At 104 years old, the remembered actress, Olivia de Havilland, has left the world very naturally. According to various sources, the causes of her death would have been natural and she left behind the golden age of Hollywood. The actress has always been widely recognized for her performances in «Gone with the Wind.»
Life and works
Olivia de Havilland was born on the first of July 1916 in Tokyo, Japan. She belonged to an aristocratic family made up of Walter Augustus de Havilland, lawyer and diplomat, and actress Lillian Ruse. Moving to California due to her parents’ divorce with her mother and sister, she began studying Dramatic Art and working in university theater groups.
Thanks to her stupendous performance in a performance of «A Midsummer Night’s Dream», the German Max Reinhardt directed it in 1935 for the film version of it. Some of her most successful roles with iconic firms Warner Bros and later, Metro Golden Mayer, were in:
– The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936, Michael Curtiz)
– The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz)
-They died with their Boots On (1941, Raoul Walsh)
– Gone With the Wind
The eternal rival
The relationship with her sister, Joan Fontaine, was not very good. Both followed the acting career which led them to different confrontations to know who was the best.
Joan had taken the surname of her mother’s second husband to differentiate herself from her sister. Thus, the two spent 35 years without speaking to each other since the death of their mother in 1975.
While both had strong characters, the height of their enmity was reflected in 1941 when Havilland, nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Melania Hamilton, and later starred in ‘Hold Back Dawn’, but her performance was displaced by her sister with Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’.
Better conditions
Havilland was one of the voices raised to improve salary conditions and better contracts for the actors. This put different Hollywood studios in check.