Vivien Leigh’s fame was as much a product of her talents and extraordinary beauty as for her affair with Laurence Olivier. She was born Vivian Mary Hartley in Darjeeling, Bengal, in British India, where her father was cavalry officer. She was sent at a boarding school at the age of eight, but stayed for a short while before her father, travelling through Europe, took her with them. The worldly experiences gained during her travels no doubt shaped young Vivien’s outlook, as did her passion for the world of acting that led her father to enroll 18 year-old in London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

On this day, May 9th, in 1940, the actress that would go on to achieve silver screen glory in Gone With the Wind made her stage debut in America, playing alongside her soon-to-be husband Laurence Olivier. The show was not a success — one New York Times critic noted “Miss Leigh and Mr Olivier … hardly act their parts at all.”

Although they failed to convince the critics, Leigh and Olivier really were lovers, striking up an affair after co-starring in the 1937 film Fire Over England. At the time both were already married. After both obtained divorce from their spouses, Leigh and Olivier wed in a ceremony in Santa Barbara in August of 1940, just five months after their opening their show on Broadway.