1938; for though twenty years have passed over it, it remains clear and sweet in their imagination... They crossed France in an old car of Vivien's and set down their baggage on a quiet shore in the bay of Saint-Raphaël. And there, in the last summer before the last war, they swam lazily and stretched out on the red sands in the blaze of the July sun... and they were the two happiest creatures alive! They passed the time recalling the events of the two past years, since they had first met, and how their relations had grown into an intimate love and understanding.

Their story began in London. Vivien saw Laurence for the first time in a small café, where he sat at supper after finishing a performance... Vivien had already won success in the play "The Mask of Virtue" and had drawn all eyes with her beauty, her vivacity, and her charm... And when her companion John Buckmaster remarked that Laurence looked strange without his mustache, she was astonished to find herself defending him and opposing her companion's opinion!

The connection might well have stopped at the point

of admiration, but circumstances willed that they be brought together again. For Sir Alexander Korda, who was searching for a girl to play the role of "Cynthia," Queen Elizabeth's attendant, in the film "Fire Over England," chose Vivien Leigh — and chose Laurence Olivier for the role of the young man who makes love to her! And so their first real acquaintance was a sweet trial that paved the way for the birth of a true feeling between two gifted young people.

While making this film, Laurence found himself taken by Vivien's beauty and the gentleness of her talk, and his expectations were confounded, for he had supposed he would end at odds with her, as in his previous experiences with his leading ladies; but this leading lady was different from them all, and with her he was another man... Could this be love?