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
Vivien Leigh become characteristic of her. John Betjeman, the future poet laureate, described her as "the essence of English girlhood". Korda attended her opening night performance, admitted his error, and signed her to a film contract. She continued with the play but, when Korda moved it to a larger theatre, Leigh was found to be unable to project her voice adequately or to hold the attention of so large an audience, and the play closed soon after. In the playbill, Carroll had revised the spelling of her first name to "Vivien". In 1960 Leigh recalled her ambivalence towards her first experience of