Team Experience is revisiting 1946 in the lead up to this week's Smackdown.
by Baby Clyde
As she triumphantly left the stage of the Shrine Auditorium after winning a long awaited Best Actress Oscar for To Each His Own, Olivia De Havilland was approached by a very familiar figure offering congratulations.
I don’t know why she does that when she knows how I feel...”
...Olivia muttered as she turned away from her equally famous sister, the 1941 Best Actress winner Joan Fontaine. Unfortunately for all involved it was captured on camera, which lead to the infamous picture above. It's one of my favourite snapshots in Hollywood history. The look of genuine delight on Joan’s face, the look of pursed lipped distaste on Olivia’s. You could write a book about it; I’ll try and stick to a few hundred words...
Their acrimony went back decades. Almost from birth. They were born only 15 months apart in Tokyo, Japan (Olivia in 1916. Joan in 1917) to British émigré parents – an aspiring actress mother Lilian and philandering, uncaring father with an aristocratic heritage, Walter. Due to marital woes and both children’s ill health the family decamped to California in 1919 but Walter soon returned to Tokyo (and his mistress) leaving the women to fend for themselves. Olivia blossomed. A clever good natured child who charmed everyone around, she was popular at school and grew into a beautiful young woman. Joan on the other hand was a sickly, morose child, often away from school and taking up much of her mother’s attention which caused resentment from the older sister. They fought constantly and this wasn’t helped by Lilian's second marriage to the cold, authoritarian George Fontaine who often pitted the sisters against each other, causing further division. As they grew up it became apparent that the vivacious Olivia was her mothers’ favourite. Tired of constant battles with her stepfather, 16 year-old Joan returned to Tokyo to live with Walter. Whilst very much in Olivia’s shadow in America, she flourished in Japan.
Encouraged by an ambitious Lilian, who has herself graduated from London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts many years before, Olivia ventured into an acting career. It wasn’t long before she was spotted by talent scouts and landed a plumb part in Max Reinhardt’s prestigious 1934 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Hollywood Bowl. Warner Brother soon came calling and she was cast in the 1935 film version.
In the middle of all this, a much-changed Joan reappeared in America to general disinterest from her mother. Now far removed from the shy, retiring, wallflower who had departed two years previously, this strong willed, sophisticated young woman had acting ambitions of her own but found herself very much in her sister’s shadow once again. Living off a meagre allowance from Olivia and dissuaded from further education by her Lilian, who nearly married her off to a suitably bland man, Joan rebelled. After an introduction to the great Australian actress May Robson her own acting career took off, much to Olivia’s chagrin. A name change, to that of her stepfathers, at her mother and sister’s behest, followed. Their sibling rivalry had now expanded to a professional rivalry.
Despite a contract with RKO (insisting no mention was ever made of her sibling) Joan still lived at home and on occasion was forced to be Olivia’s chauffeur, taking her to work before arriving at her own studio for a day’s filming. Olivia’s career flourished but she found it unfulfilling. She took her vocation very seriously and longed for important roles in prestige productions. Her legendary partnership with Errol Flynn was extremely popular with audiences but after an initial infatuation with the dashing New Zealander she found her parts to be insubstantial and the other films she starred in were mostly B pictures. In The Private Lives of Elisabeth and Essex she suffered the indignity of having her usual leading man given to reigning studio queen Bette Davis whilst she played Bette’s lady-in-waiting and to make matters worse, was billed under the title.
Joan was also going nowhere fast. She’d starred in films with the likes of Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn and Fred Astaire but hadn’t distinguished herself in any of them. By 1939 both felt their careers were stagnating, but things were about to change on a few fronts that would only make their competition worse.
Early in the year. Olivia finally landed the big role she had been fighting for, Melanie Wilkes in the future blockbuster Gone With The Wind. This was a milestone in her career which finally place her on Hollywood’s A- list. Joan took great delight in shadily telling everyone that she had auditioned for the role first but was deemed too stylish by director George Cukor and had suggested her sister for the part instead. Joan also had a great year with roles in classics Gunga Din and The Women. Whilst sibling and professional rivalry had long been an issue for the sisters this was the year romantic rivalry can be added to the list. Olivia had been dating eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes for some time but turned down his proposal of marriage. When he proposed to Joan a few of weeks later she immediately made sure Olivia knew all about it. To make matters worse the reason was her own impending wedding to British star Brian Aherne, one of Olivia’s former beaus. Olivia was not pleased that her little sister wed before her.
But Olivia had a burgeoning career to take her mind off the betrayal. The extraordinary, Best Picture winning , success of Gone With The Wind, for which she’d been Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actress, would surely lead to Warner Brothers treating her like the star she knew herself to be, but instead it was much of the same, packaged with Flynn for more routine actioners and some run-of-the-mill lightweight comedies. The only bright spot was her loan out to Paramount to make immigration drama Hold Back The Dawn, which eventually lead to her first Best Actress nomination. Joan’s career, on the other hand, was about to blossom. Cast as The second Mrs de Winter in Hitchcock’s 1940 classic Rebecca (A role Olivia had coveted) she went on to be nominated as Best Actress whilst the film won Best Picture. The following year made matters worse when both sisters were up for the award, Joan for another Hitchcock heroine in Suspicion. They were sat at the same table an Olivia had to watch as her little sister’s name was read by Ginger Rogers.
Joan later wrote…..
I froze. I stared across the table, where Olivia was sitting directly opposite me. ‘Get up there, get up there,’ she whispered commandingly. Now what had I done! All the animus we’d felt towards each other as children, the hair-pullings, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia fractured my collarbone, all came rushing back in Kaleidoscopic imagery. My paralysis was total. I felt Olivia would spring across the table and grab me by the hair. I felt age four, being confronted by my older sister. Damn it, I’d incurred her wrath again!
Joan was now at the pinnacle of her career with another Oscar nomination in 1943 for The Constant Nymph (A role Olivia had again longed for) and top notch productions like Jane Eyre under her belt. Olivia on the other hand was forced into one inferior role after another leading to constant suspensions for refusing scripts. In 1943 she sued for release from her contract and was off the screen for nearly 3 years (A story for another time). Whilst Olivia is certainly the better known actress today due to her involvement with Gone With The Wind, two Oscar wins, and her extreme longevity, there was a period in the early 40’s when Joan was definitely in the ascendance.
The sisters before Olivia's appendectomy in the early 40s
It’s easy to sympathise with Olivia during this period. Being usurped by your younger sister both personally and professionally must have stung.
Which bring us to that fateful night at the 19th Annual Academy Awards honoring the films of 1946. Back after winning her court case with the studio, she was able to choose her own scripts for the first time ever and made a splash with dramatic roles in Dark Mirror and To Each His Own both released in '46. She chose to push the latter for Oscar consideration as it was a more sympathetic portrayal. Coincidentally it was Joan who had presented the Best Actor trophy that evening, so she was waiting in the wings when her sister triumphed. That picture of the snubbing was printed in newspapers across America and their mutual dislike became public knowledge for the first time.
Olivia’s anger came from a remark the sharp-tongued Joan had made about her sister’s new husband, writer Marcus Goodrich, four months prior.
All I know about him is that he’s had four wives and written one book. Too bad it’s not the other way around."
Joan's remark sent Olivia into a cold fury that didn’t abate until after her divorce in 1953.
Olivia and Joan at A list parties in 1962 and 1967, respectively.
There were attempts over the years to make up as well as a few ceasefires, sometime at the behest of their children. They spent Christmas together in 1961 and attended some parties but they never fully bonded or made up. When their mother Lilian died in 1975, Joan felt Olivia had neglected to consult her about the funeral arrangements. Their relationship was severed for good then and the sisters never reconciled.
While promoting her 1978 autobiography, Joan told a journalist:
"Olivia has always said I was first at everything—I got married first, got an Academy Award first, had a child first. If I die, she'll be furious, because again I'll have got there first!"
The younger sister did die first at the ripe old age of 96. Olivia bettered her by dying last year at the age of 104.
Much has been written about the reasons for their feud over the years but lingering resentment from childhood and continuous rivalries in adulthood meant they were never likely close to begin with. There’s no guarantee that any siblings will have much in common and the simple truth is that they just didn’t like each other very much. To Each His Own.
FUN FACT: Not only are they the only siblings to win acting Oscar’s but mother Lilian returned to acting in the 1940’s once her daughters were stars. She had a small role as Jane Wyman’s mother in Billy Wilder’s classic The Lost Weekend. This means that the De Havilland/Fontaine ladies starred in the Best Picture winners of 1939, 1940 and 1945!