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Name: Olivia de Havilland
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Date of Birth:
July 01, 1916
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Place of Birth:
Tokyo, Japan
Mini-bio:
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born to a British patent attorney and his wife on July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan. Her sister, Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. He...( read more)r parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California. After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland. It was while she was at Mills that she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935) and Captain Blood (1935), the latter with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified, heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing the sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel. After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she would have to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said not only that Olivia did not have to make up the time, but that all performers were to be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision"; no longer could studios treat their performers as mere cattle. Returning to screen in 1946, Olivia made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her. It was To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s. In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988) (TV). During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, she graciously declined requests for all interviews as the only surviving one of the four main stars. Today she enjoys a quiet retirement in Paris, France.
Olivia's cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882-1965), the British aviation pioneer and designer of aircraft such as the wartime Mosquito fighter.
Older sister of actress Joan Fontaine.
Daughter of film and stage actress Lillian Fontaine.
Relations between de Havilland and younger sister Joan Fontaine were never all that strong and worsened in 1941, when both were nominated for 'Best Actress' Oscar awards. Their mutual dislike and jealousy escalated into an all-out feud after Fontaine won for Suspicion (1941). Despite the fact that de Havilland went on to win two Academy Awards of her own, they remained permanently estranged.
After her divorce from second husband Pierre Galante in 1979 they remained close friends, and after Galante became ill with cancer she nursed him until his death in 1998.
Only surviving star (who received star billing) of Gone with the Wind (1939). Other surviving minor stars are Ann Rutherford, Fred Crane, Mickey Kuhn, Alicia Rhett, Mary Anderson and Evelyn Keyes.
Justly famous for her court victory against Warner Brothers in the mid 1940s (many others had sued Warners but failed), which stopped Warners from adding suspension periods to actors' contracts and therefore meant more freedom for actors in Hollywood. It became known as the "de Havilland decision".
Has made Paris her home since the mid 1950s.
Showed flair as a writer when "Every Fenchman Has One," a lighthearted autobiographical account of her attempts at adapting to French life, was published in 1962.
At the age of 82, was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Hertfordshire, England.
Lost her son Benjamin to Hodgkin's disease in 1991, shortly before Benjamin's father, writer Marcus Goodrich, passed away.
In 1965, she became the first female president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.
Turned down the role of Blanche DuBois in _Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)_ , allegedly stating that "A lady just doesn't say or do those things on the screen".
Is descended from the Haverlands of Normandy, one of whom (the Lord of Haverland) accompanied William the Conquerer in his invasion of England in 1066.
Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (1872-1968), was a patent attorney in Japan and also author of the 1910 book 'The ABC of go', which provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the Japanese board game.
She had two children (one from each of her marriages): Benjamin (1949-1991), who became a mathematician, and Gisele (b. 1956), who followed in her father's footsteps by becoming a journalist.
It was reported in October 2001 that Miss de Havilland was among 40 prominent French residents who were victims of hoax anthrax attacks. (The attacks were proven to be hoaxes after a woman was arrested in Paris for sending out envelopes containing a powdery substance.)
Ms. de Havilland lives a peaceful retirement at her home on Rue Benouville, in Paris. She spends time teaching Sunday School to children at a local church.
She made a special appearance at the The 75th Annual Academy Awards (2003) (TV) and received a well-deserved standing ovation.
She holds the record for the most people thanked in an Oscar acceptance speech (27) when she accepted the award for Best Actress for To Each His Own (1946).
In 1991, her son, Benjamin Briggs Goodrich, a statistical analyst, died of complications from Hodgkin's disease at his mother's home in Paris, France.
Is the 15th cousin twice removed of Errol Flynn, her co-star in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).
She and Joan Fontaine are the first sisters to win Oscars and the first ones to be Oscar-nominated in the same year.
Is portrayed by Lee Purcell in My Wicked, Wicked Ways... The Legend of Errol Flynn (1985) (TV).
She and Errol Flynn acted together in 9 movies: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Dodge City (1939), Four's a Crowd (1938), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) and They Died with Their Boots On (1941).
Confessed in later years that she had an intense crush on Errol Flynn during the years of their filming. She confessed it was hard to resist his charms.
Her mother named her Olivia after Shakespeare's romantic heroine in "Twelfth Night."
The role of Lisolette Mueller in the The Towering Inferno (1974) was originally offered to Miss de Havilland. The character was eventually played by Jennifer Jones.
Was somewhat overweight when she first came to Paramount, yet Edith Head was able to design costumes with a slimming effect.
Aunt of Debbie Dozier.
Ex-sister-in-law of Collier Young, Brian Aherne and William Dozier.
She has a street named after her in Mexico City. Renowned Mexican actor and director Emilio Fernández lived in Coyoacan Town on a street with no name at all, so he asked the authorities to name this street "Dulce Olivia," Spanish for "Sweet Olivia," after her.
When she was 9 years old, she made a will in which she stated, "I bequeath all my beauty to my younger sister Joan [Joan Fontaine], since she has none".
Was romantically involved with James Stewart, Howard Hughes, John Huston and Errol Flynn in the late 1930s.
In the 1950s, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson, AZ, named one of their female javalinas "Olivia de Javalina" in her honor; incidentally, their male was named "Gregory Peckory" to honor actor Gregory Peck.
In Italy, almost all of her films were dubbed by either Dhia Cristiani or Lidia Simoneschi. For the Italian releases of two of her most celebrated and fondly remembered roles, Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939) and Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), she was dubbed, respectively, by Renata Marini and Dina Perbellini. This was the only time that either Italian actress lent her voice to Olivia.
Is mentioned in Helge Schneider's book "Die Memoiren des Rodriguez Faszanatas".
Was a close friend of Ronald Reagan from the time they were both active anti-Communists in Hollywood.
In April 1946 she set off a power struggle within the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (HICCASP) by refusing to deliver two speeches in Seattle as written by her fellow executive council member Dalton Trumbo, later one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. She felt Trumbo's text was too left-wing and worried that the organization was becoming "automatically pro-Russian".
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