Born:1 July 1916
Real Name:Olivia Mary de Havilland
Nick Name:Liwie
Spouse
Pierre Galante (2 April 1955 - 30 April 1979) (divorced) 1 child
Marcus Goodrich (26 August 1946 - 28 August 1953) (divorced) 1 child
Facts:
-She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine, also an Academy Award winner, de Havilland is one of the last surviving female stars from Hollywood of the 1930s. She is also the last living lead from the Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind.
-Her parents married in 1914 and divorced when Olivia was three. Her younger sister is actress Joan Fontaine (born 1917), from whom she has been estranged for many decades, not speaking at all since 1975. Her paternal cousin is Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, designer of the famous de Havilland Mosquito airplane.
-Havilland played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Overall, she starred opposite Flynn in eight films. She played Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
-In 1941, de Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States. De Havilland was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles assigned to her. She felt she had proven herself capable of playing more than the demure ingénues and damsels in distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role. When her Warner Bros. contract expired, the studio informed her that six months had been added to it for times she had been on suspension; the law allowed for studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role and the period of suspension to be added to the contract period. In theory, this allowed a studio to maintain indefinite control over an uncooperative contractee.
-De Havilland mounted a lawsuit in the 1940s, supported by the Screen Actors Guild and was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to the performers. The decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings in Hollywood. Her courage in mounting such a challenge, and her subsequent victory, won her the respect and admiration of her peers, among them her sister Joan Fontaine who later commented, "Hollywood owes Olivia a great deal".The studio, however, vowed never to hire her again. The court's ruling came to be known, and is still known to this day, as the "de Havilland law".
-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.
-Havilland signed a three picture deal with Paramount Pictures. The quality and variety of her roles began to improve.
-She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award-nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness, and de Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamor and that confronted such controversial subject matter. She won the New York Film Critics Award for both The Snake Pit and The Heiress.
-De Havilland appeared sporadically in films after the 1950s and attributed this partly to the growing permissiveness of Hollywood films of the period.
-In 2008, de Havilland was awarded the United States National Medal of Arts.
-De Havilland and Errol Flynn were known as one of Hollywood's most exciting on-screen couples, 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)
-Was romantically involved with James Stewart, Howard Hughes, John Huston and Errol Flynn in the late 1930s.
-Lost her son Benjamin to Hodgkin's disease in 1991, shortly before Benjamin's father, writer Marcus Goodrich, passed away.
Real Name:Olivia Mary de Havilland
Nick Name:Liwie
Spouse
Pierre Galante (2 April 1955 - 30 April 1979) (divorced) 1 child
Marcus Goodrich (26 August 1946 - 28 August 1953) (divorced) 1 child
Facts:
-She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine, also an Academy Award winner, de Havilland is one of the last surviving female stars from Hollywood of the 1930s. She is also the last living lead from the Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind.
-Her parents married in 1914 and divorced when Olivia was three. Her younger sister is actress Joan Fontaine (born 1917), from whom she has been estranged for many decades, not speaking at all since 1975. Her paternal cousin is Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, designer of the famous de Havilland Mosquito airplane.
-Havilland played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Overall, she starred opposite Flynn in eight films. She played Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
-In 1941, de Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States. De Havilland was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles assigned to her. She felt she had proven herself capable of playing more than the demure ingénues and damsels in distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role. When her Warner Bros. contract expired, the studio informed her that six months had been added to it for times she had been on suspension; the law allowed for studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role and the period of suspension to be added to the contract period. In theory, this allowed a studio to maintain indefinite control over an uncooperative contractee.
-De Havilland mounted a lawsuit in the 1940s, supported by the Screen Actors Guild and was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to the performers. The decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings in Hollywood. Her courage in mounting such a challenge, and her subsequent victory, won her the respect and admiration of her peers, among them her sister Joan Fontaine who later commented, "Hollywood owes Olivia a great deal".The studio, however, vowed never to hire her again. The court's ruling came to be known, and is still known to this day, as the "de Havilland law".
-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.
-Havilland signed a three picture deal with Paramount Pictures. The quality and variety of her roles began to improve.
-She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award-nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness, and de Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamor and that confronted such controversial subject matter. She won the New York Film Critics Award for both The Snake Pit and The Heiress.
-De Havilland appeared sporadically in films after the 1950s and attributed this partly to the growing permissiveness of Hollywood films of the period.
-In 2008, de Havilland was awarded the United States National Medal of Arts.
-De Havilland and Errol Flynn were known as one of Hollywood's most exciting on-screen couples, 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)
-Was romantically involved with James Stewart, Howard Hughes, John Huston and Errol Flynn in the late 1930s.
-Lost her son Benjamin to Hodgkin's disease in 1991, shortly before Benjamin's father, writer Marcus Goodrich, passed away.
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