depression and an explosive breakdown, after which Leigh would have no memory of the event, but would be acutely embarrassed and remorseful. With her doctor's approval, Leigh was well enough to resume acting in 1946, starring in a successful London production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth; but her films of this period, Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) and Anna Karenina (1948), were not great commercial successes. All British films in this period were adversely affected by a Hollywood boycott of British films. In 1947, Olivier was knighted and Leigh accompanied him to Buckingham Palace for the investiture. She became Lady Olivier. After their divorce, according to the style granted to the divorced wife of a knight, she became known socially as Vivien, Lady Olivier. By 1948, Olivier was on the board of directors for the Old Vic Theatre, and he and Leigh embarked on a six-month tour of Australia and New Zealand to raise funds for the theatre. Olivier played the lead in Richard III and also performed with Leigh in The School for Scandal and The Skin of Our Teeth. The tour was an outstanding success and, although Leigh was plagued with insomnia and allowed her understudy to replace her for a week while she was ill, she generally withstood the demands placed upon her, with Olivier noting her ability to "charm the press". Members of the company later recalled several quarrels between the couple as Olivier was increasingly resentful of the demands placed on him during the tour. The most dramatic altercation occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand, when her shoes were not found and Leigh refused to go onstage without them. Olivier screamed an obscenity at her and slapped her face, and a devastated Leigh slapped him in return, dismayed that he would hit her publicly. Subsequently, she made her way to the stage in borrowed pumps, and in seconds, had "dried her tears and smiled brightly onstage". By the end of the tour, both were exhausted and ill. Olivier told a journalist, "You may not know it, but you are talking to a couple of walking corpses." Later, he would observe that he "lost Vivien" in Australia. The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first West End appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, Antigone, included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a tragedy.