Anne Edwards (1) (1927–2024)

Long before Meghan Markle delighted the tabloids and infuriated England’s Royal Family by setting her cap for a prince, there was Wallis Warfield Simpson – an American of humble beginnings, living in England with her second husband, who insinuated herself into high social circles and ended up the mistress of the heir to England’s throne.

Anne Edwards, whose Road to Tara was an exquisitely researched and informative look at the life of the author of Gone With the Wind, has, for some show more reason, chosen to present the Simpson biography as a novel. The reader is left constantly wondering which of the scenes and dialogue are made up whole cloth and which are quite likely true but cannot, for whatever reason, be substantiated to the degree demanded in a scholarly biography.

The overall story was front-page news in much of the world in the tumultuous years leading up to World War II – how the heir to the throne of England abdicated in order to marry the by-then twice-divorced Simpson. Edwards goes back much farther – to the early days of the 20th century and to a little girl shuffled between a loving but extremely proper grandmother and a feckless merry-widow mother whose impulsive but often unwise choices led to financial insecurity and even borderline homelessness for much of Bessie Wallis Warfield’s youth. Edwards uses this live-by-your-wits childhood to create a young woman determined to have everything she feels the world has denied her, and to get it by any means possible. This Scarlett O’Hara / Becky Sharp / Eve Harrington uses everyone she meets – her wealthy uncle Sol, her school friends, her extended family – to claw her way up the social ladder. At no time do we see Wallis (who dumped her inelegant first name in favor of her unique middle name as an adolescent) consider preparing herself for any career except that of wife, preferably to a man who can keep her in the style to which she would like to become accustomed. More than half the book follows Wallis through her first 20-some years and first two husbands before she finally meets Prince Edward and connives her way into his good graces.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for the American reader to accept is the widely-held notion that men of power and prestige have every right to keep a mistress. Marriage is business; sex is entertainment. And, within certain circles of upper-class British society, it was rather considered an honor to be cuckolded by a Royal. At any rate, that is how Edwards chooses to write the relationship between Wallis and the man who shared his wife with a Prince.

As the book draws to a conclusion, with Edward being pressured at the highest levels to give up his American mistress and take a royal bride, while he remains utterly adamant that he will have Wallis as his bride and queen, there’s an eerily prescient scene in which Wallis is riding in a car being pursued by reporters and photographers, and her bodyguard urges the driver to flee at high speeds. It’s almost the mirror image of a night half a century later when the Princess of Wales’ driver took a similar tactic, but which ended in tragedy.

Wallis: The Novel is a near-miss that will send many readers looking for either a genuine biography or a no-holds-barred roman a clef which needn’t be bothered with fussy historical accuracy. show less

Sad, fascinating. For a brief improbable moment the greatest star in the world but really a second-ranker. How unlikely that a prim well-brought up English convent girl got cast as these larger-than-life American viragos. Her descent into mani-depressive madness is touchingly told, including her writing exquisitely polite letters of apology to the friends she had attacked and shocked when in her manic fits. She clearly had great beauty and star quality, always wanted to be the legit show more classical actor and didn't quite have the skills. Olivier was her great love, idol and competitor, whose shadow she could not escape. A hint of hagiography in the writing but she does still captivate. show less

Before reading this biography I read a smattering of reviews and was surprised at a consistent theme that the author was too forgiving of Garland. I don't see that. She calls Judy a naïve addict, gullible and usine self-abuse and attempted suicide as attention-getting schemes. This is hardly flattering. Garland is responsible for her actions as an adult, but what responsible does a child vaudevillian have for early habits of go- and no-go pills? Judy was obviously surrounded by sycophants show more and handlers that profited from her exertions enabled by chemical dependency. The second visitation of ex-husband Luft as an instigator of transforming her career into indentured servitude with a contract containg hair-trigger harsh penalties is particularly galling. show less

Biographer Anne Edwards gives us a look at the life of Vivien Leigh in this reissue of her 1977 book.

Vivien Leigh was a noted, accomplished actress, immortalized by her two brilliant Oscar winning performances as Scarlett O'Hara in 'Gone With The Wind' and Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire". Two classic Southern American women: one hard as nails and determined to get what she wanted, the other a damaged, sensitive, fragile creature living in her own world.

In life, these two show more distinctly different personalities defined the real Vivien Leigh.

As a child of privilege, she matured into a young woman who knew what she wanted. From her beginnings as a fledgling stage and film actress, she was determined to achieve fame and success, and she got whatever prize she set her sights on. She met and fell in love with Laurence Olivier when each was married to another, each with a young child. They defied the convention of the time by living together, and when Olivier was offered the role of Heathcliff in 'Wuthering Heights', Vivien followed him to Hollywood, with her goal of winning the much sought after role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind".

What followed was film history, and Leigh and Olivier ultimately marrying and establishing themselves as the 'First Couple' of the British theatre. They traveled the world, their fame preceding them, and for years, these two highly sensitive people managed to combine their high profile marriage with their high profile, award winning careers.

Anne Edwards' book takes us on this journey - and we see Leigh's descent into mental illness as their marriage unravels. Never in excellent health, her first major breakdown occured while filming "Elephant Walk" in 1953. Olivier, stressed and concerned about his wife, began to slowly detach, and by the end of the decade, their marriage was over, and Vivien Leigh never fully recovered.

What I took from this biography of this great actress was that her talent and brilliance came at the price of her mental and physical health. Her erratic episodes of mental breakdowns were heartbreaking to read about, and her recoveries were incredible. When feeling well, Vivien Leigh was a charming, gracious, generous woman. She died young, of tuberculosis, in 1967 at age 53.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in the life of this gifted actress, who left the world not only with a string of stage succcesses, but also a legacy of film portrayals of indelible characters: Scarlett O'Hara, Emma Hamilton, Cleopatra, and Blanche DuBois. show less