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 stamps, along with Sir Alfred Hitchcock, Sir Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers and David Niven to commemorate "British Film Year". In April 2013 she was again included in another series, this time celebrating the 100th anniversary of her birth, achieving the rare accolade for a non-royal of appearing on British stamps on more than one occasion. The British Library in London purchased the papers of Laurence Olivier from his estate in 1999. Known as "The Laurence Olivier Archive", the collection includes many of Vivien Leigh's personal papers, including numerous letters she wrote to Olivier. The papers of Vivien Leigh, including letters,