Olivia De Havilland, the last surviving bona fide star of the Golden Age of Hollywood, has died at 104. From the Los Angeles Times:
Olivia de Havilland, the last remaining star from the 1939 epic film “Gone With the Wind†and a two-time Academy Award winner who for decades was seen as the essence of Hollywood royalty, has died at her residence in Paris. She was 104.
De Havilland, who died Sunday of natural causes, was generally considered the last of the big name actors from the golden age of Hollywood, an era when the studios hummed with activity and the stars seemed larger than life.
The actress — always a free spirit in what then was a buttoned-down world — gave up on Hollywood and moved to Paris in the early 1950s but remained firmly in the public eye into her final years, when she waged a 1st Amendment fight for privacy over the use of her image in the 2017 docudrama “Feud: Bette and Joan.â€
She made headlines on the eve of her 101st birthday by announcing that she was suing FX over what she alleged was the unauthorized use of her identity in the miniseries, which chronicled the storied rivalry between actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Catherine Zeta-Jones portrayed De Havilland in the serial.
That wasn’t the first time Miss De Havilland had turned to the courts. In 1943 she sued Warner Brothers, insisting that her seven year contract she had with the studio elapsed in seven years rather than the seven years measured in days worked as claimed by the studio’s attorneys. Leaving WB gave her the opportunity to play roles other than the ingenue parts into which the studio slotted her. Her performances in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949) for which she won Academy Awards as Best Actress, are unforgettable not to mention her electrifying and courageous performance in The Snake Pit (1940). The “De Havilland Laws” have benefited actors, actresses, and other performers since then including Johnny Carson, Jared Leto, and Rita Ora.
Her Broadway performances included Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1951), Candida (1952) in revival and A Gift of Time (1962) opposite Henry Fonda.
Her death really marks the end of an era of Hollywood glamor.
She will be remembered while say Tuesday Weld or Sheree North fade away.
Anyone wanting a return of the asylums should watch Snake Pit.