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Vivien Leigh: Actress and Icon (MUP 2018) is an edited collection that seeks to offer new readings of the life and career of Vivien Leigh using a range of archival sources to explore Leigh’s approach to the craft of acting for stage and screen and how she shaped, developed and projected her public persona as one of the most talked about and photographed actresses of her era.
In this talk, the book’s editors, Kate Dorney and Maggie B. Gale discuss two of the book’s primary aims of drawing critical attention to Leigh’s acting practice and to debate how, why and to what extent an actress’s career was determined by their appearance and their ‘professionalism’ in the 20th century. The book’s purpose was to ‘re-write’ Vivien Leigh but also to develop methods for re-reading the life and careers of her female contemporaries and we are interested in conversations about how these strategies might be further developed.
Credit: Manchester University Press/Estate of Mme Yvevonde
Event price
FREE BUT BOOKING REQUIRED