Vivien Leigh

5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967

Vivien Leigh,actress made famous by her leading role in “Gone With the Wind”and her creative genus for stage and screen,suffered from serious bouts of manic depression,tuberculosis,and poor health her entire life. It was,in fact,because of her illness,that she was frequently cast into roles that required a personal experience of the torment that comes from the experience of this disease. Vivien was once able to make a full recovery after shock treatments,only to succumb some years later. A nervous breakdown associated with a miscarriage proved to be the unravelling of her marriage with actor Lawrence Olivier who continued to be a devoted friend. She was finally  diagnosed with cyclical manic-depression with hallucinations and had to be confined to a nursing  home only to recover and return to the screen for her last movie. Leigh finally succumbed to the tuberculosis at the young age of 53 of while filming “The Ship of Fools”. She became known and  admired for her ability to fulfill her passionate dream for stardom despite her TB and debilitating  manic-depression.