Olivia de Havilland

Olivia de Havilland was a British-American actress who rose to fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She was best known for her roles in films such as Gone with the Wind (1939), The Heiress (1949), and The Snake Pit (1948). She won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, one for To Each His Own (1946) and another for The Heiress. She was also nominated three more times, for Gone with the Wind, Hold Back the Dawn (1941), and The Snake Pit. De Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents. Her father was an English professor and patent attorney, and her mother was a former actress and singer. She had a younger sister, Joan Fontaine, who also became a famous actress. The sisters had a strained relationship throughout their lives, and competed for roles and awards. De Havilland moved to California with her mother and sister in 1919, after her parents divorced. De Havilland began her acting career on stage, and was discovered by director Max Reinhardt, who cast her in his film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). She then signed a contract with Warner Bros., where she starred in several adventure films opposite Errol Flynn, such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). She also played the gentle Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind, which was one of the most successful films of all time. De Havilland was unhappy with the roles that Warner Bros. offered her, and sued the studio in 1943 for extending her contract without her consent. She won the lawsuit, which became known as the de Havilland Law, and freed herself from the studio system. She then pursued more challenging and diverse roles, such as an unwed mother in To Each His Own, a spinster heiress in The Heiress, and a mental patient in The Snake Pit. She also appeared on Broadway and on television, winning a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award. De Havilland married twice and had two children. Her first husband was Marcus Goodrich, a writer and naval officer, whom she divorced in 1953. Her second husband was Pierre Galante, a French journalist and editor, whom she married in 1955 and moved to Paris with. They separated in 1962 but remained friends until his death in 1979. De Havilland became a naturalized citizen of France in 1962. De Havilland retired from acting in 1988, after appearing in the film The Fifth Musketeer (1979) and the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988). She lived a quiet life in Paris, where she enjoyed reading, gardening, and crossword puzzles. She received many honors for her contributions to cinema, such as the National Medal of Arts, the Legion of Honour, and the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She died peacefully at her home in Paris on July 26, 2020, at the age of 104.