Theater and movie actress who gained two prizes Oscar by her papers of O'Hara Scarlet in Which the wind took (1939, Victor Fleming) and of Blanche du Bois in a called street car desire (1947, Elia Kazan).

It was born in Darjiling, India, and its true name was Vivian Mary Hartley. Not yet it had a solid academic formation when up made debut in the paper of a student in the Things comedy plows looking (1934), directed by Albert de Courville. The following year, when it worked in the London scene, it was discovered and contracted by the cinema producer Alexander Korda. Su idilio outside the screen and its later marriage with Laurence Olivier not only took it to the covers of the press, but that offered the opportunity to him to act next to him. Its interpretation emphasized by the innate facility to identify itself with the papers that represented.

In the first films for Korda, like Fire to over England (1936, William K. Howard), Veintiún together days (1937, Basil Dean) and Impasse (1938, Tim Whelan), the feline and delicate aspect of Leigh hid its true talent. Nevertheless, the film Which the wind took, paper that it obtained in fought competition, its distant fragility became the symbol of its interpretation. Victor Saville, his director in Storm in a teacup (1937), had known to detect this characteristic and was the one who he suggested to him appeared for the paper of Scarlet, personage who later would turn it one of main stars of the world-wide cinema.

Nevertheless, Leigh did not manage to achieve he himself success in his following films: The bridge of Waterloo (1940, Mervyn LeRoy), Lady Hamilton (1941, A. Korda) and Caesar and Cleopatra (1945, Gabriel Pascal). Its proud and unstable style did not return to appear until du Bois in the adaptation of the novel of Tennessee interpreted the personage of Blanche Williams a called street car desire, directed by Elia Kazan and with Marlon Brando like opponent, in which was the best paper of all its race. It maintained this same nervous and neurotic energy in two smaller films: the adaptation of the novel of Terence Rattingan The deep blue is (the deep blue sea, 1955), directed by Anatole Litvak, and the Roman spring of Mrs. Stone (1961), directed by Jose Quintero. In both films it repeated the sensational cautious combination of coquetería and jealous fury, qualities by which it had been distinguished in his papers of Escarlata and Blanche, confirming that was an intuitive actress much more who academic.