Vivien soon met Laurence Olivier and followed him to Hollywood when he was signed to star in Wuthering Heights (1939). She was introduced to and convinced David Selznick to give her the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939) in which she made film history and earned her first Oscar for Best Actress. The following year, Vivien and Laurence married which also made Hollywood history since Leigh's Gone With the Wind and Olivier's Wuthering Heights had made them international stars.

Vivien continued dividing her time between the stage and film.  She played Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of Tennessee William's A Streetcar Named Desire in 1949  which eventually resulted her being cast in the role in the film version for which she won her second Academy Award as Best Actress and playing what some called an logical progression of her Scarlett persona.

In the early 1950s, Vivien's mental health grew more unstable and developed what we now call bipolar disorder  , although some have speculated that her initial bout of depression were caused by Larry's long-time affair with actor Danny Kaye. She had her first major breakdown in 1953 after going to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk (1954) with Peter Finch with whom she told Larry that she had an affair. After her breakdown, she was replaced in the film by Elizabeth Taylor. Vivien gradually recovered over a period of several months. In 1960, she and Olivier divorced. In his autobiography, Larry wrote " Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness – an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."

During the sixties, Viviwn earned critical praise for starring in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) and Ship of Fools (1965), and won Tony in the Broadway production of Tovarich (1963). But her manic-depressive interludes continued and was a cofactor in her continuing battle with tuberculosis from which she finally died in 1967. In 1986, a visitor to Larry's ' home found the 80-year-old film legend sitting alone in tears, watching Vivien in an old film on television. "This, this was love," he said,  "This was the real thing."

In 1939, the Scarlett O'Hara cocktail was concocted in tribute to the release of Gone with the Wind and remains a popular drink. So what could be a more appropriate way to celebrate Vivien's birthday than toasting her with a drink that that echoes her most
memorable role and watching Gone with the Wind for the umpteenth time?