100 days til Oscar
Friday, November 1, 2019 at 11:31AM It's exactly 100 days until the 92nd Academy Awards. What amazing Oscar record would you scream "100%!" at?
Our answer: Vivien Leigh's two-for-two Best Actress wins (Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire) both monumental pieces of lead acting, but in different modes though both characters are iconic Southern Belles. The first win was an A+ screen presence triumph, the epitome of a "star turn" or 'star is born' movie-movie event. The latter win was for the kind of exquisitely nuanced, passionate depth to a gloriously meaty part that only actors of that caliber are able to achieve. TFE is here for Leigh both times without question. Usually two Oscar wins can feel excessive (when so many top notch actors never manage one) but not in this case.
Reader Comments (20)
This is my favorite post. EVER.
In that photo she looks like a cross between Elizabeth Perkins and Debi Mazar.
100% agreed. Two outstanding performances! Sort of THE bellwether for film actressing!!!
What about the other 2+ oscar winners? which ones are you there for?
What a brilliant actress and what an extraordinary beauty Vivien Leigh was !
Along with Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice these are my favorite Best Actress wins of all time. Simply astonishing.
I'd say all of Day-Lewis's three wins are equally unassailable.
I recently rewatched STREETCAR when it was on TCM the other day and "WOW"... she really goes for it doesn't she?
Brando's Two.
Still waiting for her biopic! Not only is she, without a doubt, the best two-time acting winner (with a perfect Oscar record), but her life is also fascinating! Lady Olivier, the personal bouts with mental health, dying of TB in the '60s at age 53! I know they announced one in development 2 years, but hoping it actually comes to fruition. And thinking another British Oscar winner would be perfect for it: Rachel Weisz
Yes, sir, we agree with the whole thing. One of my favorites of Leigh is also her favorite movie and of her co-star Robert Taylor, the beautiful Waterloo Bridge, made after Gone With The Wind and where she plays a traditional romantic leading lady character. From early in her film career there is The Sidewalks of London where she makes a beautiful duet with another of my favorites, Charles Laughton, which I recently watched and is incredible - about artists dreaming of stardom and battling the hardships of everyday life, also with a very young Rex Harrison before My Fair Lady. Wonderful to see her in the unattainable colors of Scarlett O'Hara, but for me she will always be one of the black-and-white queens like Hedy Lamarr and Elizabeth Taylor.
Agreeance that a biopic would be fascinating. I've only ever seen her in GWTW & SND and she is truly brilliant in both.
Is anyone able to match her beauty?
I always wanted to see her "Anna Karenina".
She didn't like the movies, her life was the stage, but what she did on the big screen is impressive. After Gone With The Wind, declined countless proposals and when it came to "southern belle with temper and dubious reputation" she was first on the list, as for Saratoga Truck's Clio Dulaine - movie and character has something of Gone With The Wind that Ingrid Bergman made with dark hair and her inseparable swedish accent. She maintained her superstar status until the end thanks to the Gone With The Wind's successful constant relaunches that got MGM out of financial trouble. At some point in her career she made films just to invest money in the plays she was so pleased with and her loyal audience, like Robin Hood - taking from the rich (film producers) and giving to the poor (theater). She did not survive, as did her colleague Olivia de Havilland, to see the great repercussions of the movie's debut on TV or the controversy of the movie's screening in the new times. Or to see the legend the film and herself became.
Both awards so richly deserved and its wonderful that she has that 100% record but for my money she should have been nominated and won the year following GWTW for Waterloo Bridge Another deeply intricate performance.
She gave many fine film performances in addition to the two iconic ones you mention
Waterloo Bridge
That Hamilton Woman
Anna Karenina
The Deep Blue Sea
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
The Ship of Fools
She is one of the biggest. I would love to have seen her in Rebecca, which she and Olivier wanted her to do. Selznick's refusal meant that the then couple would never make another movie produced by him again. She has three other records:
1) First British actress to win an Academy Award
2) First British actress to win two Academy Awards
3) First British actress to win a Bafta (for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1953)
Oh, and she was a Cat Lover! - One more reason to adore her!
She was at the right time, at the right place, and at the appropriate age when she found these two magnificent roles. And it's good that they're so different, almost antagonistic. Brando, the Stanley for her Banche, thought her Blanche was better than the original Blanche on stage, Jessica Tandy.
We could have been talking about a 3/3 case instead of 2/2 if Vivien Leigh hadn't turned down Room At The Top, a big hit and a favorite of that year's awards, which gave french Simone Signoret an Oscar.