Showbiz-Filled Vivien Leigh Archive Acquired By Victoria & Albert Museum

Already home to the archives of Michael Redgrave and Paul Scofield, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is enhancing its collection with a vast selection of material belonging to Vivien Leigh. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Gone With The Wind star and the archive will go on display from this fall as well as being made available for research. Among the memorabilia are her Oscars and other awards, diaries, annotated film scripts, photographs and extensive correspondence with her husband, Laurence Olivier. The collection aso includes some 7,500 personal letters from such notables as T. S. Eliot, Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, Graham Greene and Noël Coward. There’s also a guest register from the Oliviers’ home signed by such showbiz legends as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Orson Welles, Judy Garland and Rex Harrison. The British Leigh, who was married to Olivier from 1940-1960, won two Oscars. The first for playing Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind and the second as Blanche DuBois in Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire. The V&A acquired the archive from Leigh’s grandchildren.