Wishing you all a happy Valentine’s Day, wherever you are in the world. Enjoy some romantic quotes and photos starring Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier as well as some free music š
“I never thought it was possible to love anybody so much or quite so completely, or that anybody should be so wonderfully abundant and prodigal to me in everything I’ve wanted most. As we have settled down and become firmer in our minds, and more peaceful in our hearts, our life together has become so unbelievably beautiful. We have been through a terribly difficult two years…but I really believe that our love will justify itself in the end.”
“If I should die, think only this of me…” “I could not live without my Vivien Leigh.”
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“I realize that the memories I cherish most are not the first night successes, but of simple, everyday things: walking through our garden in the country after rain; sitting outside a cafe in provence, drinking the vin de pays; staying at a little hotel in an English market town with larry, in the early days after our marriage, when he was serving in the Fleet Air Arm, and I was touring Scotland, so that we had to make long treks to spend weekends together.”
“The trouble with Vivien was she absolutely adored Olivier. She worshipped him. But when she was with him, she couldn’t resist needling him like a bullfighter with a bull. She couldn’t resist trying to keep him up to her scratch and Larry couldn’t do it.”–Colin Clark
“..In 1943, Claude Dauphin and I found ourselves in England. Larry and Vivien invited us to Slough, a hamlet with a certain damp charm situated near London. Vivien had abandoned Hollywood, and all the glory of stardom which she no longer cared about, to share with her compatriots the ordeal of the Battle of Britain. Larry was on leave from the Navy. He was directing Henry V and playing the principal role in it. At midnight we left them. London was blazing under the bombardments. All my life I will remember the frail silhouette of Vivien as she accompanied us under the porch roof, looking serious and serene, nestled in her husband’s arms, and illuminated by the reddish flashes that signaled that a ‘V-I’ had just destroyed another district in London.”–Jean-Pierre Aumont
“I do not think there is a solitary second when my mind is not completely buried in you. You are really on my brain–I suppose if you happened to represent something dangerous I should be locked up–but no it’s not quite like that. I am not always thinking sweetly of you. I am thinking angrily or indignantly or sulkily, quite often, but I am never not thinking of you. More often than not I am just worried about you, concerned and distressed about my baby lamb being tired or unhappy–and of course often it is with mad, mad passion and sometimes it is naughty, sometimes, only sometimes is it dirty or even sadistic…You are all over me, in sorrow or in joy, all of the time–O yes in drunkenness too, in conversation, in work, with every breath and heart-beat.”–Letter from Larry to Vivien in 1939
“You know that whatever the dark thing is–that the slightest shadow across your life troubles me so much more than any harm to myself. You’re the only person in the world who can make hideously selfish me love anyone more than I do myself. You know don’t you my Vivien that if I try to save you disappointment or give you happiness it is only selfishness on my part really. Your sorrow is my worst fear…your life my life.”
“My love my Darling,
Thank you for my birthday love–it absolutely completed a happy day–How sweet of you…I hear such wonderful things, longing to see you.
Your Vivien”–Note from Vivien to Larry at the National Theatre in 1965
That really made Valentine’s Day special, thank you so much. The last quote from Vivien always chokes me up, it’s sweet and sad at the same time.
I agree. One wonders what exactly he sent or wrote to her to illicit that sort of response. Obviously she still had strong feelings for him, and I think it’s sweet he kept in contact
Larry’s words are so touching, there ‘s no doubt he really cared.. whenever I think of their last ten years together I can’t help feeling so sorry for him,because I think that there was something ruthless, self destructive in Vivien’s nature, not only due to her illness ,and she was someone that could really love you and hurt you at the same time ..odi et amo as Catullo said–
thank you for having posted these words of love, Kendra, I wish you a very sweet .Valentine’s Day!
what a beautiful post, thank you– I’m tearing up just reading it.
Larry looks like Stephen Tennant in that first picture.
Really lovely photos and quotes from Vivien and Larry, thank you!