Olivia De Havilland

Back in print for the first time in decades—and featuring a new interview with the author, in celebration of her centennial birthday—the delectable escapades of Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, who fell in love with a Frenchman—and then became a Parisian In 1953, Olivia de Havilland—already an Academy Award-winning actress for her roles in To Each His Own and The Heiress—became the heroine of her own real-life love affair. She married a Frenchman, moved to Paris, and planted her standard on the Left Bank of the River Seine. It has been fluttering on both Left and Right Banks with considerable joy and gaiety from that moment on. Still, her transition from Hollywood celebrity to parisienne was anything but easy. And in Every Frenchman Has One, her skirmishes with French customs, French maids, French salesladies, French holidays, French law, French doctors, and above all, the French language, are here set forth in a delightful and amusing memoir of her early years in the “City of Light.” Paraphrasing Caesar, Ms. de Havilland says, “I came. I saw. I was conquered.”

“There is much more to de Havilland’s story than her role as Melanie Wilkes, and it’s all here . . . a treat for film fans” (Booklist). Two-time Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland is best known for her role as Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind. She often inhabited characters who were delicate, elegant, and refined; yet at the same time, she was a survivor with a fierce desire to direct her own destiny on and off the screen. She fought and won a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over a contract dispute that changed the studio contract system forever. She is also noted for her long feud with her sister, fellow actress Joan Fontaine—a feud that lasted from 1975 until Fontaine’s death in 2013. Victoria Amador draws on extensive interviews and forty years of personal correspondence with de Havilland to present an in-depth look at her life and career.Amador begins with de Havilland’s childhood—she was born in Japan in 1916 to affluent British parents who had aspirations of success and fortune in faraway countries—and her theatrical ambitions at a young age. The book then follows her career as she skyrocketed to star status, becoming one of the most well-known starlets in Tinseltown. Readers are given an inside look at her love affairs with iconic cinema figures such as James Stewart and John Huston, and her onscreen partnership with Errol Flynn, with whom she starred in The Adventures of Robin Hood and Dodge City. After she moved to Europe, de Havilland became the first woman to serve as the president of the Cannes Film Festival in 1965, and remained active in film and television for another two decades. Olivia de Havilland: Lady Triumphant is a tribute to one of Hollywood’s greatest legends, tracing her evolution from a gentle heroine to a strong-willed, respected, and admired artist.

IPPY Award Bronze Medalist for Performing Arts Digging deep into the vaults of Warner Brothers and the collections of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as other private archives, this book explores the complex personal and professional relationship of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Flynn, even 50 years after his death, continues to conjure up images to the prototypical handsome, charismatic ladies' man; while de Havilland, a two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner, is the last surviving star of Gone with the Wind. Richly illustrated with both color and black-and-white photos, most previously unpublished, this detailed history tells the sexy story of these two massive stars, both together and apart.

"Here is a riveting, life-size portrait of a bold, courageous, and infinitely talented woman, brought vividly to life in her first full-scale biography--a life as turbulent, moving, and sometimes as harrowing as her celebrated films Hush ... hush, sweet Charlotte, The adventures of Robin Hood, The snake pit, To each his own, The heiress, and, of course, Gone with the wind. The book benefits tremendously from the author's wide personal acquaintance with many of the key figures in Olivia de Havilland's life and career. Olivia's story is the history of American moviemaking from the 1930s to the 1960s, and this book is rich in anecdotes involving the glittering personalities of Hollywood's Golden Age, including Vivien Leigh, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rooney, James Cagney, and Victor Fleming. Celebrated as a beauty ever since her debut as a teenager in Max Reinhardt's spectacular stage production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Hollywood Bowl, Olivia attracted some of the most powerful and desirable men of her time, including future U.S. presidents, actors, and directors. The great love of her life was Errol Flynn, her dashing costar in eight films, but perhaps her most fulfilling love was John Huston, the gifted, mercurial, enigmatic, and ruthless director of her film In This Our Life. Both of her marriages--to writers Marcus Goodrich and Pierre Galante--are detailed, including Goodrich's brutal attacks, which made her fear for her life and that of their young son Benjamin. The dark side of Hollywood's Golden Age is laid bare, including the abusive working conditions, the Communist witch hunt, and the big studios' murky backroom maneuverings that robbed stars of their rightful share of huge loan-out fees, and reduced them to virtual slavery by unfairly extending seven-year contracts. Olivia was the only star who fought back and won, successfully suing Warner Brothers. From the instant one begins this biography and experiences the author's relationship with Olivia de Havilland, it is clear that the book will be a unique, you-are there, compelling read, one that brilliantly portrays the incandescent star of Gone with the Wind, whose personal life was marked by triumph--two best-actress Oscars--as well as tragedy."--Jacket.

Documenting the most notorious house in Hollywood, this history spans the life and death of Mulholland Farm, the elegant and infamous mountaintop showplace built by film star Errol Flynn at the height of his fame. While appearing to be stylish and refined, Flynn installed secret passageways, two-way mirrors, and other voyeuristic tools into the house to spy on the famous women he entertained, as well as couples making love. He lived in Mulholland Farm during Hollywood’s Golden Era, when he was the most famous playboy movie star alive, remaining in the home through the rape trial that almost ruined him and the snatching of John Barrymore's body. The intricate story of the farm also spans five continents to include Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Fidel Castro, Humphrey Bogart, Shirley Temple, Clark Gable, Billy Graham, Johnny Cash, Roy Rogers, the Rolling Stones, and the other two owners of the property, Christian singer/songwriter Stuart Hamblen and rock ‘n’ roll legend Rick Nelson.

*Includes pictures. *Includes both actresses' quotes about each other and their careers. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. "Famous people feel that they must perpetually be on the crest of the wave, not realising that it is against all the rules of life. You can't be on top all the time, it isn't natural." - Olivia de Havilland "You know, I've had a helluva life. Not just the acting part. I've flown in an international balloon race. I've piloted my own plane. I've ridden to the hounds. I've done a lot of exciting things." - Joan Fontaine Olivia de Havilland is one of the last few living actresses who worked during the Golden Era of Hollywood, but also one of the most decorated, winning dozens of awards over the course of a 50 year career. Among those, she most notably won the Academy Award for Best Actress for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), more than a decade after she got her start as an 18 year old in Hollywood. Ironically, de Havilland was in California in part because the young British girl who had been born in Tokyo stopped in the States for medical treatment. Of course, de Havilland isn't well remembered for any of those accolades or other movies but because she played Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind (1939), perhaps the most famous movie in American history. Although she was a veteran actress at the time, de Havilland's career hadn't progressed much since she started, and rumor has it that she eventually got the role after her own sister, Joan Fontaine, was asked to audition for the part and recommended Olivia instead. Olivia was ultimately nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and became a household name in her adopted country overnight. Having been typecast in light romantic comedies before Gone With the Wind, that performance ensured de Havilland subsequently had a long, productive and versatile career making everything from Westerns and dramas. Of those movies, she is perhaps most closely associated with the enigmatic Errol Flynn, another foreign-born actor who was more notorious for his roles off the screen than on it. Before his untimely death, they appeared in several films together and became one of Hollywood's most popular on-screen couples. Although Fontaine and de Havilland would make history by becoming the only sisters to both win an Academy Award for Best Actress, that anecdote was just one of the various stories about the siblings that has shed light on their notoriously contentious and complicated relationship. As Fontaine once put it, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" De Havilland herself once said, "Joan is very bright and sharp and can be cutting." Of course, one of the reasons people have remained interested in the sisters is that both of them had such long acting careers, and Fontaine became best remembered both for a career that spanned 60 years and several high profile marriages. With typical humor, Fontaine joked about the fact she had so many husbands, commenting in jest, "If you keep marrying as I do, you learn everybody's hobby." But that attention has only served to obscure her very serious professional career, which saw her won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941). She also earned a nomination for her performance in The Constant Nymph (1943), and in a television career that spanned several decades, she earned an Emmy nomination for her work on Ryan's Hope in 1980, nearly 40 years after winning the Academy Award for Suspicion. Fontaine even appeared on Broadway in a couple of productions that ran for several years. This book profiles the life and career of two of Hollywood's most prolific actresses. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the sisters like never before.

This is classic Hollywood history as told through the life and career of one of its most iconic actresses. The book benefits tremendously from the author's meeting with Olivia de Havilland after he was assigned to handle her projected memoir at the Delacorte Press in 1973. Amburn also knew many of the key figures in her life and career, a veritable pantheon of Hollywood royalty from the 30s, 40s, and 50s: Jimmy Stewart, George Cukor, and David O. Selznick, and he was an editor at William Morrow when the company published the autobiography of de Havilland's difficult sister Joan Fontaine. Superbly researched and full of delicious anecdotes about Clark Gable, John Huston, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Errol Flynn, David Niven, and Bette Davis--particularly the bloody, bone-crunching fistfight Flynn and Huston waged over Olivia--this book not only profiles one of the finest actresses of her time, but also the culture of the film industry's Golden Age. It details de Havilland's relationships with the men who sought her--Howard Hughes, Jimmy Stewart, Errol Flynn, John F. Kennedy, Burgess Meredith, and John Huston, as well as her friendships with Grace Kelly, British Prime Minister Edward Heath, Ronald Reagan, Victor Fleming, and Ingrid Bergman. Here, too, are the fabulous and often surprising back stories of her 49 films, including Gone With the Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Snake Pit, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and the two for which she won Oscars, The Heiress and To Each His Own. The account of the filming of Gone With the Wind is unique in that the author interviewed many of the people involved in the epic making of this masterpiece as Lois Dwight Cole, who discovered the novel, producer David O. Selznick, director George Cukor, agents Kay Brown and Annie Laurie Williams, Radie Harris, Vivien Leigh's closest friend in the press, and both Edie Goetz and Irene Mayer Selznick, daughters of Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, the studio that funded, released, and ended up owning Gone With the Wind. Also included in this biography are Olivia's adventures with Bette Davis. They appeared together in four movies and Davis tried to destroy her, but Olivia stood up to Davis as no other actress had ever dared to do. She won Davis's respect, and by the time they made their biggest hit, Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte, a lasting friendship had blossomed. Undertaking a joint national publicity tour, they attracted mobs of boisterous fans and, in private, reminisced about the Golden Age of movies, evaluated the current crop of stars, and exchanged observations about love goddesses, nudity, and parenthood.