Where Madness Lies: The Double Life of Vivien Leigh

Much has been written about actor Vivien Leigh, but this is the first biography to include an afterword containing channeled messages from Vivien’s spirit to her friend, psychic medium Sybil Leek. Spence (Cast a Diva: The Hidden Life of Maria Callas) begins in 1953 with Leigh’s affair with actor Peter Finch, her mental health crisis, and her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. But Spence sprinkles flashbacks to Leigh’s earlier life throughout. Born in Darjeeling, India, in 1913, she started performing early and always wanted to be an actor. She won two Best Actress Oscars (as Scarlett O’Hara in 1939’s Gone with the Wind and Blanche DuBois in 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire) and was considered one of the most beautiful women of her time. She was famously married to British actor Laurence Olivier, though the marriage ended in heartbreak. Her doctors arguably mismanaged her mental illness, and she never really recovered. She died at the age of 53 in 1967 after a severe bout of tuberculosis.