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Gone with the Wind to Barcelona by Vivien Leigh

2021-05-03T11:38:26.156Z


The intimate objects of the Hollywood star that treasured a fan with whom she corresponded for years go up for auction


Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, naked, during their honeymoon in 1940, in some unpublished photos of the couple.

When she was 15, Elvira Clara Bonet saw

Gone with the Wind

in Barcelona

, the 1939 American blockbuster starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, which could not be released in Spain until 1950. And she was fascinated by the work of the actress who she embodied the vain, capricious, temperamental and persevering southern Scarlett O'Hara.

Since then, she began to buy the magazines in which she appeared with her second husband, also the actor Laurence Olivier: the couple was then targeted by the gossip press as one of the most glamorous of the moment.

When in 1957 he saw on

Saturday Graphic

that they were spending a few days on vacation in Torremolinos (Malaga), he decided to write him a postcard in which he confessed his admiration.

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It was the first of more than 40 letters crossed during 10 years, between the actress and the young follower (today 80 years old) of the Barcelona neighborhood of Horta that lasted until Vivien Leigh passed away in 1967. Bonet was received twice in the house Londoner of the actress.

The first was accompanied by a friend of hers who spoke English better than she.

The second, in November 1965, to the little Bonet send a medallion with GWTW (initial

Gone with the Wind

, the English title of

Gone with the Wind

, which earned him the first of his two Oscars) on the 25th anniversary of its premiere.

Leigh had long called the woman from Barcelona “my Spanish friend”.

Bonet has gathered around fifty objects that, together with the letters, will be sold online at the Setdart auction room on May 26.

Vivien Leigh's agenda from 1967, the year of her death, owned by Elvira Clara Bonet, up for auction in Barcelona.

After the actress's death from tuberculosis at age 53 in 1967, Bonet was invited to her funeral where she met such actors as Alec Guinness, Michael Redgrave and John Gielgud.

Despite dying, his relationship with the actress's family continued: with his daughter Suzanne, his mother Gertrude, his last partner, John Merivale, and even his maid, the Spanish Domitila Martínez.

It was then that they began to send her personal belongings of the actress who also played the unforgettable Blanche Dubois in

A Streetcar Named Desire

, which earned her her second Oscar in 1951: the silver and gold cigarette case with her initials VL with some of her latest cigarettes. , two pairs of 37 shoes, a purse, a cup in which she had tea, one of her nightgowns, her nail polish, one of her hats, the diary that used the year of her death with annotations such as "birthday of Mama ”or“ Dinner with Bill ”, the gloves she wore in

Mrs. Stone's Roman Spring

(1961), the monocle she wore in

The Ship of Fools

(the

last film in which he participated in 1965) or a

props

umbrella

used in

Gone with the Wind

.

In total, about 70 personal items, including the 45 letters, all in English, sent by the actress (the last the day before her death) from different parts of the world.

Now, everything is sold.

Vivien Leigh nightdress up for auction at the Setdart house.

The actress's cigarette case kept by Elvira Clara Bonet, up for auction in Barcelona.

For years Bonet had a small private museum with all these objects in one of the rooms of his house in the Horta neighborhood of Barcelona, ​​surrounded by photos and showing everyone who asked.

“I sell them, because of my age and because of an economic issue, with all the pain in my heart.

I hope that whoever buys them pampers them as I have done over the years ”, explains Bonet over the phone.

A pair of Vivien Leigh shoes, owned by Elvira Clara Bonet, which are sold at Setdart in Barcelona.

“I never asked Vivien for anything, I am not a collector, the objects I have collected are gifts that her family has given me. I have known five generations of the Leighs ”explains Bonet, who remembers how he was impressed to see the interpreter, and even disappointed, the first time he had her in front of her. “She was not the actress of 1939, at that time she was already 51 years old, she had a hoarse voice from smoking and looked older because she was affected by her illness. Although she was still a very elegant woman and had beautiful green eyes, ”she explains. And he adds: "She is a unique actress, there has not been one who surpassed her." Bonet assures that he has seen his 19 films "thousands of times, more than 2,000

Gone with the Wind

, but not in a row," he laughs.

The actress's stamp holder, another of the pieces that will be auctioned on May 26.

Many of the objects start with a price between 2,500 and 3,000 euros, such as the cigarette case, the glasses or the umbrella, but there are also cheaper ones, such as the shoes, between 600 and 700 euros.

Among the material that is sold, there are 23 unpublished photographs from the actress's personal album, including five photographs of Leigh and Olivier on their honeymoon in 1940 in which the couple appears without clothes bathing in a river.

"I hope they are not given much importance and I regret that they come to light, I have never shown them," he explains.

However, it is the lot that comes out with the highest price, between 7,200 and 7,500 euros and promises to be one of the high points of the auction.

She assures that she will continue to keep some objects, such as a pillow where Leigh rested her feet or part of the actress's ashes.

"Their mother gave them to me, who picked them up when, when they were thrown into a lake, they were left on top of some leaves that she kept," Bonet recalls.

Elvira Clara Bonet poses at her home in Barcelona in 2007 with Vivian Leigh memorabilia and objects. © Carmen Secanella

Vivien Leigh-related items are all the rage at auctions.

In 2017, Sotheby's of London, raised 2.5 million euros from the sale of other objects that belonged to him.

"All the lots are usually sold, at 100%, which is not the case with other auctions," explain Setdart sources.

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2021-05-03

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