Movie legend Olivia loses TV ‘lies’ case
HOLLYWOOD legend Dame Olivia de Havilland has lost her lawsuit over a television series she claimed depicted her falsely and unfairly after the US Supreme Court refused to review the case.
The 102-year-old Gone With The Wind actress, one of the last survivors of cinema’s Golden Age, argued the producers of Feud: Bette And Joan portrayed her as a hypocrite and gossip.
The FX Channel’s docudrama about the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford – played by Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange respectively – also featured Welsh star Catherine Zeta Jones in the role of Dame Olivia.
The double Oscar winner claimed producers were guilty of “unauthorised and false use” of her “name and reputation”.
Initially, a judge in Los Angeles allowed the lawsuit to progress before a California appeals court reversed the decision on the grounds of the First Amendment, or the right to free speech.
Dame Olivia then brought the case to the state’s supreme court, which sided with the TV network, saying stars cannot “dictate” how their legacies are portrayed.
The actress vowed to continue fighting and asked the US Supreme Court to review the decision. However on Monday, the court rejected her petition to review the dismissal of her lawsuit. Lawyers working on behalf of Dame Olivia said: “One day someone else who is wronged for the sake of Hollywood profits will have the courage to stand on the shoulders of Miss de Havilland and fight for the right to defend a good name and legacy against intentional, unconsented exploitation and falsehoods. “Miss de Havilland hopes she will live to see the day when such justice is done.” After a judge first dismissed the case in March, the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, said it was a “victory for the creative community”, allowing writers “to tell important historical stories inspired by true events”.
Dame Olivia, who won Oscars for To Each His Own in 1946 and The Heiress in 1949, won a landmark victory over Warner Bros in 1943 which effectively ended actors’ contract servitude.
The American actress born in Japan to British parents had a career lasting from 1935 to 1988 and became the oldest ever dame in 2017.
Her younger sister Joan Fontaine – who won an Oscar in 1942 for Alfred Hitchcock film Suspicion – died in 2013 aged 96.