Vivien Leigh picture

We met when performing together on the London stage in Duel of Angels, written by Jean Giraudoux. I was Lucrece, the sacrificial victim, dressed in white. Vivien, dressed in red, was the dangerous and destructive Paola. This, the late '50s, was still the time of stylish theater, when leading ladies were expected to be both beautiful and beautifully dressed on and off the stage. Christian Dior designed our dresses. Vivien's beauty was like that of a Siamese cat, her eyes the same extraordinary shade of blue, her light movements almost feline in their grace. Her frame was so minute that when, in the course of the play, I put my arm around her shoulder, I felt like I was embracing and exotic and fragile bird. And in a way, that is what she was. I was 18 years younger than my fellow actress, a difference in age that never once interfered with the great affection we developed for each other. Neither did the fact that I'd had momentarily dilliance with her husband, Lawrence Olivier, when I acted opposite him in the film of Richard III. She could have resented this, she could have resented my youth; she never did." - Claire Bloom, 2013, from Claire's forward to Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait by Kenda Bean