It's safe to say, with no exaggeration, that 80 percent of the most sought-after, worthwhile scripts that floated around Hollywood between 1939-59 were offered first to our TCM Star of the Month for September, the staggeringly beautiful Vivien Leigh.

From the time audiences and producers first saw her in 1939's Gone With the Wind, she was numero uno for years on everyone's "most wanted" list--a status further bolstered by her follow-up triumphs in 1940's Waterloo Bridge and 1941's That Hamilton Woman. And why not? She was one of the most perfectly profiled and photogenic women of her time; she was also highly skilled as an actress and she exuded an aura of glamour and sophistication that took one's breath away.

Dazzling as a solo entity, the impact was amped up even more when she worked alongside her equally celebrated, matinee-idol husband Laurence Olivier. As the Oliviers, they reigned like no other married couple in the movies; studios sent them scripts by the truckload. But even when Olivier was not a part of a package, an avalanche of choice scripts came rolling Leigh's way, and most she nixed. To name only a few: very early on there was a proposed Cyrano de Bergerac with Charles Laughton, and The Thief of Bagdad and Wuthering Heights in which William Wyler proposed the then-unknown Leigh play the second female lead. When she told Wyler she was only interested in playing the pivotal woman's role, he famously replied, "You'll never get a better offer for a first film role in Hollywood than that." (Within a few months she was filming the Scarlett O'Hara saga.)

Later, she was asked to do Frenchman's Creek, Jane Eyre, Bedelia, Saratoga Trunk, The Voice of the Turtle, Forever Amber, Cass Timberlane, Tender Is the Night, My Cousin Rachel, Separate Tables, Bell Book and Candle, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and that's just for starters. What's so remarkable, and ironic, is that for all those choice screenplays being continuously and enthusiastically tossed her way, she ended up with but a handful of films on her resume. Before her international introduction in Selznick's Civil War opus, she had appeared in ten movies, most of them relatively minor efforts. Post-GWTW, she made only eight films in the twenty-eight years of her life that followed.

Yes, there were reasons. Like Olivier, she preferred working on stage in front of live audiences and spent much of her time playing Shakespeare, Shaw, Thornton Wilder, Williams and others. She also put her career on a long hiatus during much of World War II. Then there was a severe siege of tuberculosis, which confined her to bed for several months. There was also the loss of a child during pregnancy and eventual signs of mental instability which intensified as time went by. Later still, there was a necessity for shock treatments. But whenever she was well enough to work, and chose to do so, any appearance in a play or motion picture by Vivien Leigh became a major event.

This month, fifteen major events with Vivien Leigh await you, including two documentaries which further define her. A suggestion: make TCM a prime destination on Tuesdays throughout September. The view will stagger you.

by Robert Osborne