Lot 2214
Edward Reynolds Price (NC, 1933-2011), Autographed Portrait of Vivien Leigh
Lot Details & Additional Photographs
Sheet sight 9 x 7 1/4 in.; Frame dimensions 16 5/8 x 14 1/2 in.
Vivien Leigh (British, 1913-1967) was an actress who iconically starred as Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Blanche DuBois in the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She also won a Tony Award for her work in the Broadway musical version of Tovarich (1963).
The actress was admired by Edward Reynolds Price, an American poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, and James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Vivien opened on Broadway in Antony and Cleopatra, where Price met her after one of the performances. He recounted the event:
“Just before I left for the theatre, I sat down in my dim room in the nearby Taft Hotel and wrote Miss Leigh a fervent letter. I told her of my years of admiration and asked if I might come back briefly after the performance and see her.
After the performance for the next half-hour, I hung back while others were led up to what I assumed were the Oliviers’ dressing rooms- When all the others had come and gone, a tiny woman in a black-and-white lady’s-maid uniform rushed to the top of the stairs and, called out 'Mr. Price? Mr. Price? Oh, thank God. Miss Leigh is afraid you have left her. She is waiting for you.' Before I could stop, I was standing four feet from Vivien Leigh in a room no larger than an especially modest monk’s cell.
'Mr. Price, how kind of you to come here- and to write me such a lovely note - You were meant to come first.' (she truly said that). It was unmistakably Vivien Leigh yet much less worn than she’d seemed in Streetcar. The first paragon of beauty in my life had not only given a splendid performance in a supreme play, she’d also managed to maintain the face and body of an actual goddess. Her hair was wet and combed straight back, and she seemed to wear no eye makeup. I fixed on the famous eyes, and she held on mine with no sign of flinching. We spoke a few sentences I no longer recall (I can’t have stayed with her for more than five minutes). I praised her performance and told her I’d see the Shaw play tomorrow. Then I thanked her again, and again she held her hand out toward me. For the first time in my life, I bent to kiss a lady’s hand; and Vivien Leigh calmly bore my gesture.”
It is likely that this portrait of Leigh, attired in her costume from Gone with the Wind, was signed by the actress during this encounter, in 1951.
Slight toning and mat burn to the sheet, small tear at the upper left corner, adhered to the mat.
