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 Later, he would observe that he "lost Vivien" in Australia. The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first West End appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, "Antigone," included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a tragedy. Leigh next sought the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire" and was cast after Williams and the play's producer Irene Mayer Selznick saw her in "The School for Scandal" and "Antigone"; Olivier was contracted to direct. The play contained a rape