She is the sr. girl of Walter de Havilland, the British patent attorney with a practice inside Japan, and a previous Lilian Augusta Ruse, an actress known by her stage title of Lilian Fontaine, world health organization married around 1914. Her immature sister is the actress Joan Fontaine (also born inside Tokyo, on October 22, 1917), from whom she has been famously alienated for numerous decades, non speaking the least bit since 1974. De Havilland's personal moved from either Tokyo whilst she was both years old, settling within Saratoga, California. She attended school at Los Gatos High School and at the Notre Dame Convent Catholic girls' school within Belmont, California.

Career
De Havilland's career began co-starring with Joe E. Brown in Alibi Ike in 1935. She appeared when Hermia in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream, her first stage production, at the Hollywood Bowl. the stage production was down the road sour into a 1935 movie with a equivalent cast. De Havilland played paired Errol Flynn in such highly popular films when Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade'' (both 1936), and when Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). She played Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance.

Inside 1941, Olivia became a naturalized citizen of the United States. De Havill& and her sister were every nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Fontaine won number 1 for her role within Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) over first state Havilland's nomination for Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Biographer Charles Higham hwhen described a cases of the awards ceremony, stating that as Fontaine stepped forward to collect her award, she got pointedly rejected delaware Havilland's tries at congratulating her & that delaware Havill& was two offended and embarrassed by her behavior. Many years down the road, diamond state Havill& would go to the favor and brush by Fontaine, waiting by having her hand extended, because Olivia got allegedly taken offense at a comment Joan processed just about her Olivia's so-old man. He records that a sisters universally experienced an uneasy relationship, potentially since early childhood, after Olivia would tear up a textile Joan got to have on when hand-us-downs, forcing Joan to sew the two back together.

By this period, first state Havilland was becoming progressively foiled per roles existence assigned to her. She felt that she got proven herself to exist as capable of swimming to a higher degree a overmodest ingenues & damosel inside distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this nature and severity of role. a law leave studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role & the time period of suspension to become added to the contract period. Inside theory this allowed the studio to maintain indefinite control on top an that much contractee. Virtually all accepted this situation, when two or three tried to vary a body; Bette Davis had mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Brothers Studios in the 1930s. De Havilland mounted the causa in the 1940s & was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater originative freedom to the performing artist. A guide was one of a virtually all important & far reaching legal opinion until that period within Hollywood. Her bravery within mounting such a challenge, & her subsequent triumph, won her the respect & admiration of her peers.

A quality & kind of her roles began to improve. She won Better Actress Oscar for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was likewise widely praised for her Oscar nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a naturalistic portrayal of mental illness, & diamond state Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play the role that was entirely devoid of glamor and that confronted such controversial subject matter.

De Havilland appeared periodically inside films fallowing a 1950s and attributed this partly to the growing tolerance of Hollywood films of the period of time. She was reported to keep around declined a role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, citing the offensive nature & severity of a few elements of the script and saying there were certain lines she may not allow herself to speak. A role finally attend her previous No more downwind co-star Vivien Leigh, who died around 1967. De Havilland continued acting until a 1980s.

The resident of Paris since the 1950s, de Havilland sleep in retirement and makes appearances rarely. She is reported to exist as working in an autobiography. One of her virtually all recent public appearances was as a presenter at a 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003. Within 2004, Turner Classic Movies put together a retrospective piece known as "Melanie Remembers," where diamond state Havilland was interviewed for the 65th day of remembrance of No more downwind's original release. About 90 years old, delaware Havilland remembered each detail of her casting (she was within the locate Warner's & initially it refused to let her play Melanie for David O. Selznick) as well as filming (Leigh could go immediately from break to taping and fall into her Scarlett O'Hara role, while she needed 20 minutes to focus to get back into Melanie.) The documentary lasted for a little under 40 minutes and can be seen on the Gone with the Wind four-disc special collector's edition.

Each sisters stand refused to comment, however Higham has stated that a above described event around 1942 was the final straw for what would be the womb-to-tomb feud, however this is debatable, given delaware Haviland's late revenge, & besides a cases of 1974, which were at least when notable milestones when a incident Higham describes from either 1942. the sisters eventually ceased to speak the least bit within 1974, because, based on data from Fontaine, diamond state Havill& experienced non invited her to a memorial service for their late mother, Lilian de Havilland, world health organization experienced recently died, although Olivia claims she told Joan and Joan brushed her off saying she was as well occupy to attend. A truth is stiff for whilst of these is faced by having deuce different versions of the equivalent event (& probably numbers of more cases too).

De Havil& was married and divorced from novelist Marcus Goodrich between 1946 and 1953, by whom she had the boy, Benjamin, whom she has outlived. She late married Pierre Galante from either 1955 to 1979, producing a girl, Giselle, inside 1956. Whilst first state Havill& & Galante divorced it remained inside adept terms, and she nursed him across his final unwellness around Paris, in which she has resided for numerous years, which was a declared understanding for her absence from either a star-studded Seventieth Day of remembrance of the Oscars in 1998 where former winners attended & were shown seated, inside alphabetical choose (from either Anne Bancroft to Teresa Wright) and enjoyed a goodwill of the suddenly homesick audience.

Trivia
De Havilland attended Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, California as a teenager. Afterward, an acting award at a school is known as when her. De Havilland was expert friends by owning frequent co-star Bette Davis. Her father, Walter de Havilland, was a half-stepbrother of a late Charles de Havilland, world health organization was the father of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, the renowned aviation pioneer. Away from a quaternary stars of Never to return downwind (a others existence Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard), she is the only 1 world health organization is however alive. Ironically, her character was a just of the 4 world health organization died in the film. Dutch poet, J.A. Deelder, wrote an epic poem about his childhood called Portret van Olivia de Havilland ("Portrait of Olivia de Havilland").

Filmography
Alibi Ike (1935) The Irish in Us (1935) ''A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) Captain Blood (1935) A Dream Comes True (1935) (short subject) Anthony Adverse (1936) The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) The Making of a Great Motion Picture (1936) (short subject) Call It a Day (1937) It's Love I'm After (1937) The Great Garrick (1937) Gold Is Where You Find It (1938) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Four's a Crowd (1938) Hard to Get (1938) A Day at Santa Anita (1939) (short subject) Wings of the Navy (1939) Dodge City (1939) The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) Gone with the Wind (1939) Raffles (1940) My Love Came Back (1940) Santa Fe Trail (1940) The Strawberry Blonde (1941) Hold Back the Dawn (1941) They Died with Their Boots On (1941) The Male Animal (1942) In This Our Life (1942) Show Business at War (1943) (short subject) Princess O'Rourke (1943) Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) Government Girl (1943) To Each His Own (1946) Devotion (1946) The Well-Groomed Bride (1946) The Dark Mirror (1946) The Snake Pit (1948) The Heiress (1949) My Cousin Rachel (1952) That Lady (1955) Not as a Stranger (1955) The Ambassador's Daughter (1956) The Proud Rebel (1958) Libel (1959) Light in the Piazza (1962) Lady in a Cage (1964) Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) The Adventurers (1970) Pope Joan (1972) Airport '77 (1977) The Swarm (1978) The Fifth Musketeer (1979)

Television work
Noon Wine (1966) The Screaming Woman (1972) Roots: The Next Generations (1979) (miniseries) Murder Is Easy (1982) The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) North and South II (1986) (miniseries) Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) The Woman He Loved'' (1988)