Vivienne has been indomitable ever since her cancer diagnosis a long time ago - can't even remember how long, perhaps 5 years? Here she is in February last year at Kate and Oscars birthday party, as glamorous and entertaining as she always was. She has been an example of huge courage and endless high spirits; between chemo sessions she would rest, recover and get up to something - her trip to India being a case in point.
She lost her battle yesterday. Her children were there; she died in her own bed with them playing music for her.
Her WikiP entry is fascinating - I didn't know she'd been in The Draughtsmans Contract and A Clockwork Orange - small roles but hey, great big films:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivienne_Chandler
What I do know - and isn't in Wikip - is that she acted as altar for pagan practitioner Gerald Gardner - but had to quit as she couldn't stop laughing. When your stomach is being used as an altar, laughing is out... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Gardner_%28Wiccan%29
When Vivienne first came to Esperaza she didn't have a car and used to take the train to Carcassonne. The first time I met her was on the train. A whole hours' journey is great for getting to know someone and we would chatter like schoolgirls, being a similar age and having shared many experiences (though I was never a pagan altar; perhaps l was never a virgin)
Last time we met she was resting, like all great actresses - Kat and I took pain au chocolate to her. She lay on her sofa looking very very thin but still beautiful. The docs had told her that she would die at the end of the month, May, and she wasn't having that - 'he was just being spiteful, darling'. She booked a trip to Texas to see her sister instead.
Alas and alas. She will be missed by us all who loved her. Bonne courage to Oonagh and her brothers and may her spirit sustain you.
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