GETTING IT OFF: one of the first movies..50 years ago....
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In April 1937 Vivien Leigh, one of the most popular actresses of the 20th century, had been in a rapturous sexual relationship1 with Laurence Olivier for nearly two years. At the time both of them were married to someone else. Olivier was a major actor-interpreter of Shakespeare for his time. Leigh had just begun her acting career. In April 1937 the Baha’i teaching Plan opened. Leigh moved in with Olivier 8 weeks later. And so began one of the famous romances of the twentieth century. Leigh had the intuition, some time in May of 1937, after reading Gone With the Wind which had won the Pulitzer Prize that year, that she would play the part of Scarlett O’Hara in the movie Gone With the Wind. And so she did: on Christmas Day 1938 she was offered a contract for the part. And so began her life of Hollywood fame.
In 1932 Vivien Leigh had married. She was not yet 19. That year, the Greatest Holy Leaf, the sister of Baha’u’llah, died. She was, it could be said, the last treasured remnant of the Heroic Age. Shoghi Effendi referred to her as “the treasured Remnant of Baha’u’llah.”2 The Heroic Age had drawn to a close and, with 1932, its last remnant was laid to rest on Mt. Carmel. Nabil’s Dawnbreakers was also published that year. That great Heroic Age had, indeed, ‘gone with the wind.’
Now readers may wonder at the connection I make between the two: the movie and the religion. I first saw the film in about 1953, the same year I first heard of the Baha'i Faith. I make the connection because it is meaningful to me. The film and the religion go hand in hand. Those for whom the connection has no meaning are advised to simply move on--as we so often do with stuff we read. You might like to try the following poem on. It's a poem that tries to do what we all do: integrate our own lives with stuff in the movies.–Ron Price with appreciation to 1Michael Sauter, “Love Lives-Laurence Olivier & Vivien Leigh,” Internet Site, 2005; and 2Shoghi Effendi, Letter From Shoghi Effendi, July 17th 1932.
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They had absolutely no idea
that a holy enterprise had also
got off, one whose uninterrupted
prosecution would attract
unimaginable blessings and entail
far-reaching consequences.
The 25th anniversary1 of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s
visit to America was not commemorated
by these two famous lovers in 1937
as the Heroic Age inevitably slipped
into history’s abyss, gone-with-the-wind:
as a star-studded historical cinema epic,
the highest grossing film in Hollywood history,
with its record-breaking number
of Academy Awards was about to
translate a 1000 page Pulitzer
Prize winning novel into the most
expensive film(with 2400 extras) produced.2
The American Baha’is in that same month
embarked on a sublime historic mission
which would release the potentialities
they had been so mysteriously endowed.
1 1912-1937
2 Gone With The Wind cost 4 million dollars to produce, a record-breaking sum.
Ron Price
October 2nd 2005
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That's all folks!
married 37 years, teacher 30 years, living in Australia 33 years; Baha'i 45 years.