Miss Vivien Leigh Delights Anglo-American Audiences With so many British stars on the Hollywood scene and with so many Hollywood stars brightening the newly completed London Films studios in Britain's film capital, one wonders "how goes fortune with British stars in their own country, One need not wonder long. There.
ips alóWg blithely, hand-in-hand veri, boot case ju. point. Fortune with Vivien Leigh: Vivien is the, lass who had the leading feminine role opposite Laurence Olivier in London Films' spectacular "Fire Over England." She is heading for a high place in the bir firmament, and judging by her work in the new productión, "Dark Journey," in which she is ce-starred with Conrad Veidt, she will soon enjoy a. cinematic parity with Merle Oberon and Wendy Barrie who have bloomed under the sponsorship of Alexander Korga.
Physically and temperamentally, Miss Leigh is lovely. She is five feet four, extremely slender, with chestnut hair and brown, deep-set eyes. Two years ago she scored a sensation on the London stage in "The Mask of Virtue" a triumph attended by many attractive film offers. She was unwilling to give up the stage after such an earl succem and las mumaged since, divide her energies between the theatre and pictures.
Born in\India She was born in Darjeeling, India, and the news of her arrival was conveyed to her father by an excited ayah who lit a bonfire in celebration of the event. At eight she was sent to a convent in London, and at fourteen to San. Remo, on the Italian Riviera, where she studied languages. After a year in a Paris art school she was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in preparation for what she hoped would be a career as an actress, Because of her vivid beauty she had no difficulty getting walk-on jobs in the theatre or extra bits in pictures, but no producer would give her a chance to act. In desperation she remembered a second cousin who had a friend who knew a-man—a week later she presented herself before a theatrical agent who undertook to market her services.
This was early in 1994. In May 1935 Miss Leigh played the ingenue lead in "The Mask of Virtue," with results already recorded. The audience cheered her debut and the theatre was sold out eight weeks in advance. Rival managers began a frenzied bid for her services and in one day film offers came in from three major Hollywood studies and two British companies,
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