Posted on 12/15/2013 5:16:52 PM PST by Borges
The star of the Hitchcock classics "Suspicion" and "Rebecca" famously won an Oscar in 1942 over her bitter rival -- her older sister Olivia de Havilland.
Joan Fontaine, the polished actress who achieved stardom in the early 1940s with memorable performances in the Alfred Hitchcock films Suspicion for which she earned the best actress Oscar over her bitter rival, sister Olivia de Havilland and Rebecca, has died. She was 96.
THR awards analyst Scott Feinberg spoke with the actress' assistant, Susan Pfeiffer, who confirmed the death of natural causes Sunday at Fontaine's home in Carmel, Calif. Fontaine earned a third best actress Oscar nomination for her role in The Constant Nymph (1943), She also was notable as Charlotte Bronte's eponymous heroine in Jane Eyre (1944) opposite Orson Welles; in the romantic thriller September Affair (1950) with Joseph Cotton; in Ivanhoe (1952) with Robert Taylor; and in Island in the Sun (1957), where she plays a high-society woman in love with an up-and-coming politician (Harry Belafonte).
It was Hitchcock, with his penchant for cool blondes, who brought Fontaine to the forefront when he cast her as the second Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca (1940), the directors American debut. Her performance as the new wife of Laurence Olivier in a household haunted by the death of his first wife earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress. A year later, Hitchcock placed her opposite Cary Grant in Suspicion, and she won the Oscar for her turn as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth, a shy English woman who begins to suspect her charming new husband of trying to kill her. She thus became the only actor to win an Oscar in a Hitchcock film. Among those Fontaine beat out at the 1942 Academy Awards was her older sister de Havilland, up for Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Biographer Charles Higham wrote that as Fontaine came forward to accept her trophy, she rejected de Havillands attempt to congratulate her and that de Havilland was offended. The sisters, who never really got along since childhood, finally stopped speaking to each other in the mid-70s. De Havilland, a two-time Oscar winner, is 97 and living in Paris.
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born in Tokyo on Oct. 22, 1917, to British parents. Her father was a patent attorney who had a thriving practice in Japan. Due to the ill health of her and Olivia, their mother, Lilian, moved them to California and pushed them into acting. While de Havilland pursued acting, Fontaine returned to Tokyo and attended the American School. Ultimately, their parents divorced and Fontaine returned to the U.S. at age 17 to live in San Jose, Calif. As de Havilland was already having some success as an actress, Fontaine joined a local theater group and moved to L.A. She received a screen test at MGM and was given a bit part in No More Ladies (1935), credited as Joan Burfield. After changing her last name to Fontaine (from her stepfather, George Fontaine) to avoid confusion with her sister, she signed with RKO and garnered small parts in several movies, including The Women and Gunga Din, both released in 1939. Capitalizing on her emotional turns in Rebecca and Suspicion, Fontaine appeared in several romantic films in the 40s, including Constant Nymph (where she falls for composer Charles Boyer), Frenchmans Creek (1944), The Affairs of Susan (1945), From This Day Forward (1945) and Ivy (1947). Fontaine moved into more mature roles in the movies and starred on Broadway opposite Anthony Perkins in Tea and Sympathy in 1954. Her last movie appearance was in The Witches (1966). Fontaine made regular TV appearances in the late 50s and early 60s and served as a panelist on the game show To Tell the Truth from 1962-65. In 1986, she co-starred in the TV movie Dark Mansions and the miniseries Crossings, and her last credited performance came in the 1994 telefilm Good King Wenceslas. Fontaine was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1980 for her guest-starring stint in the soap opera Ryans Hope and served as jury president at the 1982 Berlin International Film Festival. In 1978, she published her autobiography, No Bed of Roses, which detailed her feud with de Havilland. Off the screen, Fontaine was a licensed pilot, an accomplished interior decorator and a Cordon Bleu-level chef who was married and divorced four times. In the 40s, she and William Dozier, the second of her four husbands, formed Rampart Productions, which oversaw her 1948 film Letter From an Unknown Woman, Billy Wilders The Emperor Waltz (1948) starring Bing Crosby and Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) with Burt Lancaster. In 1939, Fontaine married British actor Brian Aherne, and they divorced in 1945. She was married to Batman TV show producer Dozier from 1946-51, to producer Collier Young from 1952-61 and to journalist Alfred Wright Jr. from 1964-69.
Thank you! We are going to try our best!
Max Dugan Returns. I saw that.
Female lead was Marsha Mason. I saw her on stage a few years ago, my mom and I to Chicago Shakespeare theater a few times a year. (Checking, the play was called Hecuba and was back in 2006, longer ago than I thought, I don’t remember off hand much about it). I like seeing people that have been on TV or in movies. Ian “Emperor Palpatine” McDiarmond most of all.
“Election” is one of my favorite movies. Also thought Broderick did well in “The Cable Guy.” He’s sure fallen off the map, I think his horse is now a bigger star thanks to that Sex in the City crap.
Gabourey Sidibe’s gigantic chocolate @ss just got capped on “American Horror Story”. She was pretty good on that. Mostly playing oppostire Kathy Bates who plays an ultra racissssssss former slave owner from the 1830’s or something. She cried when she saw Obama was President, it was funny even though most of us did the same thing.
Grandparents pass down the traditions. You’re the first line of defense between the liberal revisionist crap they teach in public schools and the kids’ minds.
Parents come next, but typically they’re too frazzled from just trying to keep the house running and the bills paid.
Raising good American kids that know their history and heritage is THE priority.
Well...they’re both fairly liberal but I was thinking about the dead one!!!
Oh, that... one--
Well, at least he is a "good... liberal" now with full voting rights forever.
Interesting read:
Max Dugan Returns: Khent will have to sse if it’s qweer friendly.
Ian Emperor Palpatine McDiarmond: Speaking of qweers. He gets a pass though, as he’s Emperor Palpatine.
I thought The Cable Guy was terrible; Ben “headed to oblivion” Stiller decided to make Jim Carrey unfunny. Bleh.
“Sex in the City”: I forced myself to watch an episode of that garbage years ago. The results that that had on American women...well read the links I send you. Delusions ensued. And outside of Kristin Davis, they are DOGS and HORSEFACES. Kim Catrell was hot in 1980.
“She cried when she saw Obama was President, it was funny even though most of us did the same thing.”
I had two people say to me at my Mother’s wake: “She doesn’t have to look at Obama anymore.” Yep.
Thank you for the poster. I was about 11-12 yrs old when I saw it. I’m an incurable romantic and that was a very romantic picture. I was a tom-boy kid with brothers though, and I loved the fact that Joan F. would sneak out and play pirate with the swashbuckling seamen. Girls didn’t do those kinds of things back then. Ha.
Emperor Palpatine is one of C-3PO’s people? I had no idea.
http://gay-or-straight.com/Ian%20McDiarmid
I read someplace he was a Khent.
I can find no info on his personal life. He doesn’t talk about it, never married, and says he lives alone.
If he is a nancy he’s doing the right thing by keeping it to himself.
“If he is a nancy hes doing the right thing by keeping it to himself.”
100% agree!
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