Olivia de Havilland

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan on July 1, 1916, to stage actress Lillian and English professor Walter de Havilland.  Her sister, Joan (later known as Joan Fontaine), was born fifteen months later, also in Tokyo.  In 1919, while the family was moving back to England, they stopped in San Francisco.  Both Olivia and Joan were ill, and their mother decided to remain in California.  Their father abandoned the family and returned to Japan.  In 1925, Lillian married George Fontaine, a department store manager.

Olivia was raised to appreciate the arts, starting with ballet and piano lessons.  In high school, she took part in school plays and the drama club.  By 1933, she was being offered roles in amateur productions.  Her stepfather was not happy with her passion for theater which led to a confrontation and, eventually, de Havilland moving in with family friends.  In 1934, she was offered a role in a community theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Director Max Reinhardt was producing the same play for the Hollywood Bowl and offered her the second understudy for the role of Hermia.  When both the lead and the first understudy left the project, young Olivia de Havilland found herself playing the role at the Hollywood Bowl.  Her performance impressed Reinhardt so much that he and executive producer Heny Blanke persuaded her to sign a five-year contract with Warner Brothers. 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) became Olivia De Havilland’s debut film.  A few minor comedy roles followed including The Irish in Us (1935) with James Cagney.  Her big break came when she made Captain Blood (1935) with Errol Flynn.  Warner Brothers took a risk with the film by featuring two relatively unknowns in Flynn and de Havilland, but the gamble paid off.  Both were ideally suited for costumed roles and the onscreen chemistry between the two was clear from the start.  Captain Blood was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, launched two legendary Hollywood careers and led to seven additional collaborations between Flynn and de Havilland. 

De Havilland’s status continued to grow through the late 1930s with films like The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), also starring Errol Flynn, Call It a Day (1937) and It’s Love I’m After (1937).  Stardom followed with The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Dodge City (1939), both collaborations with Errol Flynn, and the film for which she is probably most remembered, Gone with the Wind (1939) (Read Our Review).  The film earned her the first of five Academy Award nominations, this one for Best Supporting Actress.

Today, we understand de Havilland’s importance to all of these films, but she was billed third or less in most of them.  She hoped her Oscar nominated performance in Gone with the Wind would lead to better roles, but Warner Brothers had type cast her as a supporting love interest and continued to assign her to lesser films.  By 1940, she was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with these roles and began to refuse them, leading to a suspension.  She did agree to Santa Fe Trail (1940), once again with Errol Flynn and the film became one of the top grossing films of the year but she was suspended again by Warner Brothers in 1941.  She eventually agreed to several roles including Hold Back the Dawn (1941), a film which earned six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and de Havilland’s first Best Actress nomination.  At Flynn’s urging she agreed to another collaboration with him in They Died with Their Boots On (1941) which became another box office hit. 

In 1943, de Havilland’s contract with Warner Brothers ended but they tried to hold her for another six months based on time she had been suspended.  This led to a lawsuit in which de Havilland eventually prevailed.  The decision is considered significant in Hollywood history as it reduced the dominance of the studios in the relationship between studio and performer.

De Havilland signed her next contract for two films with Paramount.  Her performance in To Each His Own (1946) earned her first Best Actress award.  In The Dark Mirror (1946), de Havilland was challenged by playing twin sisters with dramatically different personalities.  She was further challenged by her role in The Snake Pit (1948) where she played a mentally ill woman placed in an institution by her husband.  The role won her a third Best Actress nomination.  The next year, she appeared in The Heiress (1949), a film that won her a fourth nomination and a second Best Actress award. 

De Havilland gave birth to a son, Benjamin, in September 1949.  She took time off to spend with her infant son and eventually moved to New York City to star in several stage productions.  After a divorce, she visited France in 1953 where she met her second husband Pierre Galante.  From this point forward, she took fewer roles, most on television, and enjoyed life in France with her family.  Her last major film roles came in 1964 with A Lady in a Cage (1964) and Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964).  The latter earned seven Oscar nominations and three wins but none for de Havilland.

Olivia de Havilland lived the rest of her life in Paris and lived to the age of 104.  While she did not appear on screen very often, she remained active in the film and stage community, appearing at various Academy Awards events.  Late in life, she was honored by the United States with the National Medal of Arts, by France with the Legion d’honnuer and by Great Britain as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.  She died of natural causes at on July 26, 2020, in Paris.