Sunday Times 2
Vernon, Vivian and Sir Laurence
View(s):AS a broadcaster on the Arts, Vernon Abeysekera met and interviewed many celebrities. His most memorable meetings were with the husband and wife actors, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier. This was during the filming of “Elephant Walk”, which was shot in Ceylon in 1953.
Ceylon rendezvous: Vivian Leigh and Sir Laurence Olivier
The story of Leigh’s predicament during the filming is well-known – that she suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be replaced by Elizabeth Taylor in the lead female role. Behind the scenes, a lot was going on.Laurence Olivier, who was not in the film, flew from England on hearing that his wife was getting romantically involved, off the set, with the lead actor, Peter Finch. Olivier’s frantic visit was of no avail. Disgruntled, he told Vernon Abeysekara off the record: “I have wasted two weeks of my life coming to this country.”
Smoking a Gitanes, Vernon interviewed a troubled, distracted Vivien Leigh. At one point in the conversation, recorded for Radio Ceylon, Leigh could take the French cigarette no longer and, most artistically, as if in a scene from a movie, gently caught Vernon’s cigarette hand by the wrist, raised his arm, turned it in a perfect circle and returned it to its original position. All the time, she was talking into the microphone. Vernon mimed an apology and extinguished the Gitanes. He would later quip that Vivian Leigh led everyone a dance, including his cigarette-holding hand.