Vivien Leigh’s diary reveals moment she deserted husband for Laurence Olivier

 It was an open secret in the 1930s that the film star, who would go on to win an Oscar for Gone With The Wind, was having a steamy affair with acting great Laurence Olivier. 

Out of duty to their spouses the pair tried to resist before bowing to the inevitable and running away together. 

Leigh’s black leather-bound diary, which has been unveiled for the first time prior to being auctioned, gives an insight into her turmoil. Torn between honouring her marriage vows and following the path of true love she made the momentous decision to leave husband Leigh Holman and their daughter. 

Holman was a barrister and 13 years her senior but the actress fell head over heels for Olivier when they were cast as lovers in the swashbuckling fi lm Fire Over England in 1937. At the time Olivier was married to actress Jill Esmond and they had an infant son. 

Leigh’s diary, spanning 1937- 1939, is part of a collection of her possessions being auctioned in London by Sotheby’s on September 26. About 300 items are being sold by her three grandsons, including a painting of roses given to Leigh by her friend Winston Churchill which is expected to fetch up to £100,000. 

The appointment diary, which also records visits to theatres to watch Olivier, is expected to attract bids of up to £3,000. 

It shows how the actress, then in her mid-20s and celebrated for her stunning looks, assiduously detailed every event in her life. She was besotted with Olivier and seized any opportunity to be near him, even if it was an occasion which involved his wife. In May 1937 all three travelled to Denmark for a production of Hamlet. 

BUT her determination to end the romance failed that summer. “Told Leigh,” she records on June 10 1937, condensing the moment she broke the news of her affair. This entry is followed a day later by the confirmation of her flight into Olivier’s arms: “Left with Larry.” 

Leigh’s tortured state of mind is indicated by frantic pencil strikes through the entry, as if that would erase the hurt she was causing her family. Neither of their spouses would initially grant a divorce so Leigh and Olivier, then 37, moved in together. They were the golden couple of British acting and the affair, which the film industry tried to keep secret, caused a scandal. 

There were later attempts to reconcile with their spouses but Leigh and Olivier were eventually married in 1940 in front of only a handful of guests in California. The passion between the couple during this period is also evident in letters held in the Victoria & Albert Museum archives. 

“I woke up absolutely raging with desire for you,” Olivier writes in one, to which Leigh replies: “If we loved each other only with our bodies I suppose it would be all right. I love you with much more than that. I love you with, oh everything somehow, with a special kind of soul.” 

Later Olivier writes to Leigh, who was born in India in 1913 but sent to England for her education: “You are in my thoughts and weighing so heavily in my heart all the time. I am only existing until I see you again and only just managing to do that.” 

The couple created a storm when they headed for Hollywood when both were still married to other people but the scandal did not stop Leigh winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind in 1939. She won another in 1952 for her role as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. 

Olivier, who is considered one of our greatest actors for his ability to switch effortlessly from stage to screen, went two better wining four Oscars. Of particular note was his brooding Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Yet there was to be no happy-ever-after in the love story of Vivien and Larry. 

Leigh, who contracted TB in Africa in the 1940s, battled against ill-health and depression. In 1947 the pair toured Australia to promote the Old Vic theatre but she often refused to go on stage. Crew members reported furious fights between husband and wife, which sometimes ended in Leigh slapping Olivier, who was knighted that year. 

Two miscarriages made matters worse and she suffered a nervous breakdown. It was said that she was envious of his career continuing while hers was hampered by illness. 

In 1958 Olivier began a relationship with actress Joan Plowright, who became wife number three. Leigh, in turn, had an affair with actor Jack Merivale, apparently with Olivier’s blessing, and they were divorced in 1960. But when Leigh succumbed to a recurrence of TB in 1967 it was Olivier, consumed by anguish, who rushed to her death bed. She was just 53. 

Shortly before he died in 1989 Olivier was watching one of Leigh’s old films with a friend. With tears in his eyes the old actor is said to have remarked: “This, this was love. This was the real thing.”