Olivia de Havilland

Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916 – July 26, 2020) was a British and American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. Before her death in 2020 at age 104, she was the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and was widely considered as being the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Her younger sister, with whom she had a noted rivalry which was well documented in the media, was 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, 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 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, de Havilland 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 landed gentry that had originated from mainland Normandy. Her mother Lilian Fontaine (née Ruse; 1886‍–‍1975) 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 (1872‍–‍1968) served as an English professor at Tokyo Imperial University before becoming a patent attorney. Her paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882‍–‍1965), an aircraft designer and founder of the de Havilland aircraft company.

Walter and Lilian met in Japan in 1913 and married the following year; it was not a happy marriage, owing in part to Walter's infidelities. Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916. The family moved into a large house in Tokyo City, where Lilian gave informal singing recitals. Olivia's younger sister Joan (Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland)‍—‌later known as actress Joan Fontaine‍—‌was born on October 22, 1917, when Olivia was 15 months old. Both sisters became British subjects automatically by birthright.

In February 1919, Lilian persuaded her husband to take the family back to Britain as its climate was better suited to their ailing daughters. They sailed aboard the SS Siberia Maru to San Francisco, where the family stopped to treat Olivia's tonsillitis. Joan developed pneumonia, so Lilian decided to remain with her daughters in California, and they eventually settled in the village of Saratoga, 50 miles (80 km) south of San Francisco. Walter abandoned the family and returned to his Japanese housekeeper, who eventually became his second wife.

Olivia was raised to appreciate the arts, beginning with ballet lessons at 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, Olivia's sister first started calling her "Livvie", a nickname that lasted 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 grammar school in a county spelling bee, finishing in second place. Lilian had a new Tudor-style house built in 1923, and the family resided there until the early 1930s. In April 1925, after her divorce was finalized, Lilian married George Milan Fontaine, a department store manager for O. A. Hale & Co. in San Jose. Fontaine was a respectable businessman and a good provider, but his strict parenting style generated animosity and later rebellion in both of his new stepdaughters.

De Havilland continued her education at Los Gatos High School near her home in Saratoga. There she excelled in oratory and field hockey and participated in school plays and the school drama club, eventually becoming the club's secretary. With plans of becoming a schoolteacher in English and speech, she also attended Notre Dame Convent in Belmont.

In 1933, a teenaged de Havilland made her amateur theater debut in Alice in Wonderland, a production of the Saratoga Community Players based on the novel by Lewis Carroll. She appeared in several school plays, including The Merchant of Venice and Hansel and Gretel. Her passion for drama eventually led to a confrontation with her stepfather, who forbade her from participating in further extracurricular activities. When he learned that she had won the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in a school fund-raising production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, he told her that she had to choose between staying at home or appearing in the production and not being allowed home. Not wanting to let her school and classmates down, she left home and moved in with a family friend.

After graduating from high school in 1934, de Havilland was offered a scholarship to Mills College in Oakland to pursue her chosen career as an English teacher. She was also offered the role of Puck in the Saratoga Community Theater production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. That summer, Austrian director Max Reinhardt came to California for a major new production of the same play due to premiere at the Hollywood Bowl. One of Reinhardt's assistants saw de Havilland performing in Saratoga, and he offered her the second understudy position for the role of Hermia. One week before the premiere, the understudy Jean Rouverol and the lead actress Gloria Stuart both left the project, leaving 18-year-old de Havilland to play Hermia. Impressed with her performance, Reinhardt offered her the part in the four-week autumn tour that followed. During the tour, Reinhardt received word that he was to direct the Warner Bros. film version of his stage production, and he offered de Havilland the film role of Hermia. She initially wavered, with her mind still set on becoming a teacher, but Reinhardt and executive producer Henry Blanke eventually persuaded her to sign a five-year contract with Warner Bros. on November 12, 1934, with a starting salary of $200 a week, marking the beginning of a professional acting career that would span more than 50 years.

Career

1935–1937: Early films

De Havilland made her screen debut in Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), which was filmed at Warner Brothers studios from December 19, 1934, to March 9, 1935. During the production, de Havilland picked up film acting techniques from the film's co-director William Dieterle and camera techniques from cinematographer Hal Mohr, who was impressed with her questions about his work. By the end of filming, she had learned the effect of lighting and camera angles on how she appeared on screen and how to find her best lighting. Following premieres in New York City and Beverly Hills, the film was released on October 30, 1935. Despite the publicity campaign, the film generated little enthusiasm with audiences. While the critical response was mixed, de Havilland's performance was praised by The San Francisco Examiner critic. In his review in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Winston Burdett wrote that she "acts graciously and does greater justice to Shakespeare's language than anyone else in the cast". Two minor comedies followed, Alibi Ike (1935) with Joe E. Brown and The Irish in Us (1935) with James Cagney. In both films, she played the sweet and charming love interest‍—‌a role into which she would later become typecast. After the experience of being a Reinhardt player, de Havilland felt disappointed being assigned these routine heroine roles. In March, de Havilland and her mother moved into an apartment at the Chateau des Fleurs at 6626 Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.