If I must leave this life, I wish to do so on a chaise longue, wearing pearl earrings... and drinking a flute of champagne
OLIVIA de Havilland said in her later years that she felt like “a survivor” from “an age that people no longer understand”. The actress was a shining star of 30s and 40s Hollywood, working with the likes of Clark Gable and Errol Flynn.
And with her death on Saturday, aged 104, our last living link to that golden age of Tinseltown was gone. Her representative summed it up by saying: “The world lost an international treasure.”
Olivia, a two-time Oscar winner and star of 49 films, was the last surviving star of the Gone With The Wind cast.
She was a recluse in her final years but never gave up the glamour, living up to the end in a Parisian hotel suite overlooking the Eiffel Tower, drinking bubbly.
She once said: “If I must leave this life, I would like to do so ensconced on a chaise longue, perfumed, wearing a velvet robe and pearl earrings, with a flute of champagne beside me.”
As tributes flooded in, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hosts the Oscars, said: “Olivia de Havilland was a mainstay of Hollywood’s Golden Age and an immeasurable talent. Here’s to a true legend of our industry.”
Her Hollywood break came at 18 in a stage version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when Warner Brothers approached her to reprise the role of Hermia in a film version in 1935.
She was a hit and a year later appeared opposite Errol Flynn for the first time, in pirate swashbuckler Captain Blood.
After The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938, she cemented her stardom in Gone With the Wind in 1939 – playing Melanie Hamilton, the beautiful foil to Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara.
THE hit roles kept coming but she found herself stifled by the industry. Aged 27, feeling typecast, she began to reject offers from Warner Bros. She was suspended, meaning her seven-year contract was lengthened. She risked her career by taking the studio to court in 1943 – and won. The victory ended the tight grip studios had on stars and the law passed after her case is known as De Havilland’s Law.
However, as her career bloomed, so did a bitter rivalry with her sister, actress Joan Fontaine. Their sibling spats would come to define Olivia’s life story almost as much as her glittering CV.
Olivia was born in Tokyo on July 1, 1916, to British parents Lilian and Walter. They had Joan in 1917, moving to California in 1919. When Lilian and Walter split, she wed George Fontaine.
Ex-theatre actress Lilian taught the girls drama, music and elocution – and
Olivia quickly excelled. But the sisters’ relationship was rocky from a young age, rooted in rivalry for Lilian’s attention. A 1942 profile of the sisters in Life revealed a disturbing anecdote: “At nine, Joan decided she would kill her sister. She would plug Olivia between the eyes.”
Fuelling the feud, Lilian insisted Joan take her stepfather’s surname and approach a different film studio.
The first of Olivia’s five Oscar nominations came in 1942, for Best Actress in Hold Back The Dawn. But it was Joan who won one of the coveted
statuettes first. Her career soared after Rebecca in 1940 and in 1942 she won Best Actress for Suspicion. She was caught on camera appearing to ignore Olivia’s congratulations before going on stage.
Later, in memoir No Bed Of Roses
– which Olivia dubbed No Shred of Truth – Joan said of the moment: “All the animosity we’d felt as children … came rushing back in kaleidoscopic imagery.” When Olivia then won her Best Actress Oscar for To Each His Own in 1947, she snubbed Joan back. She won her second Oscar, for The Heiress, in 1949. Meanwhile, her love life made for the stuff of movies. Rumoured to have spurned JFK, she dated tycoon Howard Hughes, actor James Stewart and director John Houston. She split with Stewart when he enlisted in World War II. When he returned, he took the part of George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life and Olivia was offered the role of his wife
– but declined it. She said: “It would be awkward to work with him because of our many months together in a sort of high school pre-war romance, which came to an end.”
But it was her chemistry with Errol Flynn that caused a stir. They starred together seven times and Olivia later admitted she fell for him – but insisted they never acted on their feelings as Flynn was married.
She said: “Yes, we did fall in love and I believe this is evident in the screen chemistry. But his circumstances prevented going further.” Olivia married twice – first in 1946, at 30, to author Marcus Goodrich, who she later divorced. They had son Benjamin, who died of a heart attack at 41. In 1953, Olivia met French magazine editor Pierre Galante in Cannes. They wed and, at 40, she had daughter Gisele. When she and Pierre split in 1962, Olivia remained in Paris. After the 1950s, she gave up leading roles but made her fair share of appearances until 1988. Walking on stage to present an Oscar in 2003, she got a four-minute standing ovation.
Joan died in 2013, aged 96, and while they never made peace Olivia insisted “feud” was too strong a word. In a chat marking her 100th birthday, she said: “A feud implies continuing hostile conduct between parties. I cannot think of a single instance wherein I initiated hostile behaviour. On my part, it was always loving, sometimes estranged and, in later years, severed.”
Olivia was made a Dame in 2017 – the oldest person to get the honour. A fortnight short of turning 101, she described it as “the most gratifying of birthday presents”.
It was fitting recognition of Hollywood royalty the likes of which the world will never see again.