Remembering Olivia de Havilland’s second visit to Milwaukee
(Editor’s note: This story first appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Green Sheet in October 2015. It’s been edited with the death of Olivia de Havilland; the Oscar-winning actress and Hollywood legend died on July 26, 2020, at age 104.)
Once upon a time, it was standard procedure for newspapers to send a reporter to the train station when they knew a celebrity was arriving in town.
That’s what happened Oct. 22, 1951, when a Milwaukee Journal reporter and a photographer went to the Milwaukee Road Depot — the train station at 321 W. Everett St., facing what is now Zeidler Union Square — to meet Olivia de Havilland.
The two-time Oscar-winning actress (“To Each His Own,” “The Heiress”) arrived in Milwaukee to star in the George Bernard Shaw comedy “Candida,” which was opening that night at the Davidson Theatre, downtown on what’s now North Old World Third Street just south of Wisconsin Ave.
De Havilland arrived with an entourage of four, including her 2-year-old son, Benjamin, and his pet cat.
The Journal reporter focused more on de Havilland’s doting on her son than anything else, noting that she refused to allow the paper’s photographer to take the boy’s picture.
“That’s the only place I draw the line,” she told the Journal “firmly.”
De Havilland’s son was to be with her throughout her tour, which was to last until the following April.
When she did talk about herself, de Havilland told the reporter that the first time she performed on a Milwaukee stage was at a turning point in her acting career.
“I went to the movies from Milwaukee, you know,” she said. “That was 18 years ago, when I was just starting out. I played here in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ and I went directly from here to Hollywood when the play was made into a movie.”
That production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” staged by European theater extravaganza-master Max Reinhardt, drew rave reviews when it played the Milwaukee Auditorium in December 1934 (actually, 17 years before her 1951 arrival).
The Milwaukee Sentinel’s review — which ran in its Dec. 9, 1934, edition under the headline “‘Dream’ Gives Crowd 2 Hours in Fairyland; Reinhardt Settings Transport Throng to Magic Realm” — included a photo of 18-yearold de Havilland as Hermia, in a clinch with Richard Stark in the role of Lysander.
Warner Bros. recruited Reinhardt to reprise the production for the big screen, and signed de Havilland — one of the breakout stars of the show’s nationwide tour — to repeat her role.
De Havilland received good notices for her second Milwaukee stage appearance. In his review of “Candida,” The Journal’s Edward Dewey sort of dismissed the play as an old warhorse of the stage, at least until the third act, when, he said, de Havilland “makes full and successful use of her personal charm and her great talent as an actress. It is to repeat — theater magic.”
The Davidson Theatre closed its doors in 1954; the building, which also housed the Davidson Hotel, was turned into offices and later torn down. The train station where de Havilland met the reporter closed in August 1965 and, a little more than a week later, was hit by a three-alarm fire before it was demolished.
De Havilland outlived nearly all of her co-stars from Hollywood’s golden age, including her sister and fellow Oscar winner Joan Fontaine, who died in 2013 at age 96. And as she firmly handled The Journal reporter, de Havilland stood her ground to the end.
In 2018, she sued the FX network and Ryan Murphy Productions over how she was portrayed in the miniseries “Feud: Bette and Joan.” In the series, about the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, de Havilland’s character used obscenities and other catty language, which the actress alleged showed her in a false light. (She ended up losing the case, but did get the courts to expedite proceedings, in light of her age at the time.)
De Havilland died in Paris, her longadopted home, on Sunday. She was 104.