Vivien Leigh friendship developed after he congratulated her on her performance. Olivier and Leigh began an affair while acting as lovers in "Fire Over England" (1937), but Olivier was still married to actress Jill Esmond. During this period, Leigh read the Margaret Mitchell novel "Gone with the Wind" and instructed her American agent to recommend her to David O. Selznick, who was planning a film version. She remarked to a journalist, "I've cast myself as Scarlett O'Hara", and "The Observer" film critic C. A. Lejeune recalled a conversation of the same period in which Leigh "stunned us all" with the assertion that
Gone with the Wind (film) their distributors. A further re-release in 1971 allowed it to briefly recapture the record from "The Sound of Music", bringing its total worldwide gross rental to about $116 million by the end of 1971—more than trebling its earnings from its initial release—before losing the record again the following year to "The Godfather". Across all releases, it is estimated that "Gone with the Wind" has sold over 200 million tickets in the United States and Canada, generating more theater admissions in that territory than any other film. The film was phenomenally successful in Western Europe too, generating approximately 35 million tickets