Olivia Mary de Havilland
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Olivia de Havilland won two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for To Each His Own in 1946 and The Heiress in 1949, and successfully sued Warner Bros. in a landmark case that ended the studio system’s ability to extend contracts arbitrarily. She starred in eight films with Errol Flynn and played Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind 1939. De Havilland died in Paris at 104, as the last surviving major star of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Olivia de Havilland — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Olivia de Havilland by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Olivia de Havilland — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Her parents Lillian Fontaine, a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, a patent attorney, welcomed Olivia de Havilland on July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan. Her parents divorced when she was three, and she moved with her mother and sister Joan to Saratoga, California. She graduated from Los Gatos High School and enrolled at Mills College in Oakland, where a performance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream caught the eye of director Max Reinhardt.
Max Reinhardt cast de Havilland in both his stage and film versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1935, leading to a Warner Bros. contract. That same year she appeared with Errol Flynn in Captain Blood, the first of eight collaborations including The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938. She earned her first Oscar nomination for playing Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind 1939. After a legal battle with Warner Bros., the de Havilland decision of 1945 limited studio contracts to seven years. She won Best Actress Oscars for To Each His Own 1946 and The Heiress 1949, and earned another nomination for The Snake Pit 1948.
De Havilland married writer Marcus Goodrich in 1946; they divorced in 1953. She then married Pierre Galante, a French journalist, in 1955; they divorced in 1979 but remained close until his death in 1998. She had two children: Benjamin Goodrich born 1949 and Gisèle Galante born 1956. Her sister Joan Fontaine, also an Oscar-winning actress, was the subject of a long-reported feud, though Fontaine later denied any estrangement.
The de Havilland decision reshaped Hollywood labor practices, granting actors freedom from indefinite contract extensions. She received the National Medal of Arts in 2008 and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017 at age 100. She is remembered as the last surviving major cast member of Gone with the Wind and the definitive Melanie Hamilton.
Browse the complete filmography of Olivia de Havilland — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
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Every award, honor, and recognition received by Olivia de Havilland — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from Olivia de Havilland — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
Famous People Feel That They Must Perpetually Be on the Crest of the Wave, Not Realizing That It Is Against All the Rules of Life. You Can’t Be on Top All the Time; It Isn’t Natural.
The One Thing That You Simply Have to Remember All the Time That You Are There Is That Hollywood Is an Oriental City. as Long as You Do That, You Might Survive. If You Try to Equate It with Anything Else, You’ll Perish.
The TV Business Is Soul Crushing, Talent Destroying and Human Being Destroying. These Men in Their Black Towers Don’t Know What They Are Doing. It’s Slave Labor. There Is No Elegance Left in Anybody. They Have No Taste. Movies Are Being Financed by Conglomerates, Which Take a Write off If They Don’t Work. the Only People Who Fight for What the Public Deserves Are Artists.
We Were Like a Stock Company at Warners. We Didn’t Know Any of the Stars from the Other Studios.
Playing Good Girls in the ’30S Was Difficult, When the Fad Was to Play Bad Girls. Actually I Think Playing Bad Girls Is a Bore; I Have Always Had More Luck with Good Girl Roles Because They Require More from an Actress.
The Overwhelming Majority of People Who Make up the Liberal and Progressive Groups of This Country Believe in Democracy, and NOT in Communism. We Believe That the Two Cannot Be Reconciled Here in the United States, and We Believe That Every Effort Should Be Exerted to Make Democracy Work, and to Extend Its Benefits to Every Person in Every Community Throughout the Land.
To Write Is Divine. Forget All the Rest.
I Never Met Bette Davis. I *Encountered* Her!
Little-known facts about Olivia de Havilland — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
She confessed in later years that she had an intense crush on Errol Flynn during their filming, saying it was hard to resist his charms.
She and Joan Fontaine are the first sisters to both win Academy Awards and the first to be Oscar-nominated in the same year.
In 1965, she became the first female president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival.
At age nine, she made a will stating that she bequeathed all her beauty to her younger sister Joan since she had none.
After her divorce from Pierre Galante in 1979, they remained close friends; she nursed him through cancer until his death in 1998.
She holds the record for the most people thanked in an Oscar acceptance speech: 27, for To Each His Own 1946.
Her court victory against Warner Bros., the de Havilland decision, prevented studios from adding suspension periods to contracts, giving actors more freedom.
Her son Benjamin Goodrich died of Hodgkin’s disease in 1991 at age 42.
Two weeks before her 101st birthday, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 Birthday Honours.
She made a special appearance at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003, receiving a standing ovation.
She was romantically involved with James Stewart, Howard Hughes, and John Huston in the late 1930s.
Her mother named her Olivia after William Shakespeare’s heroine in Twelfth Night.
She is descended from the Haverlands of Normandy, one of whom accompanied William the Conqueror in 1066.
She showed writing flair with her 1962 book Every Frenchman Has One, a lighthearted account of adapting to French life.
A full-time resident of Paris since the mid-1950s, she lived on Rue Benouville and read Scriptures at the American Cathedral until around 2012.
She was the surprise guest at a centennial tribute to Bette Davis in 2008, hosted by Robert Osborne.
Olivia and Joan were raised strictly by their mother, with any suitor first invited to tea for vetting.
Despite a reportedly turbulent relationship, she and Joan Fontaine celebrated Christmas 1962 together with their families.
She visited New York in spring 2004 to film a commentary for the Gone with the Wind DVD.
She was eager to play Melanie in Gone with the Wind, but Jack L. Warner initially refused to loan her out.
She is only the third Oscar-winning actor to reach age 100, after George Burns and Luise Rainer.
She turned down the role of Mary Hatch Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life 1946; Donna Reed was cast instead.
As of December 2014, she was the only surviving major cast member of Gone with the Wind.
She and Errol Flynn acted together in eight films, including Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and They Died with Their Boots On.
She turned down the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, later saying she could not relate to the character after recently giving birth.
She holds the record for the oldest surviving main cast member of a Best Picture Oscar winner, living to see the 80th anniversary of Gone with the Wind.
She accepted two film roles turned down by Ginger Rogers: To Each His Own and The Snake Pit, winning an Oscar for the former.
In 2001, she was among 40 prominent French residents victimized by hoax anthrax attacks.
She gave birth to her first child at age 33, son Benjamin Goodrich, on September 27, 1949.
She received the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush in 2008.
Her feud with sister Joan Fontaine was press fodder; Fontaine later denied any estrangement.
A street in Mexico City, Dulce Olivia, is named after her.
She celebrated her 90th birthday at her daughter’s home in Malibu.
She is a 15th cousin twice removed of Errol Flynn.
Her cousin Sir Geoffrey de Havilland was a British aviation pioneer.
She gave birth to her second child, daughter Gisele Galante, on July 18, 1956.
She was honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month in July 2016 for her 100th birthday.
In April 1946, she caused a power struggle within HICCASP by refusing to deliver speeches written by Dalton Trumbo.
A javelina at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum was named Olivia de Javelina in her honor.
She was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.
She attended the funeral of Charlton Heston in April 2008.
She attributed her longevity to love, laughter and learning.
She received an honorary degree from the University of Hertfordshire at age 82.
Three of her films are in the National Film Registry: The Adventures of Robin Hood, Gone with the Wind, and The Heiress.
She was the oldest living Oscar winner from 2015 until her death in 2020.
Before her death, she was largely considered the last surviving major cultural celebrity of the 1930s.
She was somewhat overweight when she first came to Paramount; Edith Head designed slimming costumes.
She was portrayed by Lee Purcell in the TV film My Wicked, Wicked Ways 1985.
She replaced Joan Crawford in Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 after Crawford feigned illness.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Olivia de Havilland.
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