Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Who Knew, Vivien Leigh?

A couple of days ago, while I was looking for a certain Bette Davis quote that went with my thought about Amy Ryan, I ran across this quote from Vivien Leigh that made me fall in love with her all over again. You already know I think she gave one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema in Gone With the Wind and that her work in A Streetcar Named Desire was dynamic, to say the least. Well, besides from being an accomplished actress, you can now add "diva extraordinaire" to her impressive resume. After Joan Crawford dropped out of Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte, her re-teaming with Bette Davis after the mega success of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, the director was looking around frantically for some older actress to fill in for Crawford. Eventually Olivia de Havilland took over, but apparently Leigh was offered the role at one point and had this to say:

"No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis'."

Oh snap! Isn't this juicy? I had no idea that Leigh could deliver a perfectly bitchy bon mot just as well as Davis, Crawford and Tallullah Bankhead. I'm so impressed with this one quote that I'm moving Vivien Leigh onto the "My Divas" section on the right hand side of the page.

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