Not long after filming had wrapped, Leigh experienced a nervous breakdown, and Paramount,
the production company making the film, had her replaced with Elizabeth Taylor.
Olivier sent for Leigh and had her come back home to Britain.
While there, in-between moments of being totally incoherent, Leigh admitted to Olivier that
she was in love with Finch and had been engaging in an affair with him for quite some time.
Over the next few months, Leigh slowly managed to recover from her breakdown, but as a result
of everything that had just transpired, Olivier's friends had learned of Leigh's troubles.
Actor David Niven described Leigh as having been 'quite mad', while another one of Olivier's
friends, Noel Coward, noted that things had been going from bad to worse with Leigh since
1948, the year that she started a romantic relationship with Finch.
Even though Leigh would recover from her breakdown, her overall mental health would continue to
decline until her death.
As her mental illness progressed, her relationship with Finch steadily deteriorated.
In 1953, Leigh had recovered enough from her breakdown to perform alongside Olivier in
a production of The Sleeping Prince.
Two years later, they performed together for a season at Stratford-upon-Avon, in which
they had roles in Shakespearean plays like Macbeth, Titus Andronicus, and Twelfth Night.
For the next several years, Leigh would continue working, focusing primarily on stage performances
while remaining married to Olivier, although their relationship at this point was anything
but romantic.
In 1956, Leigh suffered a miscarriage and entered into a months-long bout of depression.
In 1958, Leigh began dating actor Jack Merivale who was aware of her struggles but assured
Laurence that he would take good care of her.
Two years later, Leigh and Olivier officially divorced.
Quickly, Olivier married actress Joan Plowright.
Just as he said he would, Merivale took care of Leigh and proved to be a stabilizing force
in her life.
But even though he loved and cared for her deeply, it's suspected that Leigh was seeing
other men behind his back as well.
She once even confided in a friend that she would have rather lived a short life with
Olivier than a long life with him.
Vivien Leigh's Death
Throughout her life, Vivien Leigh had reoccurring bouts of tuberculosis.
In 1967, while rehearsing for a performance in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, she
experienced a rather severe resurfacing of the disease.
For the next several weeks, she rested and appeared to recover.
On the evening of July 7, 1967, however, Merivale left her at their apartment to perform a play,
and when he returned home, he discovered her body lying on the floor.
It appeared as if she had been trying to walk to the bathroom when she collapsed and suffocated
from the fluid that had filled her lungs.
Merivale then contacted Leigh's family and got a hold of Olivier who was receiving cancer
treatment at a nearby hospital.
Laurence was overcome with grief as he immediately bee-lined to Leigh's apartment to find that
Merivale had Leigh's body to the bed.
Before her body could be removed, Olivier stayed with Merivale by the now-departed Leigh's
side.
Leigh received a Catholic funeral at St. Mary's Church in London.
She was then cremated and her ashes were scattered on a lake at her summer home in Blackboys,
East Sussex, England.
Outro
She may be considered one of the greatest actresses of her day - and certainly, one
of the most beautiful, but Vivien Leigh lived a troubled life.
She struggled to find love and form healthy relationships while battling both physical
and mental illness.
Were you surprised to learn that Leigh was considered to be a nymphomaniac?
And do you think her bipolar disorder contributed to her notorious promiscuity?
Let us know in the comments.
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