In 1938, Vivien Leigh said she’d “go to Hollywood and make one film”. It sold 200,000,000 tickets

Vivien Leigh expected to make one Hollywood film and keep theatre at the centre of her career. Instead, her role as Scarlett O’Hara in *Gone with the Wind* made her an international star and helped turn the 1939 film into a landmark success.

In a 1938 interview, Leigh said she did not want a long-term Hollywood contract because it could limit her stage work. She had a two-film-a-year agreement with British producer Alexander Korda and hoped to travel to Hollywood for individual projects. Leigh won the Best Actress Oscar for *Gone with the Wind*, returned to British film and theatre, then won a second Oscar for *A Streetcar Named Desire* in 1951. The article also notes that aspects of *Gone with the Wind*, including its depictions of race and marital rape, have not endured well.