ANNIVERSARY – His star shines on the Walk of Fame Hollywood, but it was in Paris that she lives since 1953. Dean of the stars of the age gold American film, Olivia de Havilland is celebrating its hundred years old. Portrait of a legend.
His name sounds like a fairytale princess. The powerful charm of Gone with the Wind valiantly continues to operate. The one hundred years it has reached exert a universal fascination. Dean last three living legends of Hollywood (the other two are Kirk Douglas, the youngest of the year 1916, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, class 1917) Olivia de Havilland definitely sets high bar. In the image in his career, strewn with Oscars (two statuettes, three other nominations), flamboyant producer (David O. Selznick) of inspired filmmakers (Michael Curtiz, Anatole Litvak) and uncontrollable stars (Errol Flynn).
the scarcity of Havilland case begins in the cradle. Born in Tokyo of a lawyer father, Walter de Havilland, British descendant of an ancient family of Guernsey, and a theater actress mother (who will make a small film career in the 1940s), it is also the cousin germaine Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, aviation pioneer. A lady pedigree and heritage so British unusual cinema, which lined with a decidedly classic beauty, settle for long in the role of the ingenue chic and smooth.
a lady pedigree and heritage so British unusual cinema, which lined with a decidedly classic beauty, settle for long in the role of the ingenue and chic . smooth
in 1919, his parents separated, but her mother has the good sense to live with her in Saratoga, near San Francisco: 600 kilometers south, a neighborhood Los Angeles is beginning to be talked about as the Mecca of cinema. In 1934, Olivia eighteen and wisely prepares to become an English teacher, when she was noticed by the director Max Reinhardt in The Dream of a Summer Night that she plays in an amateur troupe. Immediately Reinhardt hired him for the film adaptation that has to turn and finally sign a five-year contract with Warner.
The success is modest but the doors wide open. They will close more. The following year, she appeared in Captain Blood (1935) alongside an unknown Australian, Errol Flynn. This pirate movie bounding enthusiasm critics and the public. The most famous couple of the screen (it, dashing and seductive; her sweet and romantic) will be the heyday of adventure cinema. Follow, with Flynn, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1937), The Adventures of Robin Wood (1938), The Conquerors (1939 ) or the Santa Fe Trail (1940, where the third thief is played by a Ronald Reagan). A slew of vintage signed Michael Curtiz, where Miss de Havilland plays decorative utilities to death.
Just 1939 Gone with the Wind , which already simmering Almighty David O. Selznick. It was she who claims to Jack Warner being “lent” to Selznick time of the film, for the second most famous role in movie history: that of Melanie Hamilton, as angelic as Scarlett O’Hara Vivien Leigh is head slaps. A custom character, which earned Olivia de Havilland her first Oscar nomination, but the borders a little more in the works in costume lady roles. One should always be wary of still water. Jack Warner pays the price when Melanie-Olivia attack to justice in 1943 for adjustments to its exorbitant contract and is successful. Stopping always in the jurisprudence of the California Labor Code as the De Havilland Law . The (definitely false) ingenue has succeeded where the imperial Bette Davis had failed in the 1930s …
The Oscars (two statuettes, three other nominations) will be his crown and his cross.
The Oscars will be his crown and cross. In 1942, she was appointed to the Oscar for best actress for By the Golden Gate Mitchell Leisen, while her sister Joan Fontaine (who followed suit in the career under the name of the second husband of his mother) is distinguished for Suspicion Alfred Hitchcock. The oscar goes to the blonde Joan. Compliments of the eldest, rejecting the younger, the story is not clear. The enmity already latent between the sisters became final in all cases and will be exploited by the Hollywood press for seventy years. The match ended in 2013 with the death of Joan Fontaine. The last contact between the sisters went back to their mother’s death in 1975.
Her Oscars come to it with new kinds of roles. More powerful, more complex. To each his destiny (Leisen, 1946), it embodies, at thirty, forty a mother looking for her son during World War II. The film is kind of melodrama, but his game nuanced earned him his first statuette for best actress. Much bolder, The Snake Pit (Anatole Litvak, 1948) makes a poignant schizophrenic plagued by insanity attacks. Exit the sweet princess: her character is Virginia bites until the blood fingers from his doctor … Re-appointment. Just The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949), one of his finest roles, who sees, opposite Montgomery Clift, embody a shy young woman who takes revenge on the man who married her for her money. Second statuette.
The 1950s are anonymous to Olivia de Havilland. For further Hollywood: newly divorced American novelist Marcus Goodrich, whom she had a son, Benjamin (1949-1991), she married in 1955 Pierre Galante, secretary general of Paris-Match and matchmaker despite himself, the same year to Rainier of Monaco and Grace Kelly. They had a daughter, the journalist Gisèle Galante. Golden Globe comes when even the reward for My cousin Rachel (1952, Henry Koster, with Richard Burton). In 1964, she still form a formidable duo with her friend Bette Davis for Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte , by Robert Aldrich. Then dashed roles, especially for television until 1988.
For her, the facility would have been to leave his perfect girl turning into register vamp. She chooses to transform from within.
Until recently, one could easily see Olivia de Havilland, immaculate hair and prim in teahouses of capital city. In a hundred years, this Parisian-born naturalized American and British in 1941 limited his outings, but remained going strong. She only stopped responding to hundreds of autograph requests piling up again, from all over the world, in the mailbox of his elegant house, nestled in the sixteenth arrondissement. In 2003, his appearance at the Academy Awards, the lyrical theme of the famous Gone with the Wind , sparked a standing ovation before the whole anthology profession, renewed in 2011, the Night of the Caesars.
Privilege age and survivors? At other. For, fifty year career and forty-nine films, Olivia de Havilland has not only crossed the century and finally reach it. For her, the facility would have been to leave his perfect girl to register turning into vamp. She chooses to turn from the inside, using all the resources of his worried face. Leaving a fiery dawn complexity behind the curtain quiet appearances. Water sleeping, always.
No comments:
Post a Comment