WHERE MADNESS LIES

The famous actress confronts her mental demons.

Drawing on unpublished material, historian Spence aims to go deep into her subject’s life. She writes that her goal is authenticity and a “theatrical air with symbolism and subtext” in order to “give Vivien her power back.” Spence begins her biography of the two-time Academy Award winner in 1953, when Leigh (1913-1967) had a nervous breakdown and was diagnosed with manic depression. Leigh was in Ceylon making a film with Peter Finch. She really didn’t want to do the movie, was miserable, and missed her husband, Sir Laurence Olivier, resulting in an affair with Finch. Both Leigh and Olivier were married before they first met and had affairs going on. Spence’s storytelling technique is to go into detail—how people feel, what they say and even think—as she describes Leigh’s falling to pieces. After returning to Hollywood, Leigh’s condition worsened. She was hospitalized in London, receiving electroconvulsive therapy treatments. Throughout, Spence intermittently touches on Leigh’s earlier years, her family, and previous roles. This back and forth sometimes makes for a bumpy ride. In 1955, her “mental health was on a downward spiral” while she was trying to rekindle her relationship with Finch; she did, which Olivier accepted amid his own flings. After a miscarriage and filming Anna Karenina, she fell into a deep depression, and her tuberculosis was making her ill. In 1958, Olivier was now in love with Joan Plowright and wanted a divorce. Leigh was experiencing more manic episodes and endured more ECT. Two years later, she gave in to Olivier. Spence shows her final years as sad ones, fraught with psychosis and stage fright, dying at 53 in 1967 from chronic pulmonary tuberculosis.

An unconventional biography some will love and others will shake their heads at.