DEATH: The actress, Olivia de Havilland died in Paris where she had been living for more than sixty years
She had just celebrated her 104th birthday. Hollywood icon actress Olivia de Havilland revealed to the general public for her performance in Gone with the Wind, died in Paris this Sunday according to the BBC and Entertainment Weekly . Information confirmed by her American agent Lisa Goldberg: “Lady Olivia de Havilland died peacefully of natural causes,” she said in a statement about the actress twice awarded the Oscar for best actress.
Living in France for more than sixty years, Olivia de Havilland obtained in 1939 the supporting role of one of the most legendary films of cinema across the Atlantic: Gone with the Wind by Victor Fleming. She played the virtuous Melanie Hamilton, the contender of Ashley Wilkes with whom Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) is madly in love. On this occasion, she won her first Oscar nomination. Born in Japan on July 1st, 1916 to two British parents, Olivia de Havilland was one of the last stars of the mythical golden age of American cinema.
Standing-ovation in 2003
Settled in California in 1919 with her mother and her no less famous younger sister, Joan Fontaine – who had also become an actress and Hitchcock’s muse – Olivia turned to teach, but in 1934, the director Max Reinhardt noticed her when she performs with an amateur troupe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her career was launched, and the actress signed a 5-year contract with Warner.
Olivia de Havilland, 1916-2020.
Un siècle de cinéma… pic.twitter.com/tYHDPA7hKi— La Cinémathèque (@cinemathequefr) July 26, 2020
Passed by the precious statuette For Gone With the Wind, she will take it down several times years later. In 1947, she won the Oscar for best actress for To Each His Own, then a Golden Globe in 1950 and an Oscar the same year for her dramatic role in L’Héritière .
Fifty years later, in 2003, Olivia de Havilland was acclaimed at another Oscars ceremony. She appears there with the musical theme of Gone with the Wind and a standing ovation from the entire profession pays tribute to her incredible career (50 years, 49 films) and to this legend of cinema. She was the oldest actress in the world to receive an Oscar.
