Vivien Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Stanwyck
L-P Movie Stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood
Mar 30, 2009
Continuing from G-K Movie Stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, these actors and actresses are just a few of the people who paved the path of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
L – Vivien Leigh
Born on November 5, 1913 while her British parents were living in India, Vivien Leigh is most remembered for her Oscar-winning performance as Scarlett O’Hara in the Civil War lavish epic Gone With The Wind (1939). Shortly after completing the film, Leigh returned to England for patriotic reasons due to her native nation having become involved in World War II. Leigh continued to star in movies, including the patriotic ventures Waterloo Bridge (1940) and That Hamilton Woman (1941).
Also an accomplished stage actress, Leigh originated the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End production of the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire. She won her second Academy Award for her performance of the role in the 1951 film adaptation. However, the emotionally charged role is thought to have triggered a worsening of her manic depression, which she battled throughout her adult life.
Leigh was married twice. She gained both her stage name and her only child, Suzanne, but her romance and twenty year marriage to revered actor Laurence Olivier is much more often remembered.
Vivien Leigh died of a reoccurrence of tuberculosis in 1967. Although divorced from Leigh, Olivier was said to be distraught, even sitting by her dead body for an extended period and assisting to make her funeral arrangements. The lights of London’s West End were dimmed in her honor.
M – Marilyn Monroe
Born in California on June 1, 1926, Marilyn Monroe experienced a tragic childhood, but became one of the most iconic movie stars to have ever lived. Although often typecast as a dumb blonde, Monroe showed versatility even in the single year of 1953 as a serious actress in Niagara, as a comedian in How To Marry A Millionaire (1953), and as a musical talent Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).
Monroe married three times, but her second husband, baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio is often considered to be the love of her life. Although she is said to have desired children, she had none, dying at the tragically young age of thirty-six in 1962.
N – New Yorker Barbara Stanwyck
Born in New York on July 16, 1907, Barbara Stanwyck is famous for playing strong minded female characters in a wide range of differing roles, playing, for example, the sympathetic working-class girl in Stella Dallas (1937), the scheming murderess in Double Indemnity (1944), and the disturbed socialite in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946).
Stanwyck was four times nominated for the Oscar, but only received an Academy Award when she was honored with a lifetime achievement award. Her individual performances had gained her a Golden Globe Award and three Emmy Awards.
Stanwyck married twice, never having children. Her second marriage (1939-1951) was to fellow film star Robert Taylor, but the marriage ended in divorce. She died at age eighty-two in 1990.
O – Maureen O’Hara
Born in Ireland on August 17, 1920, Maureen O’Hara first came to Hollywood to be in the film The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) opposite Charles Laughton. O’Hara soon became famous for playing feisty ladies, and perhaps her most well known films are co-staring longtime friend John Wayne. The two made five films together, including Rio Grande(1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Wings of Eagles (1957), McLintock! (1963), and Big Jake (1971). O’Hara is also often remembered from playing the mother in the original The Parent Trap (1961).
O’Hara was married three times. Her first marriage lasted little longer than the ceremony, never being consummated and soon annulled. O’Hara then wed director Will Price, but the couple parted due to his alcohol abuse. In later life O’Hara enjoyed a happy marriage with pilot Charles F. Blair.
P – Pinup Girl Betty Grable
Born in Missouri on December 18, 1916, Betty Grable became a beloved movie star of Old Hollywood. Perhaps now most often remembered as the foremost pinup girl of World War II, the photo of her picking over her shoulder while wearing a swimsuit has become iconic, and her legs her famously insured by the studio for one million dollars with Lloyds of London.
Grable married twice, first to former child-star Jackie Coogan, and next to big band leader Harry James. Although having two daughters with James, after twenty-two years the marriage ended in divorce. Grable died only eight years later in 1973.
Gary Cooper, Ginger Rogers, James Stewart, Shirley Temple, Marlene Dietrich
Brief biographies of Old Hollywood movie stars continues with Q-U Movie Stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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