Olivia de Havilland
British actress
Who was Olivia de Havilland?
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916 – July 26, 2020) was a British, American and French actress. Her younger sister, with whom she had a noted rivalry which was well documented in the media, was the Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine.
Historical significance
She appeared in 49 feature films throughout her career, with the major works of her cinematic career spanning from 1935 to 1988. Before her death in 2020 at age 104, she was the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and was widely considered the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. De Havilland first came to prominence with Errol Flynn as a screen couple in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). One of her best-known roles is that of Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she received the first of her five Oscar nominations, the only one for Best Supporting Actress.
