HUGO VICKERS Biographer & Historian
'Perhaps the most sympathetic of Vivien's biographers, Vickers is certainly the most comprehensive … fresh, informative and witty …The quality that really distinguishes this biography from its predecessors and from the rash of theatrical lives now littering contemporary lists, is Hugo Vickers's sympathy with his subject as a vibrant human being'

– Anthony Holden - The Times
6 October 1988



'Vickers does not fail a great star'

– William Russell - Glasgow Herald
15 December 1988



'This immensely enjoyable and sometimes surprising biography is surely one of the best to have appeared this year'

– Penny Botting - Books
October 1988



'sympathetic and richly detailed'

– Judy Diss - Herald Express, Torquay
13 December 1988



'Thorough and professional'

– Moira Shearer - Daily Telegraph
8 October 1988



'Having fallen for Vivien Leigh himself, he has told her story as well as it is ever likely to be told'

– Patrick Taylor-Martin - Literary Review
October 1988



'Vickers … adopts an extremely scholarly approach to his subject … There is an obvious authority and thoroughness in his work'

– Brian Pendreigh - The Scotsman
3 December 1988



'Undoubtedly one of her most tender biographers'

– Heather McGlone - Daily Express
1 October 1988



'Mr Vickers's Vivien Leigh clearly supplants all other accounts of her life'

– Mark Amory - Sunday Telegraph
16 October 1988



'Vickers has a waspish eye, ear and pen for social disasters, and there were to be a good many of those in Vivien's doomed life'

– Morley - Sunday Times
9 October 1988



'Vickers is not keen to show his beautiful and brilliant heroine as a neurotic victim. Yet, finally, that is exactly how she appears: victim to a beauty that was always just that little more evident than her talent'

– Rachel Billington - Financial Times
29 October 1988



'A thorough insight into the life and loves of a beautiful star

– Tom Forsyth - The Press and Journal
2 November 1988



'The book takes the lid off Hollywood glamour'

– Medical Monitor
16 December 1988



'I appreciated Hugo Vickers's highly sympathetic biography of Vivien Leigh … Hugo Vickers has written a meaningful and informative account of the life of one of the most remarkable actresses of our day'

– Norman Cook - Liverpool Daily Post
17 November 1988



'Hugo Vickers … scrittore di qualita'

– Gaia Servadio - la Stampa
4 January 1989



'There are many interesting things in this book and the author handles sensitive areas with beautiful phrases and sometimes curious reticence'

– Loree Hancox - Advertiser, Geelong, Victoria
ca 1989



'One cannot doubt that Hugo Vickers's astute volume will delight Vivien Leigh fanciers'

– Michael Shmith - The Age, Melbourne
18 March 1989



'Vickers clearly respects and sympathises with his subject and his book is an honest attempt at separating the woman from the legend'

– Sunday Times
10 June 1990



'Thorough, three-dimensional, convincing - and one of the century's two or three greatest love affairs really hits home'

– Jim Kobak - Kirkus Reviews
15 April 1989



'Vickers is a consummate biographer and has produced what may be the definitive biography of the late actress'

– Marlene Eilers - Associated Press
1989



'Well researched and fascinating to read'

– William T. Noble - The Oakland Press
1989



'Highly acclaimed when it came out in the hardback edition … An illustrious career makes the basis for a notable biography'

– Evening Post, Leeds
21 April 1990



'In this honestly adoring biography Hugo Vickers strips away the gilt to show an ordinary, suffering human being touched by tragedy'

– Sean Thomas - Mail on Sunday
22 April 1990



'Vivien Leigh's story has been told before, but never with such detail or with such sympathy. She emerges from this volume as a glorious, lost creature, who might have been saved if medical science had been more advanced, or she a little less than Vivien'

– Samantha Moore - Portfolio
August 1990



'This well-illustrated biography of Vivien Leigh ranks among the best'

– Lionel Farrell - Australian press
23 June 1990

Vivien Leigh (1988)
Hardback (UK) 1988
Hardback (US) 1989
Paperback (UK) 1990
Hardback (US) 2007