By: Sydney Mulvenon
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.— On July 26, amid the chaos and tragedy surrounding 2020, one of the last living legends of Hollywood’s Golden Age passed away at age 104.
The career of Olivia Mary De Havilland, which spanned over 70 years, included acting in 49 feature films and several TV shows. De Havilland paved the way for actresses in the male-dominated film industry of early cinema. She became one of the first women in film to take control of her own career. De Havilland said, “One must take what comes with laughter.” The simplicity of this quote sends a strong message to her audience about the power of positivity.
De Havilland was nicknamed “Errol Flynn’s Girl.” Errol Flynn was one of the biggest stars in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In the eight films they did together, Olivia was at his side as the ingenue. “The life of the love interest is really pretty boring, the objective is the marriage bit, that’s what the heroine is there for,” she said in a 2006 interview with the Academy Awards. Before playing these roles she was a stage actress and performed roles like Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Herma in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
De Havilland strived for characters and plots she thought would make an impact to her audiences. During this time, she was signed under strict contract to Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Stars previously had to get permission from their studios before they could go to work on another project. For De Havilland, it began with a call from director George Cukor about playing the part of the happy, social Melanie in the 1939 film Gone With The Wind. De Havilland put up a fight against Warner Brothers and it’s boss Jack Warner for permission to play the role. “Jack Warner utterly refused to lend me for Melanie, He wouldn’t hear of it. I was desperate and I did something, age 22, that really was not correct, but I did it. I called Mrs’s Warner.” Later in her interview with the Academy she recalled her conversation with Mrs. Warner and her help toward Mr. Warner’s decision. “I explained how much the part meant to me. And I said would you help me, she said I understand you and I will help you. And it was through her that Jack eventually agreed.”
De Havilland was victorious in getting to play the role of Melanie, though in 1943 she would have to battle the studio once again to gain full liberty over her career. She wanted to have the right to work with other studios and obtain proper publicity. In fall of 1943, De Havilland went against Warner Bros. in the California Supreme Court. De Havilland and her lawyers used evidence from the California law which limits the right of studios to enforce a contract of more than seven years to any employee. In March of 1944, De Havilland was visiting patients at a military hospital when she received the news she had anxiously been waiting for. A young U.S. soldier delivered her a telegram from her lawyer which said, “You won.”
For the rest of her career, De Havilland worked on the projects that inspired her. She eventually won two Oscars. One for her role as Jody Norris in 1947’s To Each His Own and as Catherine Sloper in 1949’s The Heiress. After retirement, she continued to travel and do work in the film community.
At the age of 92 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts which is the highest award that can be given to an artist in the United States. For her 100th birthday she was appointed as a knight of the Légion d’honneur, the highest award in France. On her 101st birthday De Havilland was the oldest woman to be awarded the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and given the honors by Queen Elizabeth II.
Regardless of the awards and successes from her life I personally believe that she accomplished her true mission in life. In an interview with the Academy Awards she explained it was her leading man Errol Flynn who asked her a question that would set the stage for her career. “He said, ‘What do you want out of life,’ and I thought, ‘what an extraordinary question to be asked,” De Havilland said.” “Nobody’s asked me that ever, and in fact nobody ever did in the years that followed and I said I would like respect for difficult work well done.”