Vivien Leigh looked in the mirror and saw a face the world called the pinnacle of beauty, and felt it was a mask stopping anyone from taking her seriously as a disciplined artist. Drawing on memoirs, theater reviews and historical medical accounts, this episode looks for the fiercely ambitious performer behind the famous face, a woman who fought misunderstood illnesses while delivering some of the most complex performances of the twentieth century.

The discussion begins in Darjeeling in 1913, moves through convent school in England and years in France and Italy, and covers her marriage to a barrister that pulled her out of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It follows her overnight success in The Mask of Virtue in 1935 and the imposter syndrome it triggered, her calculated campaign to win Scarlett O'Hara, a grueling shoot marked by secret c ...