In their heyday, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were the most glamorous and famous couple of stage and screen in Britain, he for his patriotic and patrician roles  as Lord Nelson and Shakespeare’s heroes and villains, she  as the  beautiful actress who won Hollywood’s most coveted role in Gone with the Wind as Scarlett O’Hara.

But the chemistry  between them had a dangerous side, overshadowed by her mental health problems and his ambition.  When they fought, it was bruising for both of them and shocking for their friends and colleagues.

Hollywood writer Stephen Galloway examines this combustible marriage with forensic care, having trawled through letters and  diaries and  quoting many of the couple’s closest friends and associates about the dynamics that made them so charismatic and yet so unhappy.

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