1176: Olivia de Havilland
American Actress
Born: 1 July 1916, Tokyo, Japan
Died: 26 July 2020, Paris, France
Olivia was born in Japan to English parents. She had one sister, the actress Joan Fontaine. When Olivia was three, her parents split, and she moved with her mother and sister to California.
Olivia was signed to Warner Brothers on a seven-year contract after she appeared in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). Olivia soon embarked on what would become a six-decade-long film career, during which time she starred in eight movies with Errol Flynn.
Today, Olivia is most remembered for her performance in Gone With the Wind (1939). She received her first Academy Awards nomination for the role.
Olivia is also remembered for suing Warner Bros for unfair contractual obligations. At first, Olivia complained that she wanted better roles, and Warner Brothers put her on a six-month suspension to punish her. When Olivia’s seven-year contract ran out, Warner Brothers then informed her she had to make up the six months from her suspension. Olivia decided to sue the studio as a result and didn’t appear in a single film throughout the lengthy court battle.
In a landmark decision, the courts decided that from then on, studios could not force an actor into a contract longer than seven years, and that suspensions were also no longer allowed.
When Olivia finally returned to the screen in 1946, she appeared in four films and finally won the Oscar that had eluded her for so many years. After 1952, her screen appearances began to slow to a crawl, with her final film role in 1979. She continued to do some television and Broadway performances however, with her final role being The Woman He Loved (1988) on television.
In 1965, Olivia was named the first female president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Olivia is also the record holder for most times a single actor has been thanked by others in their Oscar’s acceptance speech, with Olivia being named at least twenty-seven times over the years. Two weeks before her 101st birthday, Olivia was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her work in drama. At the time, Olivia was the oldest woman to ever receive the honor. In 2010, she was also awarded the Légion d’Honneur by the President of France.
Olivia’s personal life was turbulent to say the least, with her and her sister Joan notably throwing each other under the bus for decades at a time. Reportedly, when Olivia was nine, she crafted her first Will and Testament, stating in it, "I bequeath all my beauty to my younger sister Joan, since she has none". However, later in Joan’s life she gave an interview saying it was all tabloid fodder and that she and Olivia had always gotten along.
Olivia was married twice and had two children. Her oldest son passed away in 1991 at the age of forty-two. He had been battling Hodgkin’s Disease since he was only nineteen years old. Olivia also had a daughter.
Later in her life, Olivia sued FX for their portrayal of her in the show Feud: Bette and Joan. Olivia is portrayed by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the mini-series, which portrays the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. According to the New York Times, “She maintained that her portrayal constituted unauthorized use of her name and likeness and showed her in “a false light” as a hypocrite “with a public image of being a lady and a private one as a vulgarity-using gossip.” A California appellate court dismissed the suit, ruling that the portrayal was “not highly offensive to a reasonable person as a matter of law.””
Olivia was the last true Hollywood star from the 1930s era when she passed, marking the end of an era.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Located In My Personal Library:
Backwards and in Heels by Alicia Malone
Bad Days in History by Michael Farquhar
Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly
Sources:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000014/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000014/trivia/?ref_=nm_dyk_trv
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/movies/olivia-de-havilland-dead.html
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/213808236/olivia-de_havilland