Vivien Leigh

Birth Name: Vivian Mary Hartley

Date of Birth: 5 November, 1913

Place of Birth: Darjeeling, Bengal Presidency, British India

Date of Death: 8 July, 1967

Date of Place: London, England, U.K.

Ethnicity: English, likely Armenian and Irish

Vivien Leigh was a British actress. She twice won the Academy Award for Best Actress, for Gone with the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She also starred in Caesar and Cleopatra, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, and Ship of Fools.

She was born in India. Her father, Ernest Richard Hartley, was English, and may have been born on the Isle of Islay, Argyll, Scotland or in Bingley, West Yorkshire, England. Her mother, Gertrude M. F. (Yackjee/Yackje), was born in Darjeeling, India.

Vivien had a daughter, actress Suzanne Farrington, with her first husband, barrister Herbert Leigh Holman.

There are at least three different couples referred to by genealogists as Vivien’s paternal grandparents. One couple are Seth Hartley and Sarah Jane Mawson. Seth was born in Calverley, West Yorkshire, England. Sarah was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England.

Vivien’s maternal grandfather was named Michael John Yackjee/Yackje (the son of Johannes/John Gabriel Yackjee and Elizabeth). It appears that Michael was of Armenian origin.

Vivien’s maternal grandmother was named Mary Therisa/Teresa/Theresa/I. Robinson (the daughter of James Wilson/Wilston Robinson). Vivien’s maternal grandmother was usually said to be the daughter of Irish parents.

Sources: Genealogies of Vivien Leigh – https://www.geni.com
https://genealogy.links.org
http://www.hartleyfamily.org.uk
http://townsley.info

Information about Vivien’s Armenian ancestry – http://chater-genealogy.blogspot.ca

A discussion of Vivien’s ancestry – http://www.gnxp.com

Marriage record of Vivien’s maternal grandparents, Michael John Yackjee/Yackje and Mary Therisa/Teresa/Theresa/I. Robinson – https://familysearch.org

ethnic

Curious about ethnicity

103 Responses

  1. Patty says:

    Ridiculous, I see nothing remotely East Indian about her. The “source” article even says that she was believed to have been of Armenian descent, not Indian.

    The name is Yackjee could be an Armenian name, I’ve also heard her mother was cared for by Indians whose name she possibly took up.

    • Poppy says:

      Whats so ridiculous about it.She is possibly a quarter Bengali Indian .
      Why could Yackjee be Armenian when that format is actually Bengali ?
      Armenian names usually end with ban or yan amongest others.

      Bengali names are peculiar to Bengal only.Not to other places in India and not to Armenia. Boris Johnson’s wife is half Punjabi and half English .When she wears Indian clothes she looks completey Indian.Otherwise she looks …..well English.

    • fbwfeiwb says:

      If it’s true, she would’ve only been a quarter Indian, which is not much. North Indians are mostly Caucasian and are also fairer, which could be why you can’t see the East Indian (if there is any, which has not been proven nor disproven). Not all Indians are the same.

  2. Poppy says:

    @Alice .Thank you for your posts.
    Have a lovely day :)

    Vivian Leigh was born in Darjeeling and its near to Bengal .You will find a lot of Bengali names end with a jee or gee such as Bannerjee,Mukerjee etc.That is peculiar to Bengal so her mothers maiden name being Yackjee fits in as well and thats even if they tried to change it .Someone said here that her mother had reddish hair so therefore Irish.I know full Punjabis with red hair so you can get red hair in the mix regardless .The Katherine Kirkpatrick who was half Indian and half Scots was red-haired and if you look at Padma Lakchmi’s baby Krishna….she is ginger/light brown and thats with Padma being a south Indian and the father being white.So yes…red heads are known in India.

  3. I love you, Roger Scientist says:

    It seems she is part Indian.

    Who said that she was part Armenian?

  4. poppy says:

    It is very very rare for Indians to have “tight hair” as some poster has implied .If anything Indian hair is glossy,thick or fine but straight as a ruler .Indian/Russian and Chinese hair is used to make wigs as its considered the best hair.
    To have an Indian in the background was not taboo for the Brits as the upper classes had a lot of inter marriage with Indians .2 of 3 Brits in India were married to Indian women.The British women then started to go to India as part of the “fishing fleet” to snare a husband.Most of the upper classes had people/men there.
    One of Thomas Carlyle’s classic books is based on his love for Katherine Kirkpatrick a noblewoman whose mother was Indian.That was never hidden and her mother was much sought after .

    People like Cliff Richard were of the ordinary class so they identified or tried to with Britain and pretended to be English when they were Anglo-Indian on both sides.I have seen lighter Indians than Cliff.

  5. poppy says:

    Vivian Leigh is Anglo Indian meaning she has an Indian in her background .Merle Oberron is also of an Indian background.Nicolette Sheriden’s grandmother is Punjabi .
    Bryan Ferry,Englebert,Cliff Richard,Seb Coe are mixed Indian.The Beatles ex drummer Pete Best was mixed Indian.Eden Kane,Sarstedt were mixed.No end of authors and writers including Alistar McLean.Ruskin Bond.
    Freddie Mercury was 100% Indian of the north Indian variety where you could not really tell if he was Indian or European.
    Four Prime Ministers of the UK have Indian in them and they are both William Pitts,Lord Liverpool and Ramsay McDonald.

    Think thats enough to get on with but the point is that you can’t really tell too much bcuz the Indian part still has caucasian features….only the skin colour varies if at all since some north Indians can be as light if not lighter than some Europeans.

    • Alice says:

      Thanks Poppy. I found your post very interesting. I never knew about Bryan Ferry and Pete Best. It just goes to show that you cannot tell what a lot of people ancestry.

      • Alice says:

        It just goes to show you cannot tell what a lot of people’s ancestry is by what they look like.

        • poppy says:

          @Alice…thank you Alice .
          Vivian Leigh was born in West Bengal and they have surnames like Bannerjee,Mukerjee and Chatterjee .
          The end part can be spelt JEE,GEE,JI or GI so her mothers surname seems to fit the bill for a Bengali.Ben Kingsley is another one.Bhanji and redheads are fairly common in the north of Indian but common if they are mixed as well as Vivian Leighs mother is described.Padma Lakchmi is a south Indian yet her child is gingery light brown as the father is white.Katherine Kirkpatrick is also described as redhaired and she was half Indian.

    • ae11 says:

      A bunch of “celebs” with no whatsoever or distant Indian ancestry and now Indians are basically European? Hahaha…

      • Tom says:

        Its always been known that Vivien Leigh had a recent Indian ancester and through the maternal line. Julie Christie and Joanna Lumley were born in India too but are both English and nobody is saying different.Five generations of Joanna’s family on both sides born there .Julie Christie’s father had an Indian family as well who he apparently doted on. That caused Julie’s mother to divorce the father.

        Vivien Leigh is the more beautiful because she has that Indian contribution.

      • fbwfeiwb says:

        No, but Indians and Europeans are related.

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