the times | Monday July 27 2020 1GM 49
mystery in which she co-starred with
Bette Davis.
Always outspoken, De Havilland was
one of the few actors in the Hollywood
of her time to stand up to the studio
system. In 1943, having decided to leave
Warner for Paramount in search of
more challenging roles, she found her-
self sued by her former employer to
provide it with one more picture, to
which it felt legally entitled. De Havil-
land disagreed. Warner executives
argued that she owed them because of
a six-month work suspension that they
had previously imposed on her while
she disputed the appropriateness of the
scripts she was being offered.
After a landmark ruling, the young
actress — who was only 26 — emerged
triumphant, securing what became
known as the “De Havilland decision”,
giving actors greater freedom to decide
who they worked for and what roles
they would play. By now, at the height
of her fame, she was arguably bigger
than the studios. “I was told that I would
never work again,” she recalled years
later, “whether I lost or won. When I
won, they were impressed and didn’t
bear a grudge.”
Another obstacle overcome in mid-
career was her politics, which at one
point, in the McCarthy era, was catego-
rised as “swimming-pool pink” — cor-
responding to the contemporary jibe
“champagne socialism”. De Havilland,
who had championed Harry Truman
after the death of Roosevelt, made clear
during a secret appearance in front of
the House Un-American Activities
Committee that she despised Stalinism
and held no truck with the Soviet
Union. Those listening to her testimo-
ny were left in no doubt that she was
telling the truth.
Over the years she worked with mostpected to become a teacher. It was while
in training for this at Mills College in
Oakland that she was cast as Hermia in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and came
to the attention of Reinhardt.
De Havilland was married twice, first
to Marcus Goodrich, a navy veteran,
screenwriter and author of the novel
Delilah; he was also a one-time Paris
buddy of Ernest Hemingway. They had
a son, Benjamin. Goodrich was 18 years
older than her and had neglected to tell
her that he had been married four times
previously. Her second husband was
Pierre Galante, the editor of Paris
Match and the father of her daughter,
Gisèle. Both marriages ended in di-
vorce. Like her sister, De Havilland
always put her career before her love
life, and did not take easily to the con-
strictions imposed by marriage and
motherhood.
Despite this, she enjoyed good rela-
tionships with both her children, whom
she raised in Paris, and was shattered
when her son, Benjamin, a statistical
analyst, succumbed to Hodgkin lym-
phoma in 1991 aged 41. Galante, whom
she had divorced in 1979, remained a
friend, and it was she who nursed him
through the cancer that finally killed
him in 1998. Gisèle, following in her
father’s footsteps, became a successful
journalist based in Paris.
De Havilland never entirely gave up
her career. She appeared in occasionalroles on screen and on television well
into her old age. Still razor-sharp, she
often spoke at conventions and awards
ceremonies, presenting a cavalcade of
Oscar winners at the Academy’s 75th
anniversary special.
After her sister Joan’s death (obituary
December 16, 2013), De Havilland said
in a statement that she was “shocked
and saddened” by the news.
In later life she was showered with
honours, including a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Légion
d’honneur and the National Medal of
Arts, presented to her by George
W Bush, the US president at the time.
De Havilland was the last living
member of the cast of Gone with the
Wind. Within weeks of turning 101, she
was appointed DBE, which she de-
scribed, with typical grace, as “the most
gratifying of birthday presents”.Dame Olivia de Havilland, DBE, actress,
was born on July 1, 1916. She died on July
26, 2020, aged 104Her mother gave her
and Joan elocution
and singing lessons
De Havilland and her second husband,
Pierre Galante, at London airport in
March 1955. The pair divorced in 1979
but she nursed him through the
cancer from which he died in 1998SELZNICK/SHUTTERSTOCK; ALFRED HARRIS/THE TIMES; KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/APof the biggest stars in Hollywood, in-
cluding Ralph Richardson, Robert Mit-
chum and Frank Sinatra. She thor-
oughly enjoyed the company of each of
these megastars, but said it was Bette
Davis who had taught her the virtue of
“absolute dedication”.
Of Gable, whom she had persuaded
to cry on screen in Gone with the Wind,
she said: “He was a bigger star than we
can create today... I was afraid to talk
to him. People can’t understand it now,
but we were in awe. Gable didn’t open
supermarkets.”
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born in
Tokyo in 1916. Her father, Walter de
Havilland, who would later become a
patent lawyer, taught English at the
Japanese capital’s Imperial University.
Her mother, Lilian, was an actress
and singer who had trained at
Rada in London. The two had
met while working in New
York. On her father’s side,
Olivia was related to Sir
Geoffrey de Havilland,
the engineer who de-
signed the Mosquito
multi-role combat
aircraft.
Three years after
Olivia’s birth, and 18
months after the ar-
rival of Joan, Lilian de
Havilland — described
by Joan as “neither
warm nor cosy” — left
her husband, a self-ab-
sorbed man given to sexual
infidelity, and moved with the
children to California. She had
originally intended to return to Britain,
but was persuaded that the climate of
the Pacific coast would be good for
Joan’s persistent bronchitis — a condi-
tion that had recently deteriorated into
pneumonia.
In the event they settled in Saratoga,
to the south of San Francisco Bay,
where both girls thrived (although Joan
returned to Japan for several years to
live with her father) and where Lilian
met and married George Fontaine, a
store manager, from whom Joan would
take her stage name. Lilian gave elocu-
tion and singing lessons to her two
daughters and introduced them to the
works of Shakespeare. Olivia also took
ballet lessons. Joan remained weaker
and was allowed to do less, which fu-
elled the sibling rivalry.
While keen on acting, at which she
obviously excelled, Olivia originally ex-Gone with the Wind (1939), with her two Oscars in 1950, and, below, in Los Angeles in 2004
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