Olivia de Havilland

Mary Stone | September 30, 2022

Summary

Olivia Mary de Havilland DBE – ONLH (Tokyo, July 1, 1916 – Paris, July 26, 2020) was a Japanese-born British-American-French actress. One of the most respected stars of the so-called golden age of American cinema, she was one of the few who were awarded the Academy Award for Best Actress on more than one occasion. Her younger sister was the actress Joan Fontaine, who had also been an Academy Award winner for best actress (both are, to this day, the only sister actresses to be rewarded with the award).

De Havilland became known for her partnership with star Errol Flynn, co-starring in eight films with him, the most notable being “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), regarded as one of the greatest classics among adventure films. Her best known role, however, is perhaps that of the charitable Melanie Hamilton in “…Gone with the Wind” (1939), for which she received the first of her five Oscar nominations – the only one in the Best Supporting Actress category. Two years later she would receive another nomination, but as Best Actress, for her role as a naïve schoolteacher in “The Golden Door” (1941). Warner Bros, created for Olivia the stereotype of the naive girl, which over time left her frustrated, as she sought to prove that her artistic ability allowed her to go further – which was proven, after years of fighting to break this stereotype, (These films marked a golden phase in her brilliant career, which saw a succession of Oscar nominations for Best Actress – and two wins, for “There”s Only One Tear Left” and “Too Late”, the latter of which earned her the fame of “Queen of Screen Drama”. She was also successful on stage and television. De Havilland lived in Paris from the 1950s and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2008 and the National Order of the Legion of Honor in 2010, and was also awarded the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017 at the age of 101 by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts, making her then the oldest woman to receive this decoration.

In addition to her film career, de Havilland continued her work in the theater, appearing three times on Broadway in “Romeo and Juliet” (1951), “Candida” (1952), and “A Gift of Time” (1962). She also worked in television, appearing in the hit miniseries “Roots: Next Generations” (1979) and in “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna” (1986), for which she received an Emmy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in Television. During her film career, de Havilland also received two New York Film Critics Circle Awards for best actress and the Venice Film Festival”s Coppa Volpi.

De Havilland received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame when it was inaugurated in 1960. She also became a pioneering advocate for actors” and actresses” rights, and thanks to her efforts, a law named after her was passed to ensure more autonomy and creative freedom for the artistic class. In 1999, she was named one of the 500 great film legends by the American Film Institute.

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to parents from the United Kingdom. Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (August 31, 1872 – May 23, 1968), was the son of the Reverend Charles Richard de Havilland, who came from a family in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Walter graduated from Cambridge University and worked as a professor of English and French at the Imperial University of Tokyo, before becoming a patent attorney with a practice in Japan. Olivia”s mother, Lilian Augusta de Havilland (June 11, 1886 – February 20, 1975), studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and became a stage actress, leaving the career after going to Tokyo with her husband. Her mother would return to work under the stage name Lillian Fontaine in the 1940s. By birth, de Havilland”s family belonged to a small nobility originally from mainland Normandy.

Her younger sister, Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known by the stage name Joan Fontaine, would become, like Olivia herself, one of cinema”s most admired stars. Joan was a muse of director Alfred Hitchcock, starring in such films as “Rebecca, the Unforgettable Woman” (1940) and “Suspicion” (1941). Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine are, to date, the only actresses to be sisters to have won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy Award for Best Actress. They were also cousins of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (July 27, 1882 – May 21, 1965), who was the son of a half-brother of their father. Geoffrey became a British aviation pioneer and aircraft designer, and was responsible for the creation of the De Havilland Mosquito airplane, and also founder of the aircraft company that bore his name.

His mother had left England for Japan to visit a brother who was working as a professor at the University of Tokyo; this is when he met his father, then a professor at the University, whom he married in 1914. But this was not a happy union due to Walter”s infidelities. In February 1919, Lilian convinced her husband to take the family back to England, where they would find a more suitable climate for their daughters” health. The family stopped in California, USA, to treat Olivia, who was in poor health due to bronchitis. When Joan contracted pneumonia, Lilian decided to stay with her daughters in California, where they settled in the town of Saratoga, about 50 miles south of San Francisco. Her father abandoned the family and returned to his Japanese mistress, who would become his second wife. His parents” divorce was not finalized until February 1925.

Although she had abandoned her acting career, Lilian taught her daughters to appreciate the arts, always reading Shakespeare to the children (Olivia”s own name was chosen because of the character Lady Olivia from the play “Twelfth Night”), and also teaching them music and recitation. So Olivia enjoyed the arts, taking ballet lessons from the age of four and piano lessons a year later. She learned to read before she was six, and her mother, who occasionally taught drama, music, and elocution, had her recite passages from Shakespeare to strengthen her diction. During this period, her younger sister Joan began calling her “Livvie,” a nickname that would last throughout her life. De Havilland entered Saratoga Grammar School in 1922 and did well in her studies. She enjoyed reading, writing poetry, and drawing, and once represented her elementary school in a county spelling bee, placing second. In April 1925, after the divorce from Walter was finalized, Lilian remarried, this time to a department store owner named George Milan Fontaine, a good provider and a respectable businessman, although his strict parenting style generated animosity and later rebellion in both of her new stepdaughters. The latter”s surname, which had been adopted by Lilian as a result of her second marriage, would be used by Joan when, upon becoming an actress, she decided to create a stage name. Joan and Olivia”s childhood would be marked by disagreements, fights that, in turn, would generate a rivalry between the sisters that would extend throughout their lives.

De Havilland attended Saratoga Grammar School, Notre Dame Catholic Girls Convent in Belmont, and Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos; today the Los Gatos school offers an award named after Olivia for young actors. In high school, she excelled in public speaking and field field hockey, and also participated in the school”s drama and theater club. In 1933, de Havilland made her amateur theatrical debut playing Alice in “Alice in Wonderland,” a production of the Saratoga Community Performers, inspired by Lewis Carroll”s work of the same name. De Havilland recalled, years later, her first experience acting:

“For the first time I had the magical experience of feeling taken by the character I was playing. I really felt that I was Alice, and that when I walked across the stage I was moving into Alice”s enchanted wonderland. And so, for the first time, I felt not only the joy of acting, but the love of acting, too.

She also appeared in several school plays, including “The Merchant of Venice” and “John and Mary.” Her passion for drama eventually led to a confrontation with her stepfather, who forbade her to participate in other extracurricular activities. When he learned that she had won the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in a school fundraising production based on Jane Austen”s “Pride and Prejudice,” he told her that she had to choose between staying with her family, or appearing in the production and not being allowed home. Not wanting to disappoint the school and her classmates, she left home, moving in with a family friend.

After graduating from high school in 1934, de Havilland received a scholarship to Mills College in Oakland to pursue her career as an English teacher She also won the role of Puck in the Saratoga Community Theater production of “A Midsummer Night”s Dream,” inspired by the That summer, Austrian director Max Reinhardt came to California for the Hollywood Bowl production of the same play. After one of Reinhardt”s assistants assisted Olivia in her performance, she was soon offered to be the understudy for the role of Hermia, which was eventually accepted by de Havilland; a week before the premiere, the actress who was to play Hermia, Gloria Stuart, left the production because she was offered a role in a film, and so de Havilland was able to replace her. After receiving positive reviews, it was decided that she would play Hermia throughout the tour for the next four weeks. It was then that Reinhardt received word that he was being asked by Warner Bros. to direct the film version of their theatrical production, and he offered de Havilland the chance to appear in his film in the role she had played so well on stage. With her mind still set on becoming a teacher, de Havilland initially turned him down, but eventually Reinhardt and executive producer Henry Blanke persuaded her to sign a five-year contract with Warner Bros. on November 12, 1934, at a starting salary of $200 per year per week, marking the beginning of a professional career that would span more than 50 years.

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1935-1937: Start in Hollywood

The film version of “A Midsummer Night”s Dream,” which was shot at Warner Bros. studios from December 19, 1934 to March 9, 1935, would mark the first appearance of newcomer Olivia de Havilland on the silver screen. Interestingly, the film would not be released until late 1935, after the releases of three other films Olivia had recorded in had been completed.

Olivia naturally possessed the delicacy and charm common among movie stars, and perfect diction. Her acting was also delicate and at the same time deep and true, which helped make a very pleasant impression, resulting in a seven-year contract with the production company. It was from this contract that she would begin to really see herself as a film actress. In her first jobs she had the chance to play opposite Joe E. Brown in “Alibi Ike” and James Cagney in “The Irish in Us”, both from 1935. In both films, she played the sweet, charming love interest-a role in which she would become a stereotype. After the experience, de Havilland felt disappointed to be given these routine heroine roles.

Although the Warner Bros. studio had assumed that the many fantasy films that studios like MGM were producing would not be successful during the years of the Great American Depression, they took a chance by producing “Captain Blood” (1935), which was a great success in terms of audiences and critics. The film is a dramatic action swashbuckler based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini and directed by Michael Curtiz. “Captain Blood” starred a then little-known actor and ex-extraordinaire, Errol Flynn, alongside the little-known de Havilland. According to film historian Tony Thomas, both actors had “classic good looks, cultured voices, and a sense of distant aristocracy about them.” Filmed between August 5 and October 29, 1935, “Captain Blood” gave de Havilland the opportunity to appear in her first fantasy historical romance and adventure epic, a genre to which she was well suited, given her beauty and elegance. De Havilland”s performance was highlighted in The New York Times and Variety magazine. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Audiences eventually could not resist the charms of the damsel in distress played by de Havilland in the film, waiting for Flynn to save her. And so the newest couple on the screen won over movie fans, which made Warner decide to reunite them in seven other productions: “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1936), “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938), 1938”s “Four”s a Crowd” (“Loving Without Knowing”), “A Town That Rises” (1939), “My Kingdom For A Love” (1939), “The Santa Fe Road” (1940), and “The Intrepid General Custer” (1941).

Of all the pair”s films, “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” was perhaps Olivia”s least notable experience, since her role in that film came as a punishment from Warner for her insisting on appearing in “…Gone with the Wind” (1939), something that at first would not have been approved by the production company”s president, Jack Warner – Olivia had to beg her boss”s wife to convince him to let her be in the film. Once she got his approval to be loaned to Selznick International Pictures exclusively for “Gone with the Wind,” Olivia began to have a rough time when back at Warner, She was punished with roles that didn”t match her ambitions, such as the supporting role she was forced to play in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex”, in which she had to co-star with Errol Flynn and the biggest star of the time, Bette Davis, who would become a longtime friend and a great support during Olivia”s fight against Warner Bros. (Davis herself had faced a similar situation a few years earlier at the same production company). She and Davis would go on to star in other films together, the most notorious being “Born Into Evil” (1942) and “With Evil in Their Souls” (1964).

De Havilland was still to have acted with Errol Flynn in “The Sea Hawk” (1940), but was unavailable filming another movie, and was replaced by Brenda Marshall. She and Flynn would still meet in the musical “Thanks to My Good Star” (1943), but they did not act as a romantic couple. Filmed for the purpose of raising funds to help the wounded of World War II, this musical also reunited her with Bette Davis again.

During the production of the film “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” de Havilland renegotiated his contract with Warner Bros. and signed a seven-year contract on April 14, 1936, with an initial weekly salary of $500.

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1938-1940: Stardom

In September 1937, de Havilland was selected by Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner to play Lady Marian again alongside Errol Flynn in “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938). Principal photography for this technicolor production took place between September 26, 1937 and January 14, 1938, including location work in Bidwell Park, Busch Gardens in Pasadena, and Lake Sherwood in California. As defined by de Havilland, Marian is a beautiful fairy-tale heroine and an intelligent, witty woman “whose actions are governed by her mind and her heart,” according to author Judith Kass. “The Adventures of Robin Hood” was released on May 14, 1938 and was an immediate commercial critical success, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. It became one of the most popular adventure films of the classic Hollywood era.

The success of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” elevated de Havilland”s status, but this was not reflected in her subsequent film assignments at Warner Bros. Her next roles were more routine and less challenging. In the romantic comedy Four”s a Crowd (“Loving Without Knowing”), also from 1938, she played Lorri Dillingwell, a voluble rich girl being courted by a conniving PR man looking to land an account with her eccentric grandfather. In Ray Enright”s 1938 romantic comedy “Hard to Get,” she played another frivolous rich girl, Margaret Richards, whose desire to get revenge on a frontman leads to her own punishment. In the summer of 1938, she portrayed the love interest between two U.S. Navy pilot brothers in “Wings of the Navy,” released in early 1939. While de Havilland was certainly capable of playing these types of characters, her personality was better suited for stronger, more dramatic roles, according to Judith Kass. At this point, de Havilland had serious doubts about her career at Warner Bros. Variety described the film “A Town That Rises” as “an action-packed Wild West.” For de Havilland, playing yet another supporting love interest in a limited role, “Dodge City” represented the emotional low point of her career up to that point. She later said, “I was in such a depressed state that I could barely remember my own lines.

In a letter to a colleague dated November 18, 1938, film producer David O. Selznick wrote, “I would give anything if we had Olivia de Havilland under contract with us so we could cast her as Melanie.” The film he was preparing to produce was the epic “…Gone With the Wind” (1939), and Jack L. Warner was unwilling to lend her to the project. De Havilland had read the novel, and unlike most of the other actresses, who wanted the role of Scarlett O”Hara, she wanted to play Melanie Hamilton – a character whose quiet dignity and inner strength she understood and felt she could bring to life on screen.

De Havilland asked Warner”s wife, Anne, for help. Warner later recalled, “Olivia, who had a brain like a computer hidden behind those brown eyes, simply went to my wife and they joined forces to change my mind.” Warner relented and de Havilland signed on with the project a few weeks before principal photography began on January 26, 1939. Set in the southern United States during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, the film is about Scarlett O”Hara, the headstrong daughter of a Georgia farmer in love with her sister-in-law Melanie”s husband, whose kindness stands in sharp contrast to those around her. According to film historian Tony Thomas, de Havilland”s skillful and subtle acting effectively presents this character of selfless love and quiet strength in a way that keeps her vital and interesting throughout the film. “Gone with the Wind” had its world premiere in Atlanta, Georgia on December 15, 1939, and was well received. At the age of 22, she masterfully played the role alongside Vivien Leigh. De Havilland and Leigh so threatened to dominate the film that Clark Gable protested, and director George Cukor had to be fired for this reason. Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times wrote that Melanie de Havilland “is a graceful, dignified, and tender jewel of characterization,” and John C. Flinn Sr. of Variety called her “a standout.” De Havilland said:

“Melanie was someone different. She had deeply feminine qualities … that I felt were very much under threat at that time, and they are generation to generation, and that somehow they should be kept alive, and … that”s why I wanted to play her role. … The main thing is that she was always thinking about the other person, and the interesting thing for me is that she was a happy person … loving, compassionate person.

In a 2009 interview about her character, she stated:

“I would say that Melanie was the person I would like to be … but also the person I never got to be.”

For her acclaimed performance, she received the first of her five Oscar nominations – the only one in her career in the best supporting actress category – although she lost the award to her friend Hattie McDaniel, who took it for her performance as Mammy in the same film. Of the four main actors in the film (the others: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and Leslie Howard), de Havilland was the last to pass away in real life.

In early 1940, de Havilland refused to appear in several films attributed to her, beginning the first of her studio suspensions. She agreed to act in Curtis Bernhardt”s musical dramatic comedy My Love Came Back (1940), and with Jeffrey Lynn, Jane Wyman, and Eddie Albert, who played a classical music student turned jazz swing band leader. De Havilland played violinist Amelia Cornell, whose life is complicated by the support of a wealthy patron. In his review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther described the film as “a light-hearted, spinning romp of deliciously pointed silliness,” finding that de Havilland “plays the role with pace and wit.”

That same year, de Havilland was reunited with Flynn in their sixth film together, Michael Curtiz”s western adventure “The Santa Fe Road” (1940), set against the backdrop of abolitionist John Brown”s fanatical anti-slavery attacks in the days leading up to the American Civil War. The mainly fictional story follows West Point cadets J. E. B. Stuart, played by Flynn, and George Armstrong Custer, played by Ronald Reagan, as they head west, both competing for the affections of Kit Carson Halliday, de Havilland”s character. Playing Kit in a provocative and ironic manner, de Havilland creates a character of real substance and dimension, according to Tony Thomas. After its world premiere on December 13, 1940, at the Lensic Theatre in Santa Fe, New Mexico-with cast members and reporters, the governor, and more than 60,000 fans in attendance-“Santa Fe Trail” became one of the highest-grossing films of 1940. De Havilland, who accompanied Flynn on the well-publicized train trip to Santa Fe, did not attend the premiere, having been diagnosed with appendicitis that morning and rushed to surgery.

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1941-1949: Years of War and Lawsuits

De Havilland reunited with Flynn again for their eighth film together in Raoul Walsh”s epic “The Intrepid General Custer” (1941). The film is loosely based on the courtship and marriage of George Armstrong Custer and Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon. Flynn and de Havilland had a fight the previous year-primarily over the roles she was getting-and she did not intend to work with him again. Even Flynn acknowledged, “She was tired of playing ”the girl” and really wanted some good roles to show herself and the world that she was a good actress. After she heard from Warner that Flynn had come to her office saying she needed her in the film, de Havilland accepted. Screenwriter Lenore Coffee was brought in to add several romantic scenes and improve the overall dialogue. The result is a film that includes some of their best work together. Their last appearance on screen is Custer”s farewell to his wife. “Errol was quite sensitive,” de Havilland would later recall, “I think he knew it would be the last time we would work together.” Flynn”s final line in that scene would have special meaning for her: “Walking through life with you, ma”am, was a very gracious thing.” “They Died with Their Boots On” was released on November 21, 1941, and while some critics criticized the film”s historical inaccuracies, most applauded the action sequences, cinematography and acting. Thomas M. Pryor of The New York Times found de Havilland “utterly captivating.” The film went on to earn $2,550,000, Warner Bros.” second largest money-maker that year

On November 28, 1941, de Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States. That year, she acted brilliantly in “The Golden Door,” a romantic drama in which she received her second Oscar nomination, the first in the Best Leading Actress category, for her performance as American schoolteacher Emmy Brown, who, in the film, sparks the interest of Romanian gigolo Georges Iscovescu, played by Charles Boyer, looking for a way out of Mexico and into the United States legally. Bizarrely, De Havilland lost the Oscar to his sister, Joan Fontaine, who took it for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock”s film “Suspicion” (1941).

According to de Havilland, one of the few truly satisfying roles she played for Warner Bros. was in Norman Krasna”s romantic comedy “Her Highness Wants to Marry” (1943), which she co-starred in with Robert Cummings. Filmed in July and August 1942, the story is about a European princess on a visit to her diplomat uncle in New York, who is trying to find an American husband for her. Intending to marry a man of her own choice, she boards a plane heading west and ends up falling in love with an American pilot, who is unaware of her true identity. The film was released on October 23, 1943, Bosley Crowther called it “a film that is in the best tradition of American screen comedy,” and found Havilland”s performance “delightful.” About the role, Olivia said:

“I wanted to do complex roles, like Melanie, for example, and Jack Warner saw me as a naive one. I was really restless to portray more developed human beings. Jack never understood that, and he would give me roles that really had no character or quality to them. I knew it wouldn”t even be effective.

Like every other Hollywood actor or actress of the 1930s and 1940s, De Havilland was a slave to the studio system, being forced to make whatever film the studio ordered and having no right to refuse. Her performances had begun to earn her Oscar nominations, and this made her hopeful that Warner Bros. would consider her desire to play roles through which she could show her full artistic potential. Olivia, however, became increasingly frustrated with the roles she continued to be given. Tired of playing naïve and demure girls and damsel-in-distress roles, sweet Olivia became a star rebellion, refusing roles whose profiles did not match what she wanted to play, and asking her studio for those that would offer her the chance to excel and fulfill herself artistically and professionally. The producer”s response was a six-month contract suspension. Since it was the law itself that allowed studios to suspend the contract of actors who refused films, she could do nothing during this half-time. In theory, this order allowed studios to retain indefinite control over a non-corporate contract. Many accepted this situation, while few tried to change the system (the most notable case being that of Bette Davis, who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the 1930s).

Interested in working for other production companies because she knew that outside of Warner”s she would receive better offers for roles, the actress couldn”t wait for her contract to end. When it finally did, in 1943, she was told that she would have to continue working for the production company for another six months to make up for the time she had been suspended. De Havilland, who had a father who was a lawyer and had some knowledge of the law, knew that it was not right for such contracts to exceed seven years, so she was not obliged to pay for the period of her suspension, since her seven-year contract with the production company had already ended. On August 23, 1943, following the advice of her attorney, Martin Gang, de Havilland filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in Los Angeles County Superior Court, seeking a declaratory judgment that she was no longer bound to the company by her contract, since the grounds of an existing section of the California Labor Code prohibited an employer from enforcing a contract against an employee for more than seven years from the date of first enforcement. In November 1943, the Superior Court ruled in Havilland”s favor, and Warner Bros. immediately appealed. A little over a year later, the California appellate court found in his favor. The ruling was one of Hollywood”s most significant and far-reaching legal decisions, reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to artists. The resulting “seven-year rule” California law, as articulated by the Court of Appeal when analyzing Labor Code Section 2855 in the “Havilland case,” is still known today as “Havilland”s Law.” Her legal victory, which cost her $13,000 in legal fees, earned de Havilland the respect and admiration of her co-workers, including that of her own sister, Joan Fontaine, who commented on one occasion:

“Hollywood owes Olivia a lot.”

Warner Bros. reacted to de Havilland”s lawsuit by circulating a letter to other studios that had the effect of a “virtual blacklist.” (de Havilland was not being hired by other companies for fear of future lawsuits.) As a consequence, de Havilland did not work in the movies for almost two years, then toured to entertain wounded soldiers in World War II. She earned the respect and admiration of the troops by visiting isolated islands and battlefronts in the Pacific. She survived flights in damaged aircraft and an attack of viral pneumonia that required several days in one of the island barracks hospitals. She later recalled, “I loved doing the tours because it was a way to serve my country and contribute to the war effort.”

It was due to the court fight that the film “Devotion,” a biography of the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), and their last film for Warner, was not distributed until 1946, three years late.

The quality and variety of roles offered to her began to improve. After the release of “Devotion,” de Havilland signed a contract for three more films, with Paramount Pictures, which were “Only One Tear Remains” (1946), “Champagne For Two” (1946) and “Too Late” (1949).

In agreeing to work on the film “To Each His Own,” de Havilland showed that she really wanted something that would allow her a greater opportunity to shine as an actress. In this film she plays Josephine “Jody” Norris, a small-town girl during World War I who becomes pregnant by an airline pilot killed in combat. Determined to carry her pregnancy forward, but unwilling to become the victim of scandal for being an unmarried mother, she gives her baby up to a family to adopt; as time passes, she follows the growth of her child from afar and, as she grows fond of the child, suffers from the fact that she cannot reveal that she is its mother. A great drama of the 1940s, which earned the actress her third Oscar nomination and her first win as best leading actress. At the award ceremony, she thanked 27 people, making her the record number of names mentioned in the thank-you note after winning the Oscar.

James Agee had noticed the change in Olivia”s roles, and in a review of the film “Mirrors of the Soul” (1946), stated that “de Havilland, who has always been one of the most beautiful women in the cinema, has proved in her recent performances her acting ability.” He also commented that “her performance is thoughtful, calm, detailed and well sustained.” “The Dark Mirror” is a psychological thriller that tells the story of two beautiful identical twin sisters played by de Havilland: one, gentle and loving, and the other, cruel and seriously disturbed. A doctor is killed, and witnesses claim to have seen a fight between one of the sisters and the victim shortly before the murder. A detective investigating the case is unable to identify which of the sisters is responsible for the crime. The police officers enlist the help of a doctor who studies the twins to help solve the case.

De Havilland was also widely praised for “The Serpent”s Den” (1948), which she cited as her favorite film, and was one of the first that attempted to show the realistic portrayal of mental illness. She was praised for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamour, and such a subject faced controversial issues. The actress conducted research with such determination that everyone was surprised, paying careful attention to each of the procedures applied to mental illness providers, such as hydrotherapy and electro-shock treatments. When allowed, she attended long individual therapy sessions. She attended social functions, including dinners, and also promoted dances. After the film”s release, columnist Florabel Muir questioned whether mental institutions really “allowed dances and contact with inmates, who can become violent.” To the columnist”s surprise, de Havilland herself telephoned her and assured her that she had taken the initiative to organize dinners and dances for the inmates herself, and without consulting the directors of the institutions, precisely to avoid that any of them would not consent to what she had planned.

Her performance in “The Snake Pit” was considered by many to be one among the best performances of her career, and was rewarded with another Oscar nomination. Although she lost the award to Jane Wyman, who took it for her performance in the film “Belinda” (1948), de Havilland received the most awards she would ever win for her performance in a film. In this film she played Virginia Stuart-Cunningham, a writer suffering from nervous depression. After her marriage, the young woman suffers a breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and after a few days, she cannot remember why she is there. During her stay in the institution, she becomes a witness to the ill-treatment to which the inmates are subjected. The film, innovative for its time, was a critical and public success, ranking among the top ten box office hits of the year, more precisely in sixth position. It was one of the first to show society”s viewpoint towards those suffering from mental illness, and led to legislation to provide for improvements in mental health care in the United States.

After seeing the play “Washington Square” on Broadway, de Havilland told director William Wyler that the story could make a great movie. He agreed and proposed the film to Paramount executives, who soon sought to acquire the copyright to the play. So it was no surprise that in 1949 she was invited to play the lead in the film version of the play, Too Late. Many expert critics consider it an excellent production. The story is about the drama of a shy young woman named Catherine Sloper, heiress to a tyrannical father, who is torn when she falls in love with a suitor who, in fact, has his eye on her fortune. In a way you could say that de Havilland took a risk by accepting the lackluster, shy, and clumsy role. But his instinct was right. And with a visceral performance, she was once again acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, and was even heralded in the film”s trailer as the “Queen of Screen Drama.” She received her first Golden Globe, in the category of best actress in a drama film, and was rewarded with her second Academy Award for best actress, making her one of the few to have won the award on more than one occasion. The way she portrayed the character, at first a naive and unattractive young woman who becomes a bitter and cruel heiress, became memorable thanks to her brilliant performance, which has since come to be regarded as one of the best performances among Academy Award winners. Katharine Hepburn, an actress for whom Olivia has always had great admiration, when asked what advice she would give a young actor or actress, said:

“Don”t exaggerate; watch Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart … or better yet, watch Olivia de Havilland in “The Heiress” and you will see what superior acting is to anything.”

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1950-1988: Recognitions

After winning, in 1950, her second Academy Award for Best Actress, she was invited to play the role of Blanche DuBois in the film “A Street Called Sin” (1951), with Marlon Brando, but turned it down, and the role went to Vivien Leigh (with whom de Havilland had acted in “Gone with the Wind”). The film earned Leigh a second Academy Award for Best Actress. In a 2006 interview, de Havilland denied that she turned down the job because of the unpleasant nature of some elements of the script, but rather because she had a newborn son, Benjamin, who needed her care, and this made her unable to relate to the material.

In 1952, she starred in “I”ll Kill You, Honey!”, co-starring alongside Richard Burton. The film is a mix of drama, romance and mystery, where Olivia plays a woman of dubious character. Inspired by the original title book of the same name written by Daphne Du Maurier (“My Cousin Rachel” in Brazil), this marked Burton”s American film debut.

In 1953, the actress traveled to Paris, the French capital. Accepting film roles only when interested, her film appearances became less and less frequent as her children grew up.

In 1962, she published a book called “Every Frenchman Has One” about her hardships and adventures trying to adjust to life in France, and in the same year she returned to the screen after a three-year absence, as the mother of a 26-year-old girl who had an accident in her childhood; as a result of the accident, the young woman has the mentality of a 10-year-old, and now falls in love with a boy she wants to marry, in the film “Light in the Square”.

When Bette Davis and Joan Crawford saw their respective careers resurrected after starring in the gothic horror film “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962), it didn”t take long for other middle-aged actresses, such as Olivia de Havilland, to try a second career starring in such films. De Havilland starred in the thriller “The Caged Lady” (1964), a controversial and controversial film about a middle-aged woman trapped in an elevator, tormented by a psychotic gang that steals the goods from her mansion. Today considered a classic, the film was much attacked by critics when released because of the excessive scenes of violence that shocked the public, and for this reason was banned in England. De Havilland, however, did very well in his performance, as did actor James Caan in his film debut as the gang leader.

Around this time, Robert Aldrich, director of “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”, was looking for an actress who could, alongside Bette Davis, star in the thriller “With Evil in Her Soul” (1964), in the role previously given to Joan Crawford, who withdrew from the project claiming to be ill. Aldrich had offered the role to actresses such as Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Barbara Stanwyck, and Loretta Young, who declined the offer. To convince de Havilland to take the part, the director had to travel to Switzerland, where the actress was then.

Olivia had the opportunity, again and for the last time, to act with her friend Bette Davis. The filming of “Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte” went on in a peaceful atmosphere, for unlike Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, de Havilland and Davis, as always, got along very well. When released, the film drew attention primarily for its veteran cast, which also included the likes of Joseph Cotten and Agnes Moorehead, co-stars of “Citizen Kane” (1941). Olivia de Havilland, in her performance, was even noted by many as more attractive than Bette Davis. In this film, de Havilland plays Miriam Deering, the wily cousin of wealthy stranger Charlotte Hollis. (Miriam is called in to help Charlotte, who has been living for almost 40 years in seclusion in an old mansion in Louisiana, obsessed with the idea that the ghost of her lover is prowling the house, thus leaving everyone around her terrified. Curious is the fact that both Olivia and Bette are, in this film, in different roles than the ones they used to play: Bette, famous for her roles as strong, determined, or arrogant, and even mean women, played a suffering woman, unhappy with the death of her lover, while Olivia, famous above all for her kind, good-hearted characters (one of the reasons why Bette Davis herself affectionately nicknamed her “Sweet Olivia”), played a suspicious woman. A box office success, the film received no less than seven Oscar nominations. In 1965, she became the first woman to chair the jury of the Cannes Film Festival.

In the 1980s, her television work included the Agatha Christie TV movie “It”s Easy to Kill” (1982), the 1982 drama “The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana” in which she played Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and the ABC miniseries “North and South, Book II” (1986). Her performance in the 1986 telefilm “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna” as Empress Maria Feodorovna won her a Golden Globe for best supporting actress in television. In 1988, de Havilland appeared in the HTV romantic drama “The Woman He Loved” (this was her final screen performance.

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1989-2017: Retirement and tributes

Even after retirement, de Havilland remained active in the film community. In 1998, she traveled to New York to help promote a special screening of “Gone with the Wins.” In 2003, she appeared as a presenter at the 75th Academy Awards, earning a lengthy standing ovation at her entrance. In 2004, Turner Classic Movies produced a retrospective piece called “Melanie Remembers” in which she was interviewed for the 65th anniversary of the original release of “Gone with the Wind.” In June 2006, she made appearances in tributes celebrating her 90th birthday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

On November 17, 2008, at the age of 92, de Havilland received the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor bestowed on an individual artist on behalf of the people of the United States. The medal was presented to her by President George W. Bush, who praised her “for her persuasive and compelling skill as an actress in her roles in Shakespeare”s Hermia and Margaret Mitchell”s Melanie. Her independence, integrity, and grace won creative freedom for her and her fellow film actors.” The following year, de Havilland narrated the documentary “I Remember Better When I Paint” (2009), a film about the importance of art in the treatment of Alzheimer”s disease.

In 2010, de Havilland almost made his return to the screen after a 22-year hiatus with the planned adaptation “The Aspern Papers”, directed by James Ivory, but the project was never made. On September 9, 2010, at the age of 94, de Havilland received France”s highest decoration, the Legion of Honor, an order of cavalry decoration presented by the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, who told the actress, “You honor France by having chosen us.” In February the following year, she appeared at the César Awards in France, where she received a standing ovation. De Havilland celebrated her 100th birthday on July 1, 2016.

In June 2017, two weeks before her 101st birthday, de Havilland was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts, making her then the oldest woman to receive this decoration. She did not travel to the induction ceremony at Buckingham Palace and received her honor from the hands of the British Ambassador to France at her apartment in Paris in March 2018, four months before her 102nd birthday. Her daughter Gisèle was at her side.

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Relationships

Although known as one of Hollywood”s most famous couples, de Havilland and Errol Flynn were never in a romance. Upon first meeting her at Warner Bros. in August 1935, Flynn was attracted to the 19-year-old actress with “warm brown eyes” and “extraordinary charm.” For her part, de Havilland fell in love with him and said in a 2009 interview, “Yes, we fell in love and I believe that is evident in the chemistry between us on screen. But her circumstances at the time prevented the relationship from continuing. I didn”t talk about it much, but the relationship was not consummated. The chemistry was there, though. It was there.” Even with the enormous attraction, he kept his feelings guarded. Flynn later wrote, “When we did The Charge of the Light Brigade, I was sure I was in love with her.” Flynn finally confessed his love on March 12, 1937, at King George VI”s coronation ball at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where they slow-danced, and then danced together to the tune of “Sweet Leilani” at the hotel”s Coconut Grove nightclub. “I was deeply affected by him,” she later recalled, “it was impossible for me not to be.” The evening ended on a sobering note, however, with de Havilland insisting that, despite his separation from his wife Lili Damita, he needed to divorce her before their relationship could proceed. Flynn was reunited with his wife later that year, and de Havilland never acted on his feelings for Flynn. During the production of “Robin Hood” in November 1937, de Havilland amusingly decided to tease Flynn, who was being closely watched on the set by his wife. In a 2005 interview, de Havilland said, “And then we had a kissing scene, which I looked forward to with great pleasure. I remember I blew every take, at least six in a row, maybe seven, maybe eight, and we had to kiss all over again. And Errol Flynn was really quite uncomfortable, and he had, if I may say so, a little trouble with his socks.” De Havilland, in recalling Errol Flynn years later, said:

“I had, in fact, a crush on Errol Flynn ever since the filming of Captain Blood. I thought he was absolutely sensational, for three continuous years, without him even imagining it. And he started courting me, but nothing came of it. I don”t regret it; he could have ruined my life.

In July 1938, de Havilland began dating business magnate, aviator, and filmmaker Howard Hughes, who had just completed his record flight around the world in 91 hours. In addition to escorting her around town, he gave the actress her first flying lessons. She later said, “He was a rather shy man … and yet in a whole community where men every day played heroes on the screen and did nothing heroic in life, here was this man who was a real hero.

In December 1939, she began a romantic relationship with actor James Stewart. At the request of Irene Mayer Selznick, the actor”s agent asked Stewart to escort de Havilland to the New York premiere of “Gone with the Wind” at the Astor Theatre on December 19, 1939. Over the next few days, Stewart took her several times to the theater and the 21 Club. They continued to see each other in Los Angeles, where Stewart gave her occasional flying lessons. According to de Havilland, Stewart proposed marriage to her in 1940, but she felt he was not ready to settle down. Their relationship ended in late 1941, when de Havilland began a romantic relationship with film director John Huston while recording “In This Our Life.” “John was a great love of mine,” she would later admit, “He was a man I wanted to marry.” On April 29, 1945, at the home of producer David O. Selznick, Huston, who knew of de Havilland”s three-year crush on Flynn, confronted the Australian actor – who was suffering from tuberculosis – about not serving in the military during the war. When Flynn responded by alluding to his former “relationship” with de Havilland, Huston began a prolonged fight with the seasoned amateur boxer that landed them in the hospital.

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Marriages and children

On August 26, 1946, she married Marcus Goodrich, a U.S. Navy veteran, journalist, and author of the novel “Delilah” (1941). The marriage ended in divorce in the year 1953. They had one son, Benjamin Goodrich, who was born on September 27, 1949. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin”s lymphoma at the age of 19, and graduated from the University of Texas. He worked as a statistical analyst for the “Lockheed Missiles and Space Company” in Sunnyvale, and as an international banking representative for the Commercial Bank of Texas in Houston. He died on September 29, 1991, in Paris, at the age of 42, of heart disease brought on by treatment for Hodgkin”s disease, three weeks before his father”s death.

On April 2, 1955, de Havilland married Pierre Galante, executive editor of Paris Match magazine. Her marriage to Galante led her to move to Paris. The couple separated in 1962, but continued to live in the same house for another six years to raise their daughter together. Galante moved in across the street and the two remained close, even after the divorce was finalized in 1979. De Havilland took care of him during his last fight against lung cancer before his death in 1998. They had one daughter, Gisèle Galante, who was born on July 18, 1956. After studying law at the law school of the Université de Nanterre, he worked as a journalist in France and in the United States. Since 1956, de Havilland lived in a three-story house near the Bois de Boulogne in Paris.

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Religion and political positioning

De Havilland was raised in the Episcopal Church and remained an Episcopalian throughout her life. In a 2015 interview, de Havilland stated that her religious beliefs had lapsed in her adulthood, but that she regained her faith when her son was ill. Her renewed faith inspired her sister to return to the Episcopal Church. In the 1970s, she became one of the first women readers at the American Cathedral in Paris, where she was on the regular route of Scripture readings. In 2012, she was doing readings on major feast days, including Christmas and Easter. “It”s a task I love,” she once said. In describing her preparation for her readings, she once noted, “You have to convey the deep meaning, you see, and you have to start with your own faith. But first, I always pray. I pray before I start preparing, too. In fact, I would always say a prayer before shooting a scene, so it”s not that different, in a way. De Havilland preferred to use the revised English Bible for its poetic style. She raised her son Benjamin in the Episcopal Church and her daughter Gisèle in the Roman Catholic Church, the faith of each child”s father.

As a citizen of the United States, de Havilland became involved in politics as a way to exercise her civic responsibilities. She campaigned for Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. After the war, she joined the “Independent Citizens” Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions,” a national public policy advocacy group that included Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, Groucho Marx, and Humphrey Bogart in its Hollywood chapter. In June 1946, she was asked to give speeches to the committee that reflected the Communist Party line-the group was later identified as a Communist Front organization. Disturbed to see a small group of Communist members manipulating the committee, she removed the pro-Communist material from her speeches and rewrote them to reflect the anti-Communist platform of Democratic President Harry S. Truman. She later recalled, “I realized that a core group of people were controlling the organization without most of the board members being aware of it. And I knew that they had to be Communists.”

She organized a struggle to regain control of the committee from its pro-Soviet leadership, but her reform efforts failed. Her resignation from the committee set off a wave of resignations from 11 other Hollywood figures, including future President Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a relatively new member of the board when he was invited to join 10 other film industry colleagues, including MGM studio head Dore Schary, for a meeting at de Havilland”s home, where he first learned that Communists were trying to gain control of the Committee. During the meeting, he turned to de Havilland, who was on the executive committee, and whispered, “You know, Olivia, I always thought ”you” might be one of them.” Laughing, she replied, “That”s funny. I thought ”you” might be one of them.” Reagan suggested that they propose a resolution at the next meeting, reaffirming the committee”s “belief in free enterprise and the Democratic system” and repudiating “communism as desirable for the United States”-the executive committee voted against it the following week. Shortly thereafter, the committee disbanded, only to resurface as a newly appointed front organization. Despite organizing Hollywood”s resistance to Soviet influence, de Havilland was denounced later that year inTime magazine for her involvement in the committee. In 1958, she was secretly called before the Committee on Anti-American Activities and recounted her experiences with the Independent Citizens Committee.

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Rivalry with Joan Fontaine

De Havilland and her sister Joan Fontaine are the only siblings to have won an Academy Award in a major acting category. According to biographer Charles Higham, the sisters always had a difficult relationship, starting in childhood when Olivia had a hard time accepting the idea of having a younger sister, and Joan resented her mother always favoring Olivia. Olivia would tear the clothes that her sister wore as second hand, forcing Joan to sew them back together. This tension was compounded by Fontaine”s frequent childhood illnesses, which led to her mother”s overly protective expression, “Livvie can, Joan can”t.” De Havilland was the first to become an actress, and for several years Fontaine was overshadowed by her sister”s accomplishments. When Mervyn LeRoy offered Fontaine a personal contract, her mother told her that Warner Bros. was “Olivia”s studio” and that she could not use the last name “de Havilland.” Thus Joan was forced to look for a name, taking first Joan Burfield and later Joan Fontaine.

In 1942, de Havilland and Fontaine were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress – de Havilland for “The Golden Door” and Fontaine for “Suspicion.” When Fontaine was announced as the winner, de Havilland reacted graciously by saying, “We did it!” According to biographer Charles Higham, as Joan moved forward excitedly to receive her award, she clearly rejected Olivia”s attempts to greet and congratulate her, and that Olivia was ultimately offended by this attitude, as it made her feel embarrassed. Higham also stated that afterwards, Joan felt guilty for what happened at the award ceremony.

Their relationship became even more strained in 1946, when Fontaine made negative comments to an interviewer about de Havilland”s new husband, Marcus Goodrich. When she read her sister”s comments, de Havilland was deeply hurt and waited for an apology that was never offered. The following year, after receiving her first Oscar for “To Each His Own,” de Havilland was approached backstage by Fontaine, who extended his hand to congratulate her; de Havilland turned away from her sister without accepting the compliment. The two did not speak to each other for the next five years after the incident. In 1957, in the only interview in which she commented on her relationship with her sister, de Havilland told the Associated Press, “Joan is very bright and sharp, and has an intelligence that can be cutting. She said some things about Marcus that hurt me deeply. She was aware that there was a distance between us.” This may have caused a rift between Fontaine and her own daughters, who had a secret relationship with their aunt.

After her divorce from Goodrich, de Havilland resumed contact with her sister, moving into their New York apartment and spending Christmas together in 1961. The final break between the sisters occurred in 1975, due to disagreements over her mother”s cancer treatment – de Havilland wanted to consult other doctors and supported exploratory surgery; Fontaine disagreed. Fontaine later claimed that her sister did not notify her of her mother”s death while she was on tour with a play-de Havilland actually sent a telegram, which took two weeks to reach her sister. In a 1978 interview, Fontaine said, “I married first, I won an Oscar before Olivia, and if I died first, no doubt she would be livid because I would have beaten her in that too!” The feud between sisters ended with Fontaine”s death on December 15, 2013. The next day, de Havilland released a statement saying, “I am shocked and saddened, and thankful for all the expressions of sympathy and kindness from fans.” Joan, ironically, passed away on the date that “Gone with the Wind,” the film that immortalized de Havilland in American cinema, had turned 74 years old.

de Havilland”s career spanned 53 years, from 1935 to 1988. During that time, she appeared in 49 feature films. She began her career playing coy ingenues alongside male stars like Errol Flynn, with whom she made her film “Captain Blood” in 1935. They would make eight more feature films together and became one of Hollywood”s most successful on-screen romantic pairs. Their range of performances included roles in most major film genres. After her film debut in the Shakespeare adaptation “A Midsummer Night”s Dream,” de Havilland achieved her initial popularity in romantic comedies, such as in: “The Great Garrick” (1937), “Hard to Get” (1938), and adventure westerns, such as in: “Dodge City” (1939), and “Santa Fe Trail” (1940). In her later career, she was more successful in drama films, as in “In This Our Life”, “Light in the Piazza”, and psychological dramas playing non-glamorous characters, as in: “The Dark Mirror”, “The Snake Pit”, and “Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte”.

During her career, de Havilland has won two Academy Awards (“To Each His Own” and “The Heiress”), two Golden Globes (“The Heiress” and “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna”), two New York Film Critics Circle Awards (“The Snake Pit” and “The Heiress”), the National Board of Review Award and the Venice Film Festival”s Coppa Volpi (“The Snake Pit”), and an Emmy nomination (“Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna”).

For her contributions to the film industry, de Havilland received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6762 Hollywood Boulevard on February 8, 1960. After her retirement in 1988, her lifetime contribution to the arts was honored on two continents. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in 1998 and another from Mills College in 2018. She was one of 500 stars named to the American Film Institute”s list of the 50 greatest screen legends.

In 2006, she was inducted into the Motion Picture and Television Association Awards Hall of Fame.

Olivia de Havilland”s moving image collection is kept at the Academy Film Archive, which has preserved a nitrate roll of a screen test for “Danton,” the never-produced sequel to Max Reinhardt”s “A Midsummer Night”s Dream” (1935).

De Havilland, as Bette Davis” confidant and friend, is featured in the series “Feud: Bette and Joan,” played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. In the series, de Havilland reflects on the origins and depth of the Davis-Crawford feud and how it affected contemporary female stars in Hollywood. On June 30, 2017, the day before her 101st birthday, she filed a lawsuit against FX Networks and producer Ryan Murphy for incorrectly portraying her and using her image without permission. Although FX tried to titrate the suit as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Holly Kendig denied the motion in September 2017, granted de Havilland”s request to advance the trial date (a preemption motion), and set the trial for November 2017. An appeal of Judge Kendig”s decision was argued in March 2018. A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal for the Second District ruled against the libel suit filed by de Havilland (i.e., in ruling that the trial court erred in denying the defendants” motion to strike), in an opinion published by Judge Anne Egerton that affirmed the right of producers to embellish the historical record and that such portraits are protected by the First Amendment. De Havilland appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in September 2018, which declined to review the case.

She was also portrayed by Ashlee Lollback in the 2018 Australian filmbiography “In Like Flynn.”

In 2021, the Olivia de Havilland theater opened at the American University of Paris.

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5. Filmlegende Olivia de Havilland im Alter von 104 Jahren gestorben. Spiegel Online, 26. Juli 2020.
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10. Demi-frère de Charles de Havilland, lui-même père de Geoffrey de Havilland, pionnier de l”aviation et fondateur de la De Havilland Aircraft Company.
11. (en) Joan Fontaine, No Bed of Roses, New York, Morrow, 1978, 319 p. (ISBN 978-0-688-03344-6, lire en ligne), p. 18.
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