Myra Lester, a dancer in London during the First World War, falls in love with an officer — and their romance is shattered by war and misunderstanding.
In Waterloo Bridge (1940), Vivien Leigh plays Myra Lester, a ballerina who meets Roy Cronin, played by Robert Taylor, a Scottish officer on leave in London. They fall in love during an air raid, and Roy proposes, but when he is reported killed in action, Myra, believing she has lost him and her career, falls into despair. When Roy returns alive, Myra must face what she has become.
Leigh plays Myra with a heartbreaking tenderness. She makes Myra’s love, her shame and her hope all feel real, and her scenes with Taylor, especially their first meeting on Waterloo Bridge during a bombing raid, are among the most romantic in her career.
Waterloo Bridge is a classic wartime romance, and Leigh’s Myra is one of her most moving performances: a woman who loves completely, and who pays a terrible price for a world at war.