With two Academy Awards and a roster of memorable characterizations to her credit, including one in what may be the most famous American film of all time, Olivia de Havilland has earned a place in the hearts of film buffs as one of the screen’s finest dramatic actresses. Yet one would be hard-pressed to find evidence of her dramatic skills from the mediocre roles she was given while under contract to Warner Bros. Her fragile beauty and velvety voice almost locked her forever into playing the poor damsel in distress to heroic leading men such as Errol Flynn.
While the off-camera Olivia was just as refined as the heroines she played, on several occasions the lady also proved to be a tiger, such as when she took on her Warners bosses and scored a landmark legal victory. Her independence from Warners at last brought her the freedom to tackle flesh and blood roles. And for an all-too-brief period, Olivia was the reigning actress of the screen with a quartet of exceptional performances (To Each His Own, The Dark Mirror, The Snake Pit and The Heiress) that reinforced the fact of how ill-used she had been at Warners.
Unlike Bette Davis, though, Olivia was less driven. At the peak of her stardom she bid farewell to Hollywood and instead took on a more fulfilling role as a Parisian wife and mother. While her career never again reached the apex of her Oscar years, it continued to flourish as Olivia channeled her talents in different directions, including the stage and writing, as well as making occasional film appearances.
“She’s about as well-adjusted and level-headed a person as I’ve ever met who’s become a superstar,” said long-time friend Robert Osborne. She’s very interested in the world, politics and her family. She has a great handle on life. In the ’40s she was known as the Bachelor Girl of Hollywood. Men like Jimmy Stewart, Burgess Meredith and John Huston were all in love with her, and who could blame them. She was—and is still—very attractive, very feminine.”
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents. Her mother, Lilian Ruse, had been an accomplished student of music and voice who had won a pair of three-year scholarships to Reading Musical College in England. In the summer of 1907 Lilian was offered a position in Tokyo as a teacher of choral singing. She was also reunited with her brother, Ernest Percy Ruse, one of two non–Asiatic professors at the city’s celebrated Waseda University. It was also in Tokyo, at an embassy tea, where Lilian met Walter de Havilland, a suave Englishman who ran a successful firm of patent attorneys. The two had a whirlwind courtship, and within a few days Walter proposed.
However, marriage was not foremost on Lilian’s mind. According to Olivia, Lilian’s performance of a solo, most likely during Sunday mass at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, impressed one of the women in attendance, and she offered to write a musical play for Lilian. As such, Lilian decided to return to England in December of 1911 to study acting at Sir Beerbohm Tree’s Academy, now known as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Walter was persistent and in 1914 caught up with Lilian again. He returned to England to enlist with the British Army after the First World War began. Despite being an accomplished marksman, Walter, then forty-two, was rejected because of his age. At the same time, he looked up Lilian and again asked her to marry him. She tossed a crown to help her make a decision. They were married soon after. That precarious beginning was a harbinger of the difficulties that lay ahead. In later years Lilian described her husband as a tall, handsome but terrifying man who “spoke like God, but behaved like the Devil.”
Their relationship grew even more strained after the birth of Olivia and her sister Joan the following year. In early 1919 Walter and Lilian bundled up their daughters and set sail for the United States, arriving in San Francisco on March 1. Eight days later Walter headed back to Japan. Shortly after their arrival the girls were taken to see Dr. Langley Porter, a noted child specialist. He looked at Olivia’s tonsils and insisted they be removed immediately. The prognosis was worse for Joan, who soon after developed pneumonia. Porter insisted the climate in Saratoga, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains, would do a world of good for Joan.
Following his advice, Lilian and the girls left San Francisco and first settled into the Vendome Hotel in the Santa Clara valley. According to Olivia, it was during their stay at the Vendome when Lilian met George M. Fontaine at the hotel’s annual New Year’s Eve ball. Fontaine was both pleasant-looking and a successful businessman, who was part owner and general manager of Hale Brothers, a renowned department store in San Jose. He was immediately smitten with Lilian, and the two of them soon began seeing a lot of each other.
The family stayed at the Vendome for several months before moving to Saratoga when Olivia was four. Joan by this time had become anemic and spent a great deal of time in bed. Not surprisingly, she became resentful that Olivia had more fun than she did. In one instance, Olivia got to play the lead in a local theater production of Alice in Wonderland, a part Joan had envisioned for herself. Such instances led to the phrase “Olivia can, Joan can’t,” a common expression in the de Havilland home and a catalyst for the sisters’ reputed “feud.”
In October 1924 Lilian, who had now decided to take up permanent residence in California, left her daughters in the care of a nurse and embarked for Tokyo to file suit for divorce from Walter. By this time Olivia’s father had sold the family’s Tokyo home to the Swedish Legation and was living in bachelor’s quarters, which were tended to by a young Japanese woman who was a descendant of a Samurai family.
The divorce was granted in February 1925, and Lilian and Fontaine were married two months later. Two years afterward, Walter also took a new spouse—his Japanese housemaid, Yoki-san, whose devotion to her husband was “extraordinary,” Olivia said.
The girls had a hard time dealing with their stepfather’s rigid brand of discipline. He imposed a strict 8:15 curfew, which meant that Olivia often had to do her homework in bed with a flashlight beneath the covers. He also forbade the girls to engage in extra-curricular activities, although on the sly, Olivia joined the hockey club and the debate team. She also was a member of the Student Council at Los Gatos Union High School, and served as class secretary in her freshman year, and secretary of the student body in her sophomore year. By that point Joan returned to Japan to live with Walter and Yoki-san.
The well-versed Lilian taught her daughters diction and voice control at an early age, as well as exposing them to great works of literature. As such, Olivia developed an interest in the arts and joined the school’s drama club. Olivia was thrilled in her junior year when she was chosen to play Violet in Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh, but her elation was replaced by disbelief when Fontaine issued her an ultimatum: either she withdraw from the play or permanently leave the house. Olivia refused to let down her fellow castmates or the prospective audience, so she temporarily moved in with friends. Lillian related the incident to her bridge club, who were so moved that they raised $200 to help Olivia, a debt she repaid during her first year in films. With the money, Olivia was eventually able to rent a room in the residence of a former nurse. Even after the play was finished, Olivia did not move back home. She did not make her peace with Fontaine for many years afterward, and even then she did so only to please her mother.
Olivia graduated among the top of her class in 1934. She won a scholarship to Mills College in Oakland, which was noted for its drama and speech arts course, and planned to attend the school in the fall. Although Olivia was still uncertain as to her eventual career path, drama was becoming a growing interest. She had recently appeared as Puck in the Saratoga Community Players production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and made the acquaintance of an assistant to producer Max Reinhardt who attended the performance. When she learned that Reinhardt was going to produce A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Hollywood Bowl that summer, she asked the maestro’s assistant for permission to watch rehearsals. Instead, she was told by another of Reinhardt’s assistants that she could understudy the role of Hermia.
Olivia de Havilland achieved her greatest screen successes away from Warner Bros.
When Olivia arrived in Los Angeles four weeks later, she discovered that she was actually the second understudy to Gloria Stuart, cast as Hermia. Jean Rouverol, daughter of playwright Aurania Rouverol, was first understudy, but she soon dropped out because of a film commitment. Stuart, likewise, was unable to attend more than three rehearsals, since she was filming at Warner Bros., and Olivia took her place during much of the preparatory period. Five days before opening night the company learned that Stuart’s film was running over schedule. Reinhardt then told Olivia, “You will play the part.” After that success, she repeated the role at the San Francisco Opera House, and in the Faculty Glade and Greek Theater of the University of California at Berkeley.
During rehearsals, Henry Blanke, a producer at Warner Bros. who was preparing a film version of the Shakespearean romp (which Reinhardt and William Dieterle were to direct), noticed Olivia and asked Reinhardt to introduce him “to the girl with the ethereal face.” By the end of his visit he offered her the screen role of Hermia, but she turned him down.
Prior to going on a national tour with the play and immediately after a screen test at Warner Bros., Olivia was persuaded by Blanke, Reinhardt and Dieterle to not only sign for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but also for a five-year contract to go into effect when the film was completed. Olivia wanted it written into her contract that she could accept play offers in between film assignments. Warners refused and, after considerable arguing, Olivia left the office. Reinhardt immediately dragged her back in, shouting at her in German. She reluctantly signed the contract.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) was an honest effort by Warners to try something artistic. For box-office insurance, the studio cast James Cagney as Bottom, Joe E. Brown as Flute and Dick Powell as Lysander. Shakespeare’s comedy about the mixed-up relationships of four lovers, as well as other residents of an Athenian forest, was, if nothing else, visually stunning (thanks to Hal Mohr’s gorgeous cinematography) and a treat for the ears (courtesy of Felix Mendelssohn’s pulsating music). A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a studio’s worst nightmare—an expensive prestige picture that bombed at the box office.
As Hermia, Olivia gave an impressive performance. Playwright Zoe Akins found her so charming that she asked for Olivia to play the ingenue in The Old Maid, but Warners refused. Olivia was heartbroken, and it was her last theatrical offer while under contract to the studio.
Warners held back the premiere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream until October 1935, by which time Olivia had appeared in two artistically inferior but commercially more successful releases. First up was Alibi Ike (1935), the funniest of Joe E. Brown’s films, with the rubber-mouthed comic as an ace baseball player with an excuse for everything. During the movie’s seventy-minute running time, Brown runs afoul of fast balls and gangsters, and also romances, breaks up with and eventually marries sweet Dolly Stevens (Olivia). While the movie was an excellent showcase for Brown, it did little for Olivia, except pigeonhole her into playing dull ingenues.
Likewise, The Irish in Us (1935) was an amusing bit of blarney with Olivia as the girl loved by brothers James Cagney and Pat O’Brien. It was little more than a variation of her Alibi Ike role, and she played it with sincerity but little enthusiasm.
It was Olivia’s next film that served as the springboard for her future at Warner Bros. Rafael Sabatini’s swashbuckler Captain Blood had been intended as a vehicle for Robert Donat, fresh from his success in The Count of Monte Cristo (1934). A miscommunication involving Donat’s salary led to a lawsuit and his withdrawal from the project. As a replacement, the studio decided to gamble on dashing newcomer Errol Flynn, who had appeared in a few programmers. Flynn’s virility and athletic prowess seemed ideal for the role of Peter Blood, a doctor who is unjustly sentenced to serve on a slave ship after he treats a criminal. When the slaves revolt over their cruel treatment, Blood becomes the ship’s captain, leading a pack of buccaneers. With her British heritage and cultured manners, Olivia was the obvious choice to play Arabella Bishop, the beautiful niece of a Jamaica plantation owner who is swept away by the renegade Blood.
The combination of dashing swordplay and storybook romance made Captain Blood one of Warners’ top films of the year. Key to its success were the amorous sparks between Flynn and Olivia. But despite the many intimate moments between Olivia and Flynn on the set, not to mention Flynn’s weakness for the opposite sex, no actual romance ever developed between them. Not that both parties didn’t have feelings for each other. In his memoirs, Flynn remembered Olivia as “a young woman of extraordinary charm” with warm brown eyes and a soft manner.
Olivia was equally enamored of her leading man. “I had such a crush on him all through Captain Blood, and years later I learned he had a crush on me during The Charge of the Light Brigade. What a shame neither one of us let on,” Olivia told a London audience in 1971. She then quipped, “No it isn’t, he would have ruined my life.”
After the popularity of Captain Blood, Olivia was locked in a series of damsel in distress roles, such as Angela in Warners’ opulent production of Anthony Adverse (1936), based on Hervey Allen’s bestseller. Fredric March played the illegitimate Anthony, an eighteenth-century adventurer who travels the world and does much soul searching before returning to Europe and his true love (Olivia), who is now mistress to Napoleon. Though Anthony Adverse suffered from a verbose script, and Olivia’s role was poorly written, it captured the fancy of moviegoers.
Olivia finished the year back with Flynn in The Charge of the Light Brigade, a rousing yarn inspired by the famous poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson. Olivia appeared sparingly as the charming lass engaged to Flynn but in love with his brother (Patric Knowles), both of whom are officers of the Royal Lancers. Their triangle was secondary to the pageantry of the action scenes, especially the thrilling reenactment of the brigade’s legendary charge. While the film may have been a questionable history lesson, it was glorious bravado that translated into box-office gold.
Since Olivia had few scenes, she was often bored during production. At one point she became so envious of her fellow castmates cavorting about on horseback that she mounted one of the horses and began galloping about. A nervous assistant director ordered her to dismount for fear that she might suffer an injury.
Flynn’s attempt to liven things up during a location shoot in Sherwood Lake, California, proved even worse. As a joke, Flynn hid a dead snake in the pantalettes Olivia was to wear in her next scene. Needless to say, he found the incident far more amusing than she did.
Despite his childish pranks, Olivia had great respect for her co-star, and also much sympathy. Prior to shooting Captain Blood, Olivia and Flynn found themselves alone on the set one day waiting for the dialogue director, script girl and a few other personnel to begin rehearsal. During that time they sat on the stage’s ramp and became involved in the lengthiest conversation they ever had. Olivia recalled: “I asked him ‘What do you want out of life?’ and he said ‘Success.’ And yet in the end he had success and that wasn’t enough.”
Olivia was seen sans Flynn in her trio of 1937 releases. Call It a Day (1937) was an amiable film based on Dodie Smith’s play about the romantic exploits of a middle class English family within a twenty-four hour period, and marked the first time Olivia was top billed.
The Great Garrick (1937) was a whimsical farce set in eighteenth-century Europe about a troupe of French actors who take over a country inn to plot their revenge on British stage great David Garrick (Brian Aherne) after he maligns the French style of acting. Garrick catches on and plots his retaliation. Unfortunately, one of his victims is the elegant Germaine Dupont (Olivia), a countess who is unaware of the shenanigans taking place. Following much confusion, director James Whale leads to the fade-out with Garrick and Germaine living happily ever after.
It’s Love I’m After (1937) also involved actors—in this case, Leslie Howard and Bette Davis as a madcap version of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Olivia was amusing as a dewy-eyed heiress with a crush on Howard.
Following such urbane fare, it was a surprise to see Olivia in the rustic Gold Is Where You Find It (1938) opposite George Brent and Claude Rains. The film was basically a variation on the sheep rancher versus cattle rancher theme, but director Michael Curtiz kept the action fast-paced, and Olivia looked stunning in her first Technicolor film.
Olivia looked even more ravishing opposite Flynn in their signature film, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Flynn donned tights for this spin on the legend of Robin of Locksley, a spirited rebel whose quest is to restore King Richard (Ian Hunter) to the throne of England after he is unseated by his villainous brother Prince John (Claude Rains). Besides the many duelers he encounters, Robin finds a worthy sparring partner in the lovely Maid Marian (Olivia), who is loyal to John. The Norman Marian at first finds the Saxon Robin both politically and socially distasteful, but she later succumbs to his charms and helps in his endeavor to rescue King Richard. With its simple message that good triumphs over evil, and such memorable moments as Robin’s humorous log duel with Little John, the archery contest and the climactic duel between Robin and Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone), The Adventures of Robin Hood was exceptional fare.
Warners accorded the film a $1.6 million budget, making it the studio’s most expensive production to date. By the time it was finished, the cost had spiraled to $2 million, but the expense was justified. Cinematographers Sol Polito and Tony Gaudio captured the richness and beauty of Sherwood Forest in gorgeous three-strip Technicolor. Erich Wolfgang Korngold delivered a stirring score which earned him an Academy Award. In addition to Flynn’s vibrant performance, the brilliant cast of character actors, which also included Alan Hale as Little John, Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck and Una O’Connor as Marian’s servant, lent outstanding support.
As Marian, Olivia was every schoolboy’s fantasy. Lavishly costumed and angelically framed in Technicolor, she never looked more fetching. Her Marian is a thoroughbred, fiercely independent and spirited in her early scenes when she is held hostage by Robin; warm and desirable in their love scenes. It was by far her finest role in her films with Flynn.
The New York Times raved, “The Adventures of Robin Hood is payment in full for many dull hours of picture going,” and that, “Maid Marian has the grace to suit Olivia de Havilland.”
Olivia never saw The Adventures of Robin Hood until twenty years after its release, and the film proved to be quite a revelation. “I went to see Robin Hood on the Champs Elysees and I was quite impressed with it. I even wrote Errol a letter saying how much I enjoyed his performance, but I hesitated about mailing it. A few days later he was dead,” Olivia sadly related in her 1971 London appearance.
Spurred on by the success of Robin Hood, Warners decided to see if the pair could be as effective in modern dress as they were in period garb. Though screwball comedy was not the forte of either Flynn or Olivia, they did their best in Four’s a Crowd (1938), a frenetic farce about publicists and newspaper reporters whose paths cross both in business and romance. Olivia played Lorri Dillingwell, a typically dizzy heiress who was a stock character in ’30s comedies. The film’s best gag had PR man Flynn, in swimming trunks, being chased by a pack of yapping Great Danes set on him by Lorri’s grandfather.
Following Hard to Get (1938) and Wings of the Navy (1939), Olivia and Flynn were transported to the wild west of Dodge City (1939), an above-average oater directed by Michael Curtiz. Although with their British accents the stars seemed better suited to Oxford than the prairie, Flynn proved himself capable in chaps and with a six-shooter. As the editor of the town newspaper, Olivia had little to do but appear feisty. As with the previous Flynn-de Havilland pairings, Dodge City was hugely profitable.
By the late 1930s the United States was caught up in the hype surrounding the filming of Margaret Mitchell’s sprawling novel Gone with the Wind. The Civil War epic became an instant bestseller, and shortly afterward became the prize in a bidding war among film producers for the movie rights. David O. Selznick was the lucky winner, and he began a wave of publicity like Hollywood had never seen before. Most of the attention focused on the nationwide search to find an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara, the vixenish, strong-willed heroine of the novel. Olivia was probably the only actress in Hollywood who had no desire to test for the role.
“I knew that I was going to have to earn my own living and be self-reliant and independent and self-supporting,” said Olivia. “And when I made Gone with the Wind, that’s exactly what I was. So was Scarlett. Since I was myself leading that life, the role didn’t interest me at all.”
Olivia’s sister, Joan Fontaine, was one of hundreds who tried out for Scarlett. Ironically, it was her audition that opened the door for Olivia to play Melanie, Scarlett’s kind-hearted cousin. When director George Cukor asked Joan to read for Melanie instead, she declined and said, ‘If it is a Melanie you are looking for, why don’t you try my sister.”
Cukor took her advice and contacted Olivia, who agreed to an audition. Olivia read one of the scenes, much to Cukor’s pleasure. He then asked her to commit the scene to memory and to meet him at Selznick’s home the following Sunday to perform it again before the producer.
Olivia arrived that Sunday for what she called (in a 1967 article she wrote for Look) “one of the most richly significant moments of my life.” According to Olivia, the scene that took place was pure comedy. “It was George’s role to play opposite me. He was at that time portly, his hair was black, curly and closely cropped, and his spectacles were large and thickly rimmed. To this day, I have claimed that it was his passionate portrayal of Scarlett clutching the portieres that convinced David that afternoon he had finally found his Melanie.”
Standing in her way was Jack Warner, who refused to loan her because he feared she’d then be difficult to handle. Olivia found an ally in Ann Warner, Jack’s wife, who convinced her husband to let Olivia play Melanie. Not that Warner’s intentions were at all altruistic. In exchange, he secured the services of James Stewart from MGM, which was releasing Gone with the Wind, for one film.
By now the saga of Gone with the Wind has become part of American folklore. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, the sprawling tale follows the exploits of Scarlett (Vivien Leigh), a spoiled Southern belle who loves the supercilious Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), who’s engaged to her gentle cousin Melanie Hamilton. Hoping to steal Scarlett’s affections is dashing adventurer Rhett Butler (Clark Gable).
The sweet as molasses role of Melanie seemed almost impossible for any actress, but Olivia managed to dig beneath Melanie’s candy-coated veneer and bring her rich inner strength to the surface. Melanie, in effect, serves as a beacon by which the frailties of the seemingly stronger Scarlett are reflected. Olivia admired Melanie’s humility and gentleness, and, through the nurturing direction of Cukor, made Melanie likable without being cloying.
Cukor, who was known as the ultimate “woman’s” director in Hollywood, lived up to his reputation. Olivia and Leigh received great encouragement from Cukor, who discussed each role in great detail with both actresses. Both were disheartened when Selznick fired Cukor early on at the urging of Gable, who was perturbed by the attention Cukor was giving both actresses. Gable requested that Selznick then hire the actor’s favorite director—and hunting pal—Victor Fleming.
Olivia and Leigh spent three hours begging Selznick to change his mind, but to no avail. That evening, a despondent Olivia dined with her then-beau, eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, who offered her unexpected encouragement. “Everything is going to be all right—with George and Victor, it is the same talent, only Victor’s is strained through a coarser sieve,” he said.
Though Olivia credited Fleming with helping her discover Melanie’s sincerity, she missed Cukor’s nurturing and began to drop by his house for tea and black-market direction. Olivia felt guilty about seeing Cukor behind Leigh’s back, until she learned that Leigh did the same thing.
The pressure of filming became too much for Fleming, who at one point suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be replaced by Sam Wood. By the time Fleming returned, production was several weeks behind schedule. To make up for lost time, Selznick advised the entire cast, sans Gable, that they would have to shoot scenes with both directors. For Leigh and Olivia, that meant working on one scene with Wood in the morning, then working with Fleming in the afternoon on another part of the film that took place many years later in the screenplay.
Gone with the Wind wrapped in July 1938, much to Olivia’s sadness. Her welcome back present when she returned to Warner Bros. was playing lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth in the costume drama The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Olivia was clearly not happy about being third-billed after stars Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, and not even getting Flynn in the end. “I did it, and didn’t say a word, to show I wasn’t being difficult,” Olivia recalled.
She was also unhappy about next making Raffles (1940), a remake of the 1930 Ronald Colman hit, for producer Samuel Goldwyn, but again she kept quiet. It wasn’t until Warner refused to let her attend the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta that she defied him.
Olivia was thrilled by the enthusiastic crowd that braved near-freezing temperatures to gather at the Loew’s Theater on Peachtree Street on December 15, 1939. She was also happy to be reunited with Gable, Leigh and Selznick, as well as finally meeting Margaret Mitchell. They were all anxious as they awaited the audience response to the film.
“Oh, how you wanted the Southerners to accept it,” Olivia enthused upon the film’s sixtieth anniversary. “Because it was about their city and their ancestors.”
Their fears were for naught: Gone with the Wind was a wow with critics and audiences in every city. “For by any and all standards, Mr. Selznick’s film is a handsome, scrupulous and unstinting version of the 1,037-page novel,” praised Bosley Crowther of The New York Times. He added: “Olivia de Havilland’s Melanie is a gracious, dignified, tender gem of characterization.”
The only one not charmed with Olivia was Jack Warner, even after her Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as Melanie. In late 1939 she had refused to do a remake of Saturday’s Children (1940) and was replaced by Anne Shirley. Then in early 1940 she rejected Flight Angels (1940), a leaden comedy about stewardesses. Warner’s response was, “Ah-ha! I knew she’d be difficult! She did get difficult. You can’t trust actors.” She wound up being put on suspension.
Olivia reluctantly returned for My Love Came Back (1940), a sweet confection that had been turned down by Priscilla Lane. Director Kurt Bernhardt’s sprightly film cast Olivia as a talented classical violinist who can no longer afford her music lessons at the academy she attends. One of the school’s benefactors (Charles Winninger) is impressed with her talent and agrees to subsidize her lessons. His good intentions are misconstrued by his young business associate (Jeffrey Lynn), who thinks the old man is keeping a younger woman on the sly from his wife (Spring Byington). The situation gets stickier when the two young people fall for each other.
“Light, fluffy, musical and human,” was how Variety described My Love Came Back.
Olivia was saddled with another lackluster role in Santa Fe Trail (1940), her seventh—and least interesting—pairing with Flynn. As her dissatisfaction with Warners grew, she had to use her wiles to find a good script. In the case of The Strawberry Blonde (1941), she sneaked the script out of the makeup department. As Amy, the free-thinking nurse who wins the heart of rough-hewn dentist Biff Grimes (James Cagney), Olivia gave a charming performance.
The popularity of The Strawberry Blonde did little to soften Olivia’s tense relationship with Jack Warner, something that would be put to the test once again. Screenwriter Charles Brackett penned the role of schoolteacher Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941) specifically for Olivia, but getting her was another matter. Paramount, which was producing the film, had to loan Fred MacMurray to Warners for Dive Bomber in exchange for Olivia’s services.
Based on a semi-autobiographical story by Ketti Frings, Hold Back the Dawn dealt with Roumanian immigrant Georges Iscuvesco (Charles Boyer), who is being detained at the Mexican border from entering the United States. An old flame (Paulette Goddard) convinces him that he could speed up his entry into the States by marrying an American. He finds a willing victim in Emmy Brown (Olivia), a retiring American schoolteacher. In a matter of days he woos her and marries her, even though he finds her at first unappealing. During their impromptu honeymoon, Georges begins to develop genuine affection for Emmy. When Emmy learns about Georges’ deception, she heads back to California, and along the way is involved in a car crash. Georges risks being arrested by immigration officials to be near her, now realizing that he does love her.
Like Cukor, Mitchell Leisen, director of Hold Back the Dawn, had an affinity for actresses, and he and Olivia had an excellent relationship. He helped her make Emmy more than just a stereotypical mousy schoolteacher. In one seductive shot, a dimly lit Olivia is shown with her hair draped across her shoulders and wearing a low-cut nightgown while sprawled across the bed on her wedding night. Olivia does a wonderful job of capturing Emmy’s yearning and disappointment when Georges cannot consummate the marriage because of a feigned injury.
Equally memorable is the key scene when the couple stops along the beach to pour water into the radiator of their overheated car. While Georges fills the radiator, Emmy is shown from a distance joyously frolicking in the water with all of her clothes removed. For the first time, Emmy arouses Georges’ passion, and after she comes out he forgets about his fake injury.
Olivia received her best notices to date for Hold Back the Dawn. The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther raved, “Olivia de Havilland plays the schoolteacher with romantic fancies whose honesty and pride are her own—and the film’s—chief support. Incidentally, she is excellent.”
Olivia’s performance was a popular one when voting time came for The New York Film Critics Award. She ultimately lost the award to her sister for her fine performance in Suspicion (1941), but both were neck-and-neck contenders until the sixth and final ballot.
On the west coast RKO decided to show Suspicion at Hollywood’s Pantages Theater for just one day—January 11, the final day of eligibility for the 1941 Academy Awards. It was no surprise a few weeks later when both sisters were announced as Best Actress Oscar nominees. On Oscar night Olivia and Joan sat at a table with David and Irene Selznick. When the previous winner, Ginger Rogers, announced that Joan had won, Joan remained frozen until Olivia whispered to her “Get up there!” When Joan returned to her table, Olivia seized her hand and exclaimed, “We’ve got it!”
Later, a reporter from Life overheard Olivia. “If Suspicion had been delayed just a little, it wouldn’t have gotten in under the wire for this year’s award and I might have won. I think that voters are inclined to remember with the highest favor the pictures they have seen most recently. By the time they saw Suspicion, they had almost forgotten Hold Back the Dawn.”
Although Hold Back the Dawn had added plenty of cash to Paramount’s coffers, Jack Warner still refused to acknowledge Olivia’s star power, and she was back to playing the demure damsel. They Died with Their Boots On (1941) was her last teaming with Flynn, a rousing account of the life of General George Armstrong Custer. The film’s primary enjoyment came from Flynn’s devil-may-care performance as Custer and Raoul Walsh’s marvelous recreation of Custer’s fatal showdown at Little Big Horn. As Libby Bacon, who later becomes Mrs. Custer, Olivia looked smashing, but the role was hardly a worthy follow-up to Hold Back the Dawn.
She was surprisingly stiff as college professor Henry Fonda’s wife in The Male Animal (1942), but then had a good role opposite Bette Davis in In This Our Life (1942). John Huston directed the tempestuous drama based on Ellen Glasgow’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel about a lying southern vixen (Davis) who jeopardizes the lives of everyone she comes in contact with.
While Davis damn near chewed up the scenery with her mannered performance, Olivia shone as her much-put-upon sister. Olivia was nervous about working with Davis on In This Our Life after hearing about Davis’ stormy collaborations with Miriam Hopkins on the sets of The Old Maid (1939) and Old Acquaintance (1943), which she was then also filming. Olivia made it clear to Davis that she didn’t want to compete with her.
“Our first scene together was a very difficult one for her and easy for me, since she had to lie in bed and go through a lot of dialogue while I just sat and listened. I was hoping she’d get it right on the first take, and wondering if she could possibly. She did it perfectly, and I think she realized then that I was with her all the way,” Olivia said in London in 1971.
Davis also respected Olivia’s appreciation for hard work and her perfectionism. “Olivia was serious about her craft, not frivolous. These were traits Bette liked,” noted Robert Osborne.
At the time, Olivia was dating Huston, who worked closely with her to perfect her characterization in In This Our Life. Their romance came shortly after the end of Olivia’s highly publicized relationship with James Stewart. Following their breakup, Olivia began to frequent nightclubs, which she had rarely done in the past. Her escorts included Clifford Odets and Franchot Tone. At the time she met Huston, he and his wife were still living in the same house, though he told Olivia they were estranged from one another. Huston asked his wife for a divorce in the spring of 1942, but she soon afterward suffered a nervous breakdown. “It was only in 1945 that the divorce finally took place. By that time the strain of the war years, long separations and misunderstandings had taken their toll, and our relationship, as far as I was concerned, was at an end,” Olivia said.
In 1946 Huston wed Evelyn Keyes, though that didn’t deter him from making further overtures to Olivia.
Olivia’s film output continued to be as active as her love life. Warners loaned her to RKO for Government Girl (1943), an overripe comedy about the housing shortage in Washington, D.C., which contains what may be Olivia’s poorest performance, in which she relied heavily on mugging. Critics loathed the film, but as with most wartime fare, it made a bundle.
Olivia was far more humorous in the enchanting Princess O’Rourke (1943), one of her favorites. Directed by Norman Krasna (who also penned the Oscar-winning screenplay), Princess O’Rourke is a fluffier version of Roman Holiday, lacking that film’s splendor or its more serious (and comprehensible) ending. Olivia stars as Princess Maria, a European royal in exile in New York faced with the prospect of marriage to a dull suitor. She longs for some fun before settling down, which she finds with a handsome pilot (Robert Cummings). A romance develops, although he is unaware of her true identity. After getting his draft acceptance to the Air Force, he proposes, thus forcing Maria to reveal her royal origins. Will he renounce his American citizenship to marry her? A plot contrivance involving Franklin D. Roosevelt ensures that love will conquer all.
Despite its overly cute ending, Princess O’Rourke is the best of Olivia’s solo starring efforts at Warners, and, as Crowther put it, “a film which is in the best tradition of American screen comedy.” He also found Olivia “charming as the princess—so modest, yet so eagerly thrilled.”
Olivia’s last Warners film was Devotion (1946), which reduced the lives of the Brontë sisters to a cardboard romance. Olivia played Charlotte Brontë, with Ida Lupino as Emily and Nancy Coleman as Anne, but all were done in by the phony screenplay.
Olivia and Lupino took a break during Devotion to appear in Warners’ wartime musical Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943), with George Tobias in a boisterous jitterbug version of “The Dreamer.” Gaudily costumed with huge bows in their hair, striped jumpers, puffy-sleeved blouses and heavily curled wigs, the actresses looked as far removed from Victorian England as possible.
The completion of Devotion meant Olivia’s release from “Jack the warden,” as she referred to her boss. The studio, however, told her that she had six months left on her contract to make up for the time she had spent on suspension. Through attorney Martin Gang, Olivia discovered a California law which stated that “no employer shall hold an employee to a contract longer than seven years,” which she interpreted as calendar years and not accumulated work time. At the risk of committing career suicide, she filed suit against Warner Bros. She asked the Supreme Court for declaratory relief, an interpretation of the law as it applied to an actor’s contract.
Warners’ lawyers did their best to intimidate Olivia in the courtroom so that she’d appear temperamental and ungrateful. Their ploy failed and the court ruled in favor of Olivia. Warners’ lawyers wasted no time filing an appeal. Jack Warner went one step further by attempting to get every studio in Hollywood to join forces with him. As a result, Olivia was blacklisted from every studio and remained offscreen for three years. Warners even shelved the release of Devotion.
Olivia kept busy with episodes of Lux Radio Theater, which her lawyer felt would be safe to do since Warner failed to enjoin the broadcasting medium in his work stoppage against Olivia. One positive aspect of Olivia’s layoff was that she was able to appear at a bond rally in Madison Square Garden, and to visit servicemen in army and navy hospitals in the United States, Alaska and the South Pacific.
“I loved doing the tours because it was a way I could serve my country and contribute to the war effort,” Olivia said. “These were endeavors which I might not have been able to engage in had I not been on suspension by Warner Bros. and enjoined by them from working at any studio whatsoever.”
Meanwhile, the case dragged on until December 1944 when the appellate court voted unanimously in favor of Olivia. In February 1945 the State Supreme Court of California decided not to even review the case, since the other two courts had already ruled in her favor. The landmark judgment became known as the de Havilland Decision in law books. Bette Davis served as a spokesperson for the entire industry years later when she commented, “Every actor in the business owes a debt of gratitude to Olivia de Havilland for taking us out of bondage.”
Anxious to return to work, Olivia signed a three-picture deal with Paramount, but the initial offering, The Well-Groomed Bride (1946) with Ray Milland, was poorly received. Olivia admitted that the flat farce about the search for a magnum of champagne in San Francisco was a mistake, and she made it at the insistence of her agent, whom she sued after it was made.
Warners then released the long-delayed Devotion, but as far as critics and the public were concerned, the project could just as easily have stayed forgotten.
Olivia had finally reached the point where she was fully in charge of her career, selecting only those roles that she felt would challenge her and enable her to grow as an actress. Certainly the multi-faceted role of unwed mother Jody Norris in Paramount’s To Each His Own (1946) was unlike anything she was ever offered at Warners.
“The script by Charley Brackett was one of the most perfect I’d ever read. The dialogue was tight and forceful, and the character of Jody Norris romantic and sentimental. I’m that way myself, and I felt I could play the part as I had played no other,” Olivia told Lloyd Shearer.
The story, told in flashback, opens in London during World War II, where lonely, middle-aged Jody Norris (a convincingly made-up Olivia) is spending New Year’s Eve fire watching with a crusty and equally lonely man (Roland Culver). They make a hasty date, which is cut short when Jody learns that a train carrying American soldier Jody Piersen (John Lund) is arriving that evening. As Jody waits for the train, she recalls her brief romance during the first World War with a flier (also played by Lund) who was killed, the circumstances which caused her illegitimate son to be adopted by another couple and her bitterness over her failed attempts to get him back. The movie then returns to the present where Jody meets the soldier, who is actually her son. He remains oblivious to the truth even as she scrambles to prepare an instant wedding for him and his fiancée. It is only at the misty-eyed finale that he at last realizes Jody is his mother.
Credit for the film’s poignancy belongs almost entirely to Olivia, whose complex performance takes Jody from dreamy-eyed maiden to stern businesswoman to lonely spinster. Best of all is her adoring expression in the film’s finale as her icy heart melts in motherly love.
Leisen also deserves praise for presenting Olivia in a new light to audiences. Olivia had enjoyed working with Leisen so much on Hold Back the Dawn that she asked him to direct To Each His Own, even though he originally had no interest in the project. “The first couple of weeks on the set Mitch was charming, helpful, a real professional about the whole thing, but his heart wasn’t in it,” Olivia said in 1971. “Then suddenly he began to realize he had here one of the best pictures of his whole career, and his whole being lit up, which was a wonderful relief for me, since I had insisted on him, and it all would have been my fault had it not worked out.”
Leisen insisted that the film be shot in continuity, which was hard for Olivia, who had to age more than twenty years throughout the film. Olivia had been ill prior to filming and had lost seventeen pounds, which made it difficult for her to adopt the matronly appearance needed in the opening portion of the film. “We started when she was thin, and with as attractive a makeup as we could get on her, flattering her as much as we could,” Leisen told Leonard Maltin in 1971. “As the picture progressed, I fed her up every day and she gained back the seventeen pounds, and she wound up wearing a Frankly Forty foundation garment. They wanted her to have gray hair. I said, ‘She’s only forty, she doesn’t have gray hair!’ And we used a more unflattering lighting.”
Leisen was so pleased with Olivia’s performance that on the final day of production he and Brackett presented her with a live special Oscar—a bald man in a gold body stocking.
Olivia took on an even greater challenge in her next film, playing good/bad twin sisters in The Dark Mirror (1946), an intriguing thriller which came in the wake of Alfred Hitchcock’s surreal psychodrama Spellbound (1945).
Olivia played Ruth and Terry Collins, the prime suspects in the murder of a doctor they were each linked with romantically. Because none of the witnesses can positively identify which one was at the scene of the crime, the police lack sufficient evidence to charge either one. A determined detective (Thomas Mitchell) enlists the aid of a psychiatrist (Lew Ayres) to help him trap the real killer. The good doctor soon finds himself falling for the sweet-natured Ruth, which causes the psychotic Terry’s jealous nature to surface. Terry then hatches a plan to slowly drive her sister insane and ultimately contemplate suicide.
“The Dark Mirror was a film I very much wanted to do because of the two characterizations which it required,” Olivia said. “The technical problems were difficult, but not insurmountable, and though she was a character who to this day appalls and disturbs me, Terry nonetheless was an immense challenge, which is, after all, what I wanted.”
In light of her statement, it’s no surprise that Olivia is marvelous as Ruth but seems more uncomfortable as the vile Terry. However, her best moment is when Terry affects a look of unadulterated hate at the climax and then throws an object at Ruth.
As a mystery, the thinness of The Dark Mirror is apparent. Its premise is intriguing, but there is little doubt as to its outcome. Technically, however, it is an amazing achievement—in particular, the astonishing moment when one twin comforts the other in her arms.
Olivia spent the summer of 1946 appearing in James M. Barrie’s What Every Woman Knows at the famed Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut. During a visit to New York with Phyllis Loughton, the play’s director, Olivia was reacquainted with Marcus Goodrich, a strapping and well-spoken former Naval officer who had written the 1941 bestseller, Delilah. Olivia knew Goodrich slightly, having met him five years earlier at the home of Arthur Hornblow and Myrna Loy, and again in Washington in May 1942. Although Goodrich was eighteen years older than Olivia and had been married four times before, she was charmed by him and they had a brisk courtship before marrying on August 26 at the Weston, Connecticut, estate of Armina and Lawrence Langner, who operated the Westport Country Playhouse.
The day after the wedding Olivia’s agent telephoned Joan Fontaine to ask her if she knew anything about her new brother-in-law. Joan quipped, “All I know about him is that he has had four wives and written one book. Too bad it’s not the other way around.” Her comment was printed in several publications, and Olivia was understandably offended.
As expected, Olivia received an Oscar nomination for her performance in To Each His Own. Two weeks before the ceremony, Joan’s press agent Henry Rogers asked Olivia if she would have photos taken with Joan if Olivia won the award. Olivia agreed, but only if Joan apologized for her remark about Marcus. Olivia warned Rogers that if her condition was not met, she would turn away from her sister after accepting the award.
The night of March 13, 1947, should have been one of the most jubilant of Olivia’s life. She won the Best Actress Award and looked, as Time Magazine put it, “as gauzy and misty-eyed as a Walt Disney angel.” After accepting her award, Olivia walked to the wings en route to the press room. As she turned toward the corridor leading to the press area, she saw Joan, who had just presented the Best Actor Oscar to Fredric March, flanked by no less than 15 photographers.
“I could not comprehend this insensitivity and I did indeed turn away, saying ‘I do not understand how she can do this when she knows how I feel.’ I then walked round the stage curtain and down the steps, into the theater to take my seat again,” Olivia said.
The incident was caught by photographers who splashed the photo of Olivia snubbing Joan across newspapers everywhere.
The Oscar victory did give Olivia a wealth of projects to choose from. The most intriguing was The Snake Pit (1948), an uncompromising look at the horrors of life in a mental institution. As in Mary Jane Ward’s novel, the focus was on Virginia (Olivia), a fragile young bride who is brought to Juniper Hill Hospital by her loving husband (Mark Stevens) after she suffers a nervous breakdown. She’s treated by Dr. Kik (Leo Genn), a compassionate therapist anxious to find the root of Virginia’s illness. He learns that Virginia believes she caused the deaths of both her father and her fiancée (Leif Erickson). Even though she was not responsible for either’s demise, she now believes she is incapable of loving anyone. Complicating her recovery is her fixation on Dr. Kik.
The Snake Pit was not an easy project to bring to the screen. Anatole Litvak had first read the galley proofs of Ward’s novel in 1945 when he was in the U.S. Army making films for the War Department. He purchased the rights for $75,000, and then spent more than a year shopping the project to the major studios. “They all thought I was as crazy as the girl in the book,” Litvak quipped. Finally, 20th Century–Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck, who championed bringing social issues to the screen, bought the rights from Litvak for $175,000 and let him direct.
To give the film a realistic look, Litvak and his cast and crew visited several U.S. mental institutions. On one of these visits Olivia confronted a schizophrenic patient who had developed a relationship with her doctor which was similar to the one between Virginia and Dr. Kik. “If I had not seen that … I would have perhaps missed the key to the whole characterization,” Olivia said.
The director also fought to keep the actresses in the film as unglamorous as possible. Hairdressers were on hand to make sure that the performers’ straggly coiffures matched from one camera set-up to the next. The actresses were even told not to wear girdles or brassieres. Olivia lost considerable weight and sported dark circles under her eyes to achieve Virginia’s haggard appearance. Such touches added layers of conviction to her performance.
Considering the somber subject matter, The Snake Pit is peppered with several amusing sequences, such as the game that’s played by Virginia’s tablemates when she sits down for lunch. Each person passes a bowl of stew to the next one with the warning to “leave some for Virginia.” Naturally, by the time it reaches Virginia there’s nothing left.
The Snake Pit also benefits from the brilliant cinematography of Leo Tover. The celebrated “snake pit” shot in which the camera slowly moves above Virginia so that she envisions herself as the sane member of the ward where she’s been placed, is visually stunning.
But the film’s chief asset is the electrifying performance of its leading lady. Olivia explored the complexity of Virginia’s mind and stitched together the many remnants of the character’s personality into a tightly-woven tapestry of emotions. She brilliantly balanced Virginia’s childlike nature, displayed in such simple moments as getting a dish of ice cream, with her tormented side, especially in the flashback when she recoils from her husband’s touch and suffers her breakdown.
The reviews for Olivia’s performance were the sort that every actress dreams of receiving. “Miss de Havilland gives one of those unglamorized and true performances generally associated with only the more distinguished foreign films,” gushed The Saturday Review.
Critical raves and strong word of mouth helped make The Snake Pit a huge success. Olivia expressed great pride in the film and was glad that mental illness was finally being presented in an honest manner. “This picture is going to do so much good,” she told Time. “When I visited the institutions for the mentally ill, I felt a great surge of compassion for the people. We are all victims of life, you see, and these people are the ones who have been hardest pressed.”
Olivia’s performance was the overwhelming choice of the New York Film Critics that year, and she was chosen Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. Olivia was also in Oscar contention, but she was unable to attend the ceremony because of a more important production—the birth of her son, Benjamin. Olivia was listening on the radio when it was announced that Jane Wyman was the winner for Johnny Belinda. Olivia was not bitter about the loss. “Jane really deserved it,” she said, “plus I had just made The Heiress.”
The Heiress (1949), based on Henry James’ novella Washington Square, saw Olivia in the plum role of Catherine Sloper, an ugly duckling whose gaucherie has left her feeling unloved for her entire life. As far as Catherine’s cruel father (Ralph Richardson) is concerned, she has only two assets: her talent for embroidery and the huge inheritance she will receive upon his death. Catherine is resigned to her ordinary existence until she meets the charming Morris Townshend (Montgomery Clift). Catherine is immediately smitten, but her father suspects Morris is a fortune hunter and threatens to disinherit Catherine if she marries him. Undeterred, she makes plans to elope with Morris. In the most heartbreaking scene, Catherine waits all night for Morris, pleading to her aunt (Miriam Hopkins), “Morris must love me for all those that haven’t.” When morning arrives the jilted Catherine realizes her father was right about Morris. The sweet, retiring heiress becomes embittered and feels no remorse when her father dies. Several years later, when Morris returns and once more proposes, Catherine again accepts. The final harrowing scene shows a satisfied Catherine ascending the stairs as Morris bangs at her locked door, calling her name.
Director William Wyler elicited a stunning performance from Olivia in The Heiress. From her early scenes, in which she awkwardly tries to appear clever at her cousin’s engagement party, to the moment when she justifies her cruelty to her aunt by saying, “I have been taught by masters,” Olivia never misses a single beat.
The Heiress earned Olivia her second Best Actress Oscar. In her acceptance speech, written by her husband, Olivia said, “Your award for To Each His Own I took as an incentive to venture forward. Thank you for this very generous assurance that I have not failed to do so.”
Later, Olivia seemed quite subdued when she was interviewed by reporters: “When I won the first award in 1946, I was terribly thrilled. But this time I felt solemn, very serious and … shocked. Yes, shocked! It’s a great responsibility to win the award twice.”
The Heiress represented the apex of Olivia’s screen career. It was the last real showcase role she was given onscreen and marked the end of her glory years in Hollywood. Sadly, despite the plaudits handed to the film and Olivia’s performance, The Heiress was not a popular success at the time, although it has since become regarded as a classic.
Shortly after giving birth to Benjamin, Olivia was offered the role of Blanche Du Bois in Warners’ screen version of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Though she loved the screenplay, she turned it down. “The role of Blanche Du Bois, challenging though it was, did not and could not appeal to me at that time,” Olivia said. “Motherhood is a profound experience, especially with one’s first child. A year later, when the financial responsibility involved in parenthood became quite clear to me, I had second thoughts about playing Blanche, but by this time [Elia] Kazan was considering Vivien Leigh and eventually signed her for the part. I have no regrets about this, as I think her work was superb.”
Instead, Olivia in 1951 appeared in a Broadway-bound production of Romeo and Juliet. Back when she was appearing on stage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Max Reinhardt had made Olivia promise that one day she would play Juliet, so she kept her word. On the opening night in Detroit, Katherine Cornell, whom Olivia remembered vividly as Juliet many years earlier, sent Olivia a good-luck telegram which said, “Hie to high fortune!”—Juliet’s line to her nurse just before the girl rushes off to meet Romeo.
The drama played to sell-out crowds in Detroit, Cleveland and Boston prior to its New York run. “Miss de Havilland is amazingly youthful in appearance and manner. It is a softly spoken, carefully studied interpretation of the great role, offering contrast to the more robust performances of her associates,” said The Daily Mirror.
Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times thought Olivia “a lovely Juliet worth any Romeo’s attention.”
Hefty production costs led to the play’s closing after one hundred performances between its out-of-town and Broadway runs.
Olivia then signed on for an eleven-week summer stock season in George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, which played to sell-out crowds. Producer Thomas Hammond proposed taking the show on a transcontinental tour, which would conclude with a four-week limited engagement in New York in early 1952. Despite a successful national run, the show closed in New York after its four-week engagement. Walter Kerr of The New York Herald-Tribune described Olivia’s performance as “all method and no magic.”
It wasn’t long after the closing of Candida that Olivia and Goodrich were divorced. From the start, Goodrich had put his writing endeavors on hold to focus on all aspects of Olivia’s career, which resulted in his reputation as a Svengali figure. He presided over Olivia’s business affairs, her social engagements and even saw to it that she got enough sleep and didn’t overwork. On the witness stand, Olivia cited that Goodrich beat her in such violent rages she feared for her life. Olivia waived alimony and child support, and undertook full responsibility for Benjamin.
Olivia returned to the screen in My Cousin Rachel (1952), a handsome and evocative adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel, co-starring Richard Burton in his American film debut. As the mysterious and alluring Rachel, who may or may not be a murderess, Olivia was at her most ravishing. Olivia again received good reviews for her work, including one from George Cukor, who was originally set to direct the film but was replaced by Henry Koster.
“One of the compliments I treasure most came from George Cukor who, long ago, phoned me after seeing the film and, to my gratified surprise, said he thought my work as Rachel ‘brilliant.’ Wasn’t that wonderful?” Olivia recalled.
In 1953 Olivia, for the first time, agreed to attend the Cannes Film Festival with Benjamin in tow. Her first stop, though, was Paris, which was enjoying a post-war Renaissance that enraptured Olivia. It was here that she also met Pierre Galante, associate secretary general of Paris Match. He joined Olivia at Cannes and later followed her to London and the United States.
In October 1953 Olivia and Benjamin returned to Paris at Pierre’s urging. It then became their new adopted home. “Hollywood was becoming a frightening place,” said Robert Osborne. “TV was dominating the entertainment industry. It was a town which had gone as far as it could go, and the industry had gone as far as it could go. She had a new son with her husband Marcus Goodrich. It was not the kind of situation or place to raise a son. Paris was the total opposite of Hollywood. It was building itself back up after the war. Everyone had a future and a goal.”
Olivia took French lessons three times a week with a professor, and then practiced her vocabulary on cab drivers. Although it took some time, she became fluent in the language.
Olivia at last returned to the screen in 1955 for That Lady, a costume epic filmed in England and Spain. As Ana de Mendoza, a Spanish princess in love with both King Philip II (Paul Scofield) and his advisor, Antonio Perez (Gilbert Roland), Olivia sported an eyepatch. The film was not a success, and its director, Terence Young, admitted, “I made a mess of it.”
As if playing a Spaniard wasn’t enough of a stretch, Olivia affected a Swedish accent and blonde hair to play a noble nurse in Not as a Stranger (1955), a sudsy medical drama made in Hollywood that was Stanley Kramer’s directorial debut. The film’s focal point was opportunistic intern Robert Mitchum, who marries “the Swedish nightingale” for her knowledge of operating room procedure and the small fortune that pays for his medical education. He later dallies with sultry neighbor Gloria Grahame, a liaison that nearly destroys his marriage. Critics tore the film to shreds, but it was a sturdy grosser.
Soon after completing Not as a Stranger, Olivia and Pierre were married on April 2, 1955, by the local mayor, publishing magnate Jean Prouvost, in Yvoy le Marron, a rustic area noted for pheasant shooting, near the Loire River. The next year, the couple had their first child, Gisele.
“Olivia was too smart to only have a career as a goal,” observed Osborne. “After her second Oscar, she had reached her career goal. She had other goals. She had a daughter and she wrote.”
Prior to the birth of Gisele, Olivia made The Ambassador’s Daughter (1956), a frothy comedy written, directed and produced by her friend Norman Krasna, and filmed in Paris.
Olivia made two other ’50s films: The Proud Rebel (1958), a family drama set during the Civil War, with Olivia as a Yankee farmer who befriends a southerner (Alan Ladd) seeking a doctor for his mute son (played by Ladd’s son, David); and Libel (1959), a courtroom drama with Dirk Bogarde. Of the two, the former was the better film, with a moving performance by Olivia.
Olivia had her best screen role in years in the charming Light in the Piazza (1962), which was tastefully directed by Guy Green. She played Meg Johnson, an American visiting Florence with her teenage daughter Clara (Yvette Mimieux). Their vacation takes an unexpected turn when a handsome local (George Hamilton) woos Clara, whose mentality is at the level of an eight-year-old child. Meg’s concerns deepen when Clara’s suitor proposes, which leads to a conflict between Meg and her cold-hearted husband (Barry Sullivan). Eventually Meg realizes that Clara’s happiness lies in letting her daughter begin a new life, and she allows the couple to wed.
Light in the Piazza was designed as a vehicle for MGM to show off its young contract players Mimieux and Hamilton as a new screen couple, but since Meg grapples with the key decisions that will affect her daughter, Olivia is really at the film’s center. Olivia’s lovely performance is reminiscent of her work in To Each His Own, especially at the film’s finale: As she watches her newly married daughter leaving the church, the camera is on Olivia, who mutters, “I did the right thing, I know I did.” Sadly, MGM did little to promote the movie and it fared poorly.
Olivia returned to Broadway in A Gift of Time (1962) by Garson Kanin, a heartfelt drama based on Lael Tucker Wertenbaker’s book Death of a Man. Olivia played Lael and Henry Fonda was her cancer-stricken husband, Charles. The play dealt with the couple’s dilemma as they cope with the prospect of his imminent death.
Despite its sober subject matter, A Gift of Time was well-received by audiences and critics. The New York World Telegram and Sun was unsparing in its praise for Olivia: “For all the virtuosity of Fonda’s performance, it is Miss de Havilland who gives the play its unbroken continuity. This distinguished actress reveals Lael as a special and admirable woman.”
It was also around this time that Olivia’s book, Every Frenchman Has One (a liver, that is), was published. Life called it a “happy, Jean Kerr-ish account of Olivia de Havilland’s seven-year stint as Madame Pierre Galante, a sharp-eyed, Franco-U.S. housewife, and what she found out about French husbands.” Among Olivia’s observations: “The average one prefers to be faithful to his wife”; and French fashion is unsexy because “in France, it’s assumed that if you’re a woman, you’re sexy already.” The book demonstrated Olivia’s wit and was a bestseller.
Oddly, it was also in 1962, after Olivia wrote of her joyful life in Paris, that she and Galante announced they were separating, although they continued to live in the same house. The two remained friends, and Olivia even promoted his book, The Berlin Wall, in 1965.
Olivia returned to Hollywood in 1964 in the nightmarish Lady in a Cage (1964), as a domineering matron who gets trapped in the private elevator in her home when the electricity goes out on a sweltering July 4 weekend. Her cries for help instead attract the attention of a wino (Jeff Corey), an over-the-hill prostitute (Ann Sothern) and a trio of hoodlums (a young James Caan, Jennifer Billingsley and Rafael Campos) who take delight in torturing the three older folks.
Initial critical reaction to Lady in a Cage was mostly negative. It was banned in England until 1967, at which time it was well-reviewed by The Manchester Guardian. Later that year Olivia received the British Films and Filming Award for her performance.
“Perhaps it was two or three years ahead of its time. I think someday it will be recognized as a depiction of the aimless violence of our era,” she said. To some extent she was correct, since the film has since attracted a cult following.
Her next film also had its gory moments. Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) was designed as a follow-up to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Several weeks into production Crawford claimed she was ill and was hospitalized. Given Crawford’s stormy relationship with Davis, industry buzz was that she was faking her illness to get out of the film, which she did. A new co-star was needed for Davis. Vivien Leigh and Loretta Young were mentioned, but the only one Davis considered was Olivia.
As in The Dark Mirror, the role of Miriam called for Olivia to exhibit a dual personality: honey-dripping sweet in the first half of the film, and a scheming blackmailer bent on driving Charlotte insane in the second portion. Originally the part was written to emphasize Miriam’s wicked nature. Playing Terry in The Dark Mirror had been distressful for Olivia, and, as originally written, Miriam seemed as dark and unredeeming a character. Olivia refused the role.
“When I hit upon the idea of giving Miriam perfect manners, I saw that in bestowing upon her this extra dimension, not only would she become theatrically more interesting, but the objective would then be to keep the audience ignorant of her true character until the last possible moment—a fascinating game,” Olivia said. “And so, in the end, I accepted.”
The eerie tale opens in the Deep South in the 1920s with the grisly ax murder of John Mayhew (Bruce Dern) on the night of his engagement party to wealthy Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis). When Charlotte arrives at the party with blood splattered on her dress, everyone assumes she killed him. The film then moves to the present, where the once-decadent Hollis estate is about to be torn down to make way for a new highway. Charlotte is now a bitter and eccentric recluse whose only visitors are her slovenly housekeeper and the neighborhood children who taunt her. When Charlotte is served with an eviction notice by the sheriff, she writes to her cousin Miriam (Olivia) to help save the estate. When Miriam arrives, Charlotte is taken aback when she learns that Miriam has come with the intention of assisting with the packing. It soon becomes clear that, as the next-in-line to the Hollis estate, Miriam is anxious to get what’s left of the family fortune. She enlists the aid of unsavory Dr. Drew (Joseph Cotten) in her plan to drive Charlotte insane.
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte was a demanding project. Because of the problems caused by Crawford’s “illness,” the shooting schedule went from thirty-two days to fifty-nine. Still, none of the problems were evident onscreen. As Miriam, Olivia does a nice job of bringing her character’s oily demeanor to the surface, particularly during the dinner scene where she has her first head-on confrontation with Charlotte. Olivia’s nastiest moment occurs when she brutally slaps Charlotte as they try to dispose of the body of Dr. Drew.
No one was more elated with Olivia’s performance than director Robert Aldrich. “No matter how great Crawford might have been, we’re better off with de Havilland,” he said.
The bulk of Olivia’s work over the next few years was on television. She looked radiant on The Hollywood Palace with Davis, and won kudos for her performance as the embittered wife of a dairy farmer in Noon Wine, based on the Katharine Anne Porter novella. Also noteworthy was The Screaming Woman (1971), which starred Olivia as a wealthy widow recovering from a nervous breakdown who discovers a woman buried alive, but no one will believe her.
Olivia returned to the big screen for a cameo in The Adventurers (1970), a Harold Robbins trashfest. As Deborah Hadley, a married American tourist who dallies with gigolo Bekim Fehmiu, Olivia lent the film its sole shred of dignity.
Olivia garnered far more attention when she appeared in London in August of 1971 for a lecture at the National Film Theater. The program, which was sponsored by the John Player Cigarette Company, was a sellout, thanks largely to the press reports of a “date” between Olivia and then Prime Minister Edward Heath. Olivia became friendly with Heath in December 1961 when they met on board the Queen Elizabeth at a reception he was giving. She was sailing to New York to begin work on A Gift of Time, and he was bound for Ottawa to attend a conference on the common market.
When Olivia arrived in London in 1971, Heath invited her to a friendly dinner at Chequers, the traditional country house of the Prime Minister. The next day the headline “Olivia’s Date with Ted” was the talk of the town. When Olivia arrived at the theater that afternoon, she was mobbed by onlookers. Still, she looked radiant as she arrived onstage to thunderous applause. The program consisted of a clipfest followed by questions from the audience, which Olivia answered with her customary wit and charm.
Olivia was in London earlier in 1971 to work on Pope Joan (1972) for director Michael Anderson. Olivia played an abbess in ninth-century England who is crucified by pillaging Saxons.
For the next few years Olivia devoted most of her energies to her family. She suffered a bitter loss when her mother died in February 1975 after a long illness. Lilian Fontaine’s death, in effect, also brought an end to the relationship between Olivia and her sister. Olivia was in California with Lilian when she died, but Joan was touring in Dial M for Murder. Claire Loftus, a close friend of Lilian’s and executrix of her estate, felt that the memorial service should take place within a month of Lilian’s death and while Olivia was still in the United States. Joan wanted it to be delayed until the following August, when she would be in California, but Claire refused. Claire agreed to postpone the service until March 27, the beginning of Joan’s Easter vacation. Still, Joan was upset that she had not been consulted regarding any of the arrangements. She and Olivia didn’t speak at all that day—and they haven’t since.
Olivia only made three film appearances for the remainder of the ’70s. She first had a cameo in the disaster epic, Airport ’77 (1977), the third entry in the Airport series (and the repetition was clearly showing), and then made The Swarm (1978), Irwin Allen’s stingingly bad flick about African killer bees, which pretty much put an end to the disaster movie genre.
Olivia’s final theatrical venture was The Fifth Musketeer (1979), another spin on Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. As the mother of Queen Anne of England, Olivia looked every bit as regal as she had forty years earlier as Maid Marian.
Since then, Olivia has made occasional television appearances, most notably in Roots II: The Next Generation (1979), Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy (1982), as the Queen Mother in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) and in North and South Book II (1986).
Olivia gave a breathtaking performance as Dowager Empress Maria in the outstanding miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986), with Amy Irving in the title role. The role earned Olivia a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actress in a Mini Series or Movie for Television, as well as an Emmy nomination.
Olivia last appeared as Aunt Bessie in the telefilm The Woman He Loved (1988), about the romance of the Prince of Wales (Anthony Andrews) and Wallis Simpson (Jane Seymour).
It was around that time that Olivia also began work on her memoirs, an ambitious project which has been slowed down by personal difficulties. Saddest of these was the death of her beloved son Benjamin in 1991. “People think he died of cancer,’’ she said. “He conquered cancer.’’ The direct cause of his death was heart damage due to poorly administered radiation treatments.
In February 1998, when Olivia learned that her ex-husband Galante was ill, she graciously let him stay at her home where she and Gisele could care for him. Pierre stayed in the master bedroom, while Olivia moved into an adjoining room. Olivia even prepared special meals for him and did her best to make him as comfortable as possible.
Many people, particularly reporters, wondered why she would go to so much trouble for a man she had divorced nineteen years earlier. “She knew how much he meant to her daughter.” said Osborne. “She also said to me, ‘Even though we’re no longer married and I’m not in love with him anymore, I did make a commitment to love, honor and cherish him. I like to keep my commitments.’ That’s just the way Olivia is.”
Because of that commitment, Olivia turned down an invitation to appear at the 70th Academy Awards ceremony in which former Oscar winners were asked to appear for a reunion. Olivia continued to care for Galante until he died in the fall of 1998.
Olivia made several appearances in 1998 to promote the sixtieth anniversary and rerelease of Gone with the Wind. The warmth and vibrance she exhibited when the film first came out were still there six decades later. So were the de Havilland beauty and the radiant smile, even if they were now capped by a becoming head of silver tresses. Her youthful appearance is a reflection on her continued zest for living.
“Olivia has had a great third act. She now has a rich life in Paris,” said Osborne.
For Olivia, the third act has only just begun. In 1998 she said: “I want to be there for the 70th anniversary [of Gone with the Wind’s release], and I’d like to make the 80th.”
Alibi Ike (Warner Bros., 1935) Directed by Ray Enright. Cast: Joe E. Brown, Olivia de Havilland, Ruth Donnelly, Roscoe Karns, William Frawley, Paul Harvey.
The Irish in Us (Warner Bros., 1935) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Olivia de Havilland, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins, J. Farrell MacDonald, Mary Gordon.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Warner Bros., 1935) Directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle. Cast: James Cagney, Dick Powell, Joe E. Brown, Olivia de Havilland, Mickey Rooney.
Captain Blood (Warner Bros., 1935) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Lionel Atwill, Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson.
Anthony Adverse (Warner Bros., 1936) Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains, Edmund Gwenn, Gale Sondergaard, Anita Louise, Louis Hayward.
The Charge of the Light Brigade (Warner Bros., 1936) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson, Nigel Bruce, David Niven.
Call It a Day (Warner Bros., 1937) Directed by Archie Mayo. Cast: Ian Hunter, Olivia de Havilland, Anita Louise, Alice Brady, Roland Young, Frieda Inescort, Walter Woolf King.
The Great Garrick (Warner Bros., 1937) Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Brian Aherne, Olivia de Havilland, Edward Everett Horton, Melville Cooper, Lionel Atwill, Henry O’Neill.
It’s Love I’m After (Warner Bros., 1937) Directed by Archie Mayo. Cast: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Eric Blore, George Barbier, Spring Byington, Bonita Granville.
Gold Is Where You Find It (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: George Brent, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains, Margaret Lindsay, John Litel, Barton MacLane.
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Patric Knowles, Alan Hale, Ian Hunter.
Four’s a Crowd (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Errol Flynn, Rosalind Russell, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Walter Connolly, Hugh Herbert, Melville Cooper.
Hard to Get (Warner Bros., 1938) Directed by Ray Enright. Cast: Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, Charles Winninger, Allen Jenkins, Bonita Granville, Melville Cooper, Isabel Jeans.
Wings of the Navy (Warner Bros., 1939) Directed by Lloyd Bacon. Cast: George Brent, Olivia de Havilland, John Payne, Frank McHugh, John Litel, Victor Jory, Henry O’Neill, John Ridgeley.
Dodge City (Warner Bros., 1939) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ann Sheridan, Bruce Cabot, Frank McHugh, Alan Hale, John Litel, Henry Travers.
Gone with the Wind (MGM-Selznick, 1939) Directed by Victor Fleming. Cast: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Hattie McDaniel, Thomas Mitchell.
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (Warner Bros., 1939) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Donald Crisp, Vincent Price, Alan Hale.
Raffles (Goldwyn-United Artists, 1940) Directed by Sam Wood. Cast: David Niven, Olivia de Havilland, Dame May Whitty, Dudley Digges, Douglas Walton, Lionel Pape, E.E. Clive.
My Love Came Back (Warner Bros., 1940) Directed by Kurt (Curtis) Bernhardt. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Jeffrey Lynn, Charles Winninger, Eddie Albert, Spring Byington, Jane Wyman.
Santa Fe Trail (Warner Bros., 1940) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Van Heflin, William Lundigan.
The Strawberry Blonde (Warner Bros., 1941) Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Una O’Connor.
Hold Back the Dawn (Paramount, 1941) Directed by Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Rosemary De Camp.
They Died with Their Boots On (Warner Bros., 1941) Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Arthur Kennedy, Sydney Greenstreet, Walter Hampden.
The Male Animal (Warner Bros., 1942) Directed by Elliott Nugent. Cast: Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Jack Carson, Joan Leslie, Eugene Pallette, Herbert Anderson, Don De Fore.
In This Our Life (Warner Bros., 1942) Directed by John Huston. Cast: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, George Brent, Dennis Morgan, Charles Coburn, Frank Craven, Billie Burke.
Government Girl (RKO Radio, 1943) Directed by Dudley Nichols. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Sonny Tufts, Anne Shirley, James Dunn, Paul Stewart, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Davenport.
Thank Your Lucky Stars (Warner Bros., 1943) Directed by David Butler. Cast: Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall. Guest stars: Humphrey Bogart, Eddie Cantor, Jack Carson, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Alan Hale, Spike Jones and his orchestra, Ida Lupino, Hattie McDaniel, Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith.
Princess O’Rourke (Warner Bros., 1943) Directed by Norman Krasna. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, Harry Davenport.
The Well-Groomed Bride (Paramount, 1946) Directed by Sidney Lanfield. Cast: Ray Milland, Olivia de Havilland, Sonny Tufts, James Gleason, Percy Kilbride, Constance Dowling.
Devotion (Warner Bros., 1946) Directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Cast: Ida Lupino, Paul Henreid, Olivia de Havilland, Sydney Greenstreet, Nancy Coleman, Arthur Kennedy, Dame May Whitty.
To Each His Own (Paramount, 1946) Directed by Mitchell Leisen. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, John Lund, Mary Anderson, Roland Culver, Philip Terry, Bill Goodwin, Virginia Welles.
The Dark Mirror (Universal, 1946) Directed by Robert Siodmak. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Lew Ayres, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Long, Charles Evans, Garry Owen, Lester Allen.
The Snake Pit (20th Century–Fox, 1948) Directed by Anatole Litvak. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Glenn Langan, Helen Craig, Leif Erickson.
The Heiress (Paramount, 1949) Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins, Vanessa Brown, Mona Freeman.
My Cousin Rachel (20th Century–Fox, 1952) Directed by Henry Koster. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Richard Burton, Audrey Dalton, Ronald Squire, George Dolenz, John Sutton.
That Lady (20th Century–Fox, 1955) Directed by Terence Young. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Gilbert Roland, Paul Scofield, Francoise Rosay, Dennis Price, Anthony Dawson, Christopher Lee.
Not as a Stranger (United Artists, 1955) Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Olivia de Havilland, Frank Sinatra, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, Charles Bickford.
The Ambassador’s Daughter (United Artists, 1956) Directed by Norman Krasna. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, John Forsythe, Myrna Loy, Adolphe Menjou, Francis Lederer, Edward Arnold
The Proud Rebel (MGM, 1958) Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Alan Ladd, Olivia de Havilland, Dean Jagger, David Ladd, Cecil Kellaway, Dean Stanton, Henry Hull, John Carradine.
Libel (MGM, 1959) Directed by Anthony Asquith. Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Olivia de Havilland, Paul Massie, Robert Morley, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Anthony Dawson, Richard Wattis.
Light in the Piazza (MGM, 1962) Directed by Guy Green. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Rossano Brazzi, Yvette Mimieux, George Hamilton, Barry Sullivan, Isabel Dean.
Lady in a Cage (Paramount, 1964) Directed by Walter Grauman. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, James Caan, Ann Sothern, Jeff Corey, Jennifer Billingsley, Rafael Campos, Scatman Crothers.
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte (20th Century–Fox, 1964) Directed by Robert Aldrich. Cast: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Cecil Kellaway, Mary Astor, Victor Buono.
The Adventurers (Paramount, 1970) Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Cast: Bekim Fehmiu, Candice Bergen, Charles Aznavour, Alan Badel, Thommy Berggren, Ernest Borgnine, Olivia de Havilland.
Pope Joan (Columbia, 1972) Directed by Michael Anderson. Cast: Liv Ullmann, Maximilian Schell, Franco Nero, Trevor Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Lesley-Ann Down, Jeremy Kemp.
Airport ’77 (Universal, 1977) Directed by Jerry Jameson. Cast: Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Brenda Vaccaro, Darren McGavin, Olivia de Havilland, Tom Sullivan, James Stewart.
The Swarm (Warner Bros., 1978) Directed by Irwin Allen. Cast: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson.
The Fifth Musketeer (Columbia, 1979) Directed by Ken Annakin. Cast: Beau Bridges, Sylvia Kristel, Ursula Andress, Rex Harrison, Cornel Wilde, Lloyd Bridges, Olivia de Havilland.
The Screaming Woman (1971) Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Walter Pidgeon.
Roots: The Next Generation (1979) Cast: Marlon Brando, Georg Stanford Brown, Ruby Dee, Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, James Earl Jones, Harry Morgan, Della Reese.
Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy (1979) Cast: Bill Bixby, Helen Hayes, Olivia de Havilland.
Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) Cast: Christopher Baines, Catherine Oxenberg, Dana Wynter, Olivia de Havilland.
Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) Cast: Amy Irving, Olivia de Havilland, Omar Sharif.
The Woman He Loved (1988) Cast: Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Olivia de Havilland.