Olivia de Havilland died peacefully in her sleep yesterday at the age of 104. One of the last movie stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, she was a two-time Oscar winner, whose filmography was ripe with classics, from her debut in 1935’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the eight movies she co-starred in with Errol Flynn (my favorites are The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dodge City and Captain Blood) to Gone With the Wind (forever Melanie to most people), her two Oscar winning roles in To Each His Own and The Heiress, to The Snake Pit, Hold Back the Dawn and The Strawberry Blonde. A legend of the silver screen, she shared a notorious lifelong feud with her sister Joan Fontaine (another old Hollywood icon), whom she outlived by seven years, and was known for her groundbreaking fight to break down the Hollywood studio system in the 1930’s. A certain era of the movies dies with her today. Make sure to check out those films I mentioned if you can- she was known as a kind of “gentlewoman” onscreen for her grace and beauty, but she had range that spanned from screwball comedy to melodrama and action/adventure.
Trailer for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938):
Trailer for The Heiress (1949):
