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Yesterday was Olivia de Havilland's birthday. Many happy returns and best wishes for many more to come!

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The article noted that she lives in Paris, still does crossword puzzles and is working on her autobiography. She also can't wait for her next birthday.

An interview from earlier this year.

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Having outlived all of her costars (as well as the movie’s mad-genius producer, David O. Selznick, and the three directors he hired to steer the massive ship), de Havilland has been GWTW’s principal spokesperson for almost five decades, the sole bearer of the Tara torch. It’s a privilege she calls “rather wonderful,” as her affection for the film is genuine and deep. She’s seen GWTW “about 30 times,” she says, and still enjoys watching it for the emotional jolt it brings as she reconnects with those costars—Gable, Leigh, Hattie McDaniel, and Leslie Howard—who have long since passed on.
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Oh, my! Happy, happy belated birthday, Ms. de Havilland, and many more! As for my enormous admiration and appreciation of Olivia's and Joan Fontaine's distinctive star qualities, I must paraphrase Scarlett O'Hara: "Oh, I never can make up my mind which of you two is the most glamorous!" tiphat.gif

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If you should ever have the good fortune to meet de Havilland, KarenAG, I strongly advise that you assure her she was the more glamorous. (The sibling rivalry, as you may know, was intense.) :)

I wonder what the odds are that all the actors named above in the quote save de Havilland - Gable, Howard, Leigh, and McDaniel -- would all be gone by 1967? She's been the only surviving GWTW star for a long time now.

I'm so glad she's still with us. She's one of the last links we have to that glorious Hollywood era of the 1930s and 1940s.

Looking forward to that autobiography.

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If you should ever have the good fortune to meet de Havilland, KarenAG, I strongly advise that you assure her she was the more glamorous. (The sibling rivalry, as you may know, was intense.) smile.png

I wonder what the odds are that all the actors named above in the quote save de Havilland - Gable, Howard, Leigh, and McDaniel -- would all be gone by 1967? She's been the only surviving GWTW star for a long time now.

Looking forward to that autobiography.

Chuckling, Dirac, at your caveat and thank you for the news and link. rofl.GIF Can't wait for her memoir, also!

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For a glimpse into the Joan/Olivia rivalry, I found this. Interesting interview, especially the observation by Joan that no one in their family was a "warm and cuddly" type, herself included. Also this gives a slightly different take on what happened re: Mama DeHavilland's death. Joan would later say that Olivia didn't inform her of the death. But this interview it seems as if Olivia did inform her, but didn't bother making sure the telegram got sent to the proper place. If they had been out of touch for so long I could see how that could happen, where Olivia wouldn't really know Joan's whereabouts.

I also like Joan's very grand-dame, mid-Atlantic accent.

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Fontaine, I understand, had a sharp wit and sometimes she sharpened it on her sister. Her book was said to be not all that reliable – it’ll be interesting to see what de Havilland has to say.

But I tend to think it was just one of those things. They didn’t get on, and on top of that they were competing in the same profession in the same town for the same things. I imagine it would have been a difficult situation even if they’d been close as children.

De Havilland’s name cropped up in a biography of JFK I was reading. (No, not what you think.) As a young naval officer he paid a visit to her house in Hollywood with some friends. Kennedy exerted himself to make a good impression and asked de Havilland to dinner some time. Unfortunately, when it came time to depart, he suavely opened the wrong door and found himself in a hail of hatboxes and tennis equipment, not the last impression he wanted to make. Later on he saw her with someone else and he was convinced the Closet Incident had done him in.

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Well, we shared the same hairdresser in NY for while---I would often b e seated next to her under the dryer---but nary a word was spoken--at the time "intruding on their privacy" was the norm. Too bad---I would have loved to talk to her about "The Heiress".

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Thank you for the link, canbelto. I hope she had a great day. This Daily Mail reprint of the AP story has some nice photos. Still looking beautiful.

Who knows, atm711 - maybe she would have liked it if you had just said something briefly about how much you admired her in "The Heiress"! But it was nice of you to respect her privacy.

I do hope she gets to that book.

I recently saw Flynn and de Havilland in "They Died with Their Boots On," their last movie together. It is interesting to observe how de Havilland matures and develops during the series of pictures they made together, from the teenaged ingenue of "Peter Blood" to her Libbie Custer -- tender, quiet, and devoted, but also a person of considerable force. Flynn wasn't quite the same without her (and Michael Curtiz).

She wasn't the most naturally gifted of actors, but James Agee put it very well:

".....her playing [in "The Dark Mirror"] is thoughtful, quiet, detailed, and well sustained, and since it is founded, as some more talented playing is not, in an unusually healthful-seeming and likable temperament, it is an undivided pleasure to see."

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 The happy event was July 1. 101 and counting.....

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Though a nun who taught her in Catholic school referred to her as a "brass monkey" because she would always get herself into trouble, De Havilland’s lady-like perfection earned her the title Dame Commander during Queen Elizabeth II’s 2017 birthday honors, becoming the oldest person ever to receive the nominal merit.

 

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Many happy returns of the day.

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Given my interest in the stars from yesteryear, I vividly recall a conversation I had with the late TCM film historian Robert Osborne about Gone With the Wind star Olivia de Havilland.

"We speak every Sunday," he told me. "And I would so like to do an on-camera interview with her for TCM. But she would rather be remembered for her illustrious career instead of anyone wondering what she might look like as an older woman."

That's too bad. I'm sure it would have been a great interview. Especially puzzling because recent photos show a still-lovely lady. Now she is probably too frail, and Osborne, of course, is already gone.

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11 minutes ago, Helene said:

Is she worried about her voice? Because there's always audio for interviews. 

There is audio and I hope she is at least taping her reminiscences. She wouldn’t be the first female star to withdraw from public view because she felt she had lost her looks and didn’t want to be seen. 

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