Vivien Leigh was considered to play the lead role.

Vivien Leigh filmed a few scenes, suffered a nervous breakdown, and had to be replaced. She is still seen in a few long shots.

Leigh was perhaps the most untypical actress considered for the role of Quaker minister, wife and mother Eliza Birdwell, but she was in the running among many other lead actresses of the time.

Leigh desperately wanted to play Ophelia in her husband Laurence Olivier's film, but he felt that she was too old for the role.

She refused the role of Miriam, telling director Robert Aldrich via Western Union, "I could just about look at Joan Crawford's face on a Southern plantation at 6:00 in the morning; I couldn't possibly look at Bette Davis's."

Vivien Leigh wouldn't do it unless it was filmed in England. The role went to Olivia de Havilland.

Joshua Logan, the film's original director, wanted either Leigh and Clark Gable, the stars of "Gone With the Wind," or Gable and Colbert, the stars of "It Happened One Night," to reunite to play the parents of the title hero.

David O. Selnick refused to permit the Oscar-winning star to appear in the film version of the Jane Austen novel opposite her husband Laurence Olivier.

Director Alfred Hitchcock screen-tested Vivien Leigh for the role Joan Fontaine eventually played, but found Leigh too beautiful and sophisticated for the role.

Offered the role of "Alice Aisgill."

Vivien Leigh was the first actress attached to play Violet Venable, but withdrew to do a play instead.

Leigh declined the role of Heathcliffe's abused wife "Isabelle Litton" when it was offered to her after the filmmakers turned down in her bid to play "Cathy ."