One of the greatest screen actresses of all time, Vivien Leigh became an overnight star after playing the coveted role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (1939), one of classic Hollywood’s most celebrated films of all-time. More enamored with the stage than the screen, Leigh avoided the trappings of fame while seeking better roles to play.

She was also remembered for her 20-year marriage to fellow Brit, Laurence Olivier, a union that grew rockier thanks to infidelities on both sides and Leigh’s worsening struggles with bipolar disorder. In fact, Leigh’s career suffered tremendously due to her battles with mental illness, leading to routine breakdowns followed by long recoveries away from the screen.

Despite making only a handful of movies in the latter part of her career, Leigh reigned as one of Hollywood’s most idolized performers. She won two Oscars for Best Actress for a pair of iconic performances that few have been able to match. Here are six great films starring Vivien Leigh.

1. ‘Gone With the Wind’ – 1939

An epic historical romance adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s award-winning novel, Gone With the Wind ranks as one of the greatest classic movies ever made, and that has a lot to do with Leigh’s Oscar-winning performance as Scarlett O’Hara. Leigh was a little-known British actress who quietly became a favorite of producer David O. Selznick during the two-year search for the right person to play O'Hara, which included such names as Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Talullah Bankhead, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Arthur, Miriam Hopkins, and Paulette Goddard. She ultimately won the part, only to suffer a difficult shoot after original director George Cukor was replaced with Victor Fleming, with whom she frequently clashed. Regardless of the problems behind the scenes, Leigh delivered an iconic performance that earned her a Best Actress Oscar and became indelibly linked to the actress for the rest of her lifeMore »

2. ‘Waterloo Bridge’ – 1940

The second adaptation of Robert E. Sherwood’s novel, Waterloo Bridge was a watered-down melodrama that glossed over the seedier elements of the book while stilling offering Leigh a meaty role to sink her teeth into. Leigh played Myra Lester, a ballerina who falls in love with a British officer (Robert Taylor) from a wealthy family, only to see him ship off to fight in World War I and believes him to have been killed in battle. Out of work and impoverished, Myra spend a year turning tricks on the streets, only to discover that her love is alive and had been held in a prisoner of war camp, leading to her taking her own life. Leigh delivered an exquisitely nuanced performance that has often gone overlooked.More »

3. ‘That Hamilton Woman’ – 1941

The second film she made with husband Laurence Olivier, That Hamilton Woman was the last film Leigh made before suffering a series of personal setbacks that included a miscarriage and mental breakdown brought about by her bipolar disorder. A tragic tale of adultery, the film featured Leigh as a Emma Hart, young married woman who falls for a British naval hero, Lord Horatio Nelson (Olivier), seeking the king’s agreement to wage war against Napoleon. Both unabashedly carry on their affair despite her husband (Alan Mowbray) refusing to grant a divorce, but Emma suffers the ultimate despair when Nelson is mortally wounded in battle. Emma’s descent into depression mirrored Leigh’s own battle with despair in the mid-1940s that kept her away from movies for several years.More »

4. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ – 1951

Following a pair of forgettable screen performances with Caesar and Cleopatra (1946) and Anna Karenina (1948), Leigh returned to the stage for a successful turn as Blanche DuBois in a West End production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. That led to her being cast in Eliza Kazan’s film adaptation which starred Marlon Brando as the brutish Stanley Kowalski, Kim Hunter as Blanche’s sister Stella, and Karl Malden as Mitch. At first, Kazan was less than thrilled with Leigh playing Blanche and held her skills as an actress in little regard. But in seeing her willingness to give everything to the role he changed his tune and joined a chorus declaring the performance as being Leigh’s finest of her career. Leigh’s stellar turn earned the actress her second and final Academy Award for Best Actress, though she later admitted that diving headfirst into the role drove her off the edge of sanity in real life.More »

5. ‘The Deep Blue Sea’ – 1955

After suffering a nervous breakdown that again sidelined her career, Leigh bounced back once more to star in this deeply affecting adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play. Leigh likely tapped into her own struggles with mental illness to play Hester Collyer, an emotionally unstable woman trapped in a loveless marriage who carries on with a handsome RAF officer (Kenneth More), only to find herself cornered once more. She attempts suicide and is rescued by a disgraced doctor-turned-gambler (Eric Portman) who manages to ultimately save Hester from further tragedy. Despite the lack of chemistry with More, Leigh delivered an exemplary performance that was initially dismissed by critics at the time, but has been appreciated by later generations.

6. ‘Ship of Fools’ – 1965

With a divorce from Olivier in 1960, Leigh found some degree of stability when she took up with theater actor John Merivale and resumed acting on the stage, where she won a Tony for her performance Tovarich. She made only two more films after The Deep Blue Sea, 1961’s The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and this psychological drama directed by Stanley Kramer. Leigh starred opposite Lee Marvin as Mary Treadwell, an older attention-seeking woman to his Bill Denny, a philandering baseball player, only two of several colorful characters aboard a German ocean liner bound for Veracruz, Mexico. Leigh managed to shine above the rest of the ensemble cast and incessant speechifying, though Ship of Fools was the last time the actress appeared on film before her death from tuberculosis two years later.More »