‘Dark Star’ is a suitable enough title in itself, but the definition makes it a brilliant one: ‘A Dark Star’, we are told in this book, ‘is shadowed, often detectable by its gravitational effect on other bodies. It is often a component of a binary star and can cause the brightness of its visible partner to vary periodically.’ That is to say, Vivien Leigh was bipolar and married Laurence Olivier, and these things dominated her life.
She was born in Darjeeling in 1913, her father, Ernest Hartley, a stockbroker. When she was six, she was sent to school in England. This was not unusual, but that does not mean that she did not feel abandoned. She was educated by Roman Catholic nuns and read a lot, including Rudyard Kipling.
Vivien had a gift for prophecy. ‘When I leave school, I am going to be a great actress,’ she announced; and Strachan convincingly argues that she did become one.
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