Mental Health and The Kindness of Strangers

We all have mental health issues within our family history. I am the product of a very loving, wildly creative mother and a mentally damaged father. I’ve seen the toll firsthand on my brothers and sister, and worked hard to create a mentally healthy life. Recently, I wrote and am producing a film about just this issue. It’s called The Florist, and it follows one of our greatest actresses, 2-time Oscar-winner, Vivien Leigh. Most remember English actress, Vivien Leigh for her performances as Scarlett O’Hara or Blanche Dubois, both incredible, resilient, complex Southern women. Vivien, herself, was in the throes of mental illness for her entire life. My film, The Florist, follows her towards the end of her life – she died in her early 50’s –while she was receiving numerous electroshock (ECT) treatments which were thought to be the only thing that helped her depression and bi-polar/manic episodes. Her illness was so severe and hair-raising that I’m only thankful social media did not exist in her era as it would’ve made her life so much more difficult.

Photo: Vivien Leigh in her dressing room at the Huntington Hartford Theatre, Hollywood, during the American tour of Duel of Angels, 1960

Vivien was very pleasant, kind, sensitive and one of our greatest performers. Her performances are still to this day visceral and contemporary as she acted from a deep emotional place; I believe out of necessity. She couldn’t do otherwise. Elia Kazan once mentioned that during A Streetcar Named Desire it was impossible to tell where Blanche left off and Vivien began. That veil between reality and ‘acting’ had been torn. In The Florist, Vivien finds solace and connection with a local florist who delivers flowers to her after her treatments, on order from Sir Laurence Olivier, who was Vivien’s ex and great tortured love. Vivien finds someone who cares about her in Joseph Penn, the florist. He, unlike Vivien, has no sense of his artistry and what it means to create. He is a simple craftsman and is unable to express himself verbally, only through flowers. As he helps protect Vivien, she helps Penn understand who he is. Of course, their emotional love can’t be anything but that, and Vivien leaves Philadelphia where she is performing in a Chekhov play, never to see Penn again. The true story is based on letters written by Vivien expressing her love to the real Penn - Joseph Dellapenna. On this Mental Health Awareness Day, I wanted to shine a light on the simple act of connection and listening to people around you as a form of solace and therapy. Thinking of the great Vivien Leigh today….and the lost to time Joseph Dellapenna, Florist of Philadelphia.

Photo: Joseph Dellapenna

Jayce Bartok

Writer/Producer The Florist