*Includes pictures.
*Includes both actresses' quotes about each other and their
careers.
*Includes a bibliography for further reading.
“Famous people feel that they must perpetually be on the crest
of the wave, not realising that it is against all the rules of
life. You can't be on top all the time, it isn't natural.” –
Olivia de Havilland
“You know, I've had a helluva life. Not just the acting part.
I've flown in an international balloon race. I've piloted my own
plane. I've ridden to the hounds. I've done a lot of exciting
things.” – Joan Fontaine
Olivia de Havilland is one of the last few living actresses who
worked during the Golden Era of Hollywood, but also one of the
most decorated, winning dozens of awards over the course of a 50
year career. Among those, she most notably won the Academy Award
for Best Actress for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress
(1949), more than a decade after she got her start as an 18 year
old in Hollywood. Ironically, de Havilland was in California in
part because the young British girl who had been born in Tokyo
stopped in the States for medical .
Of course, de Havilland isn’t well remembered for any of those
accolades or other movies but because she played Melanie Hamilton
in Gone With the Wind (1939), perhaps the most famous movie in
American history. Although she was a veteran actress at the time,
de Havilland’s career hadn’t progressed much since she started,
and rumor has it that she eventually got the role after her own
sister, Joan Fontaine, was asked to audition for the part and
recommended Olivia instead. Olivia was ultimately nominated for
an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and became a
household name in her adopted country overnight.
Having been typecast in light romantic comedies before Gone With
the Wind, that performance ensured de Havilland subsequently had
a long, productive and versatile career making everything from
Westerns and dramas. Of those movies, she is perhaps most closely
associated with the enigmatic Errol Flynn, another foreign-born
actor who was more notorious for his roles off the screen than on
it. Before his untimely death, they appeared in several films
together and became one of Hollywood’s most popular on-screen
couples.
Although Fontaine and de Havilland would make history by
becoming the only sisters to both win an Academy Award for Best
Actress, that anecdote was just one of the various stories about
the siblings that has shed light on their notoriously contentious
and complicated relationship. As Fontaine once put it, “I married
first, won the O before Olivia did, and if I die first,
she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" De
Havilland herself once said, "Joan is very bright and sharp and
can be cutting."
Of course, one of the reasons people have remained interested in
the sisters is that both of them had such long acting careers,
and Fontaine became best remembered both for a career that
spanned 60 years and several high profile marriages. With typical
humor, Fontaine joked about the fact she had so many husbands,
commenting in jest, “If you keep marrying as I do, you learn
everybody's hobby.” But that attention has only served to obscure
her very serious professional career, which saw her won the O
for Best Actress for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion
(1941). She also earned a nomination for her performance in The
Constant Nymph (1943), and in a television career that spanned
several decades, she earned an Emmy nomination for her work on
Ryan’s Hope in 1980, nearly 40 years after winning the Academy
Award for Suspicion. Fontaine even appeared on Broadway in a
couple of productions that ran for several years.
This book profiles the life and career of two of Hollywood’s
most prolific actresses. Along with pictures of important people,
places, and events, you will learn about the sisters like never
before.