Olivia de Havilland

Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916July 26, 2020) was an  actress. Born in Japan, she held citizenship of the United Kingdom, United States and France. She appeared in 49 feature films throughout her career, with the major works of her cinematic career spanning from 1935 to 1988. was the Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine.

De Havilland first came to prominence with Errol Flynn as a screen couple in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). One of her best-known roles is that of Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she received the first of her five Oscar nominations, the only one for Best Supporting Actress.

In the 1940s, De Havilland departed from ingénue roles and distinguished herself for performances in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), and The Heiress (1949), receiving four Best Actress nominations and winning for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She was also successful in work on stage and television. From the 1950s, De Havilland lived in Paris and received honors such as the National Medal of the Arts, the Légion d'honneur, and the appointment to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the age of 101.

In addition to her film career, deHavilland 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 successful miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979), and Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Movie or Series. During her film career, deHavilland collected two New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She and her sister remain the only siblings to have won major acting Academy Awards.

Early life

By birth, Olivia was a member of the de Havilland family, which belonged to British landed gentry that had originated from mainland Normandy. Her mother Lilian Fontaine (née Ruse; 18861975) was educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a stage actress. She also sang with Sir Walter Parratt, who was Master of the King's Music, and she toured the United Kingdom with the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Olivia's father Walter de Havilland (18721968) served as an English professor at Tokyo Imperial University before becoming a patent attorney. Her paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (18821965), The film is a swashbuckler action drama based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini and directed by Michael Curtiz. According to film historian Tony Thomas, both actors had "classic good looks, cultured speaking voices, and a sense of distant aristocracy about them". Filmed between August 5 and October 29, 1935, While deHavilland was certainly capable of playing this type of character, her personality was better suited to stronger and more dramatic roles, according to Judith Kass. By this time, she was having serious doubts about her career at Warner Bros.

DeHavilland turned to Warner's wife Anne for help. Warner later recalled: "Olivia, who had a brain like a computer concealed behind those fawn-like eyes, simply went to my wife and they joined forces to change my mind." He relented, and deHavilland was signed to the project a few weeks before the start of principal photography on January 26, 1939.</blockquote>

In early 1940, deHavilland refused to appear in several films assigned to her, initiating the first of her suspensions from the studio. She did agree to play in Curtis Bernhardt's musical comedy drama My Love Came Back (1940) with Jeffrey Lynn and Eddie Albert, who played a classical music student turned swing jazz bandleader. DeHavilland played violinist Amelia Cornell, whose life becomes complicated by the support of a wealthy sponsor. In 1958, she was secretly called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and recounted her experiences with the Independent Citizens' Committee. However, due to the wording of some of the announcements (such as her former lawyer Suzelle M. Smith stating de Havilland had died "last night") some media outlets misreported the date of death as the 25th. Her funeral was held on August 1, 2020, at the American Cathedral in Paris. After cremation, her ashes were placed in the crematorium-columbarium of Père-Lachaise, in an urn later to be transferred to a family burial place on the British island of Guernsey.

Legacy

thumb|upright=0.9|alt=Five-pointed star with her name and an image of an old film camera|Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6762 Hollywood Blvd. She was one of 500 stars nominated for the [[American Film Institute's list of 50 greatest screen legends.

thumb|upright=0.9|alt=With a glowing smile looking up at the president|Receiving the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush, November 2008

In 2006, she was inducted into the Online Film & Television Association Award Film Hall of Fame.

As a confidante and friend of Bette Davis, deHavilland is featured in the series Feud: Bette and Joan, where she is portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones. In the series, deHavilland reflects on the origins and depth of the Davis–Crawford feud and how it affected contemporary female Hollywood stars. In 2017, she filed suit against FX Networks and producer Ryan Murphy for inaccurately portraying her and using her likeness without permission. Although FX attempted to strike the suit as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, Judge Holly Kendig denied the motion and set trial for November 2017.

In March 2018, an interlocutory appeal of the ruling was argued. A three-justice panel of the California Court of Appeal ruled that the trial court had erred in denying the defendants' motion to strike in a published opinion by Justice Anne Egerton that affirmed the right of filmmakers to embellish the historical record and that such portrayals 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 portrayed by Ashlee Lollback in the 2018 Australian biographical film In Like Flynn.

In 2021, the Olivia de Havilland Theater was inaugurated at the American University of Paris.

Awards

{| class="wikitable sortable"

! Year

! Award

! Category

! Film

! Result

! class="unsortable"|

| 1940

| rowspan="4" | Academy Awards

| Best Supporting Actress

| Gone with the Wind

| ||

| || 1998 || University of Hertfordshire || Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) ||

| || May 12, 2018 || Mills College || Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) ||

Memberships and fellowships

{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%;"

! style="width:20%;"| Location

! style="width:20%;"| Date

! style="width:40%;"| Organization

! style="width:20%;"| Position

| || 1940July 26, 2020 || Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences || Member (Actors Branch)

| || 1978July 26, 2020 || American Academy of Achievement || Awards Council Member

Filmography

Alibi Ike (1935)
The Irish in Us (1935)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
Captain Blood (1935)
Anthony Adverse (1936)
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
Call It a Day (1937)
The Great Garrick (1937)
It's Love I'm After (1937)
Gold Is Where You Find It (1938)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Four's a Crowd (1938)
Hard to Get (1938)
Wings of the Navy (1939)
Dodge City (1939)
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Raffles (1939)
My Love Came Back (1940)
Santa Fe Trail (1940)
The Strawberry Blonde (1941)
Hold Back the Dawn (1941)
They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
The Male Animal (1942)
In This Our Life (1942)
Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943)
Princess O'Rourke (1943)
Government Girl (1944)
To Each His Own (1946)
Devotion (1946)
The Well Groomed Bride (1946)
The Dark Mirror (1946)
The Snake Pit (1948)
The Heiress (1949)
My Cousin Rachel (1952)
That Lady (1955)
Not as a Stranger (1955)
The Ambassador's Daughter (1956)
The Proud Rebel (1958)
Libel (1959)
Light in the Piazza (1962)
Lady in a Cage (1964)
Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
The Adventurers (1970)
Pope Joan (1972)
The Screaming Woman (1972)
Airport '77 (1977)
The Swarm (1978)
The Fifth Musketeer (1979)
I Remember Better When I Paint (2009)

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

General and cited sources

External links

"Olivia de Havilland – A Century of Excellence", fair use compilation of movie clips, 6 min.