The Truth Behind Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine's Epic Feud
From boyfriends to movie roles, the sisters fought over everything.
BY MARIA CARTER
JUN 22, 2017
At almost 101, Olivia de Havilland has had many milestones—a 60-plus-year career, roles in 49 films, and two best actress Oscars—and now, another: She recently became the oldest woman ever to receive damehood, the feminine form of knighthood bestowed by the British Monarch, for her services to drama. Though the Gone With the Wind actress's achievements are many, she's equally well known for drama in her personal life, specifically her nearly lifelong feud with Joan Fontaine, her younger sister by 15 months.
Like millions of sisters before and after them, Olivia and Joan's fighting began with the childhood bedroom they shared. Olivia told Vanity Fair it was their "biggest problem." When they were alone, 6-year-old Olivia would scare Joan with dramatic readings of the Bible's crucifixion scene, Joan told People in 1978. Later, Joan learned to get under Olivia's skin by mimicking every word she said, even repeating Olivia's admonishment that she was a "copycat."
Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine's estrangement
Olivia (left) and Joan in 1945.
Their family environment didn't help. As toddlers, the girls, who were born to British parents in Tokyo, moved to California with their mother following their father's affair with the maid. Mrs. de Havilland remarried retail manager George Fontaine, a disciplinarian who enforced a "military childhood" complete with khaki-colored beds, Joan would later say. When they misbehaved, the Iron Duke, as Olivia nicknamed him, would offer a choice: swallow cod-liver oil, which would induce vomiting, or take a beating on the shins with a wooden hanger. After Olivia went to school with her legs covered in bruises, administrators warned Fontaine to stop, but nothing changed.
"MOTHER NEVER COULD EXPRESS PRIDE IN EITHER OF HER DAUGHTERS."
Their mother was a perfectionist who harped on her daughters' annunciation of words, hell bent on them having "perfect upper-class English accents"—a characteristic that would later pit them against each other as highly sought-after entities in the entertainment business. Once an actress herself, Mrs. de Havilland hid her professional past from her children. "When I was five I discovered a secret box that contained Mummy's stage makeup. It was like finding buried treasure. I tried the rouge, the eye shadow, the lipstick. But I couldn't get the rouge off," Olivia told Vanity Fair. "Mummy spanked me terribly. 'Never do this again!' she yelled at me, and ordered me never to tell my sibling." ("Sibling" is how Olivia refers to her sister these days, if she refers to her at all, writes VF's William Stadiem.)
Even after their careers took off, Mrs. de Havilland never watched the films her daughters starred in. Her only remark of Joan's work was that she had been "defeated by her beauty" in Jane Eyre. "Mother never could express pride in either of her daughters," Joan told People.
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Olivia and Joan at a party in Saratoga, California, circa 1934.
The sisters' dysfunction escalated after a roughhousing incident in the pool. Joan was in the water and tried to pull Olivia in by the ankle, but the older, stronger sister put up a fight that resulted in Joan fracturing her collarbone on the pool ledge. She ended up in a cast and Olivia lost her pool privileges. By Olivia's account the girls were five and six at the time, but Joan's 1978 autobiography No Bed of Roses claimed the jostle happened a decade later, when they were 15 and 16. Joan left to live with their father shortly after, attending an English high school in Tokyo for a year. When she returned, 18-year-old Olivia was on the brink of stardom, having just wrapped the Warner Bros. screen adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
"Joan came with Mummy to opening night of Dream at the San Francisco Opera House," Olivia recalled. "I didn't even recognize her. She had bleached hair. She was smoking. She was no longer my younger sister."
A FORTUNE TELLER CONVINCED JOAN THAT ONLY A STAGE NAME COULD BRING REAL SUCCESS.
Olivia wanted Hollywood as her domain, but Joan chafed at her sister's advice to finish her education and find her place among high society. Instead, she insisted: "I want to do what you are doing." The elder sibling eventually gave in, on the condition that Joan change her last name, professionally anyway. Joan pushed back, of course, until a psychic convinced her otherwise. The young actresses were at a party hosted by British actor Brian Aherne, whom Olivia had dated, when a fortune teller told Joan she needed a stage name to achieve true success. The psychic responded favorably to their stepfather's surname, saying, "Take that. Joan Fontaine is a success name." The psychic also foretold Joan's marriage to Aherne—and it wouldn't be the last time the sisters were linked romantically to the same man.
Warner Bros. had signed Olivia as a contract actor with a seven-year term after Dream, but her increasingly evident talent brought other studios calling. MGM approached her about playing Melanie in Gone with the Wind after her 1938 performance as Maid Marian opposite Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Securing the part meant much finagling on behalf of Olivia and the film's producer, David O. Selznick. It took several attempts, and it wasn't until Olivia appealed to Jack Warner's wife that the studio exec finally acquiesced.
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From left: Hattie McDaniel, Olivia de Havilland, and Vivien Leigh in 'Gone With the Wind.'
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But when Selznick decided to press his luck, this time asking to get Olivia on loan for Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, Warner wasn't so agreeable. Deciding it wasn't worth the trouble, Selznick asked Olivia, "Would you mind if I take your sister?"
"I was losing a brilliant part, but okay," Olivia told Vanity Fair of her resignation.
Joan Fontaine and Gary Cooper at the 1942 Academy Awards.
Joan Fontaine and Gary Cooper at the 1942 Oscars.
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The role resulted in Joan's first Oscar nomination for best actress. She starred in another Hitchcock film, Suspicion, the next year and received a nomination for that too. Joan was also nominated in the best actress category, for Hold Back the Dawn, that year and the sisters shared a table on Oscars night. When Joan won, she would later write in No Bed of Roses, "All the animus we'd felt toward 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."
The next year, 1941, she got another one, for Suspicion, also directed by Hitchcock. She won, beating her sister, who had been nominated for Hold Back the Dawn. Joan and Olivia were sitting at the same table when Joan's name was announced. As Joan wrote in No Bed of Roses, "All the animus we'd felt toward 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." Not only was she the first (and only) Hitchcock actor to win an Academy Award, she was the first of the sisters.
David O. Selznick and Olivia de Havilland in 1935.
David O. Selznick and Olivia de Havilland in 1935.
At the previous year's ceremony Olivia had hid out in the hotel's kitchen, crying next to a steaming vat of soup, after her devastating Best Supporting Actress loss. Now, losing to her younger sister, seeing her achieve this milestone earlier in her career, dealt another jolting blow to her ego. The next day's headlines made it official: The de Havilland-Fontaine war was on.
"YOU CAN DIVORCE YOUR SISTER AS WELL AS YOUR HUSBANDS."
The following decade added insult on top of injury, as Joan made a splash in the society pages—something Olivia admittedly did not have the "flair" for—dating, among other high-profile suitors, Olivia's ex paramour, aviator Howard Hughes. When Olivia married novelist Marcus Goodrich in 1946, Joan remarked to the press, "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." Perhaps not surprisingly, then, Olivia rebuffed Joan's congratulations after winning best actress at the 1947 Oscars—another tiff picked up by the tabloids.
hat finally solidified the sisters' rift and spurned their estrangement was their mother's death in 1975. Joan was touring with Cactus Flower when the 88-year-old Mrs. de Havilland was diagnosed with cancer and claimed that no one called to say her mother was asking for her. For her part, Olivia, the executor of the estate, said she rushed to Mummy's side and was with her until the end. After she died, Joan said Olivia had her body cremated without notifying Joan, and didn't invite her to the memorial service. Joan found out about it and attended anyway, but neither sister spoke to each other that day or afterward.
You can divorce your sister as well as your husbands," Joan told People a few years later. "I don't see her at all and I don't intend to."
Their estrangement lasted until Joan's death in 2013, at age 96. It was something the younger de Havilland sister predicted, in a way. Once asked in an interview how she wanted to die, Joan responded, "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 [first], she'll be furious, because again I'll have got there first!"
Olivia de Havilland ( July 1, 1916 – July 26, 2020) and Joan Fontaine (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013) were born 15 months apart and both found success as actresses in Hollywood's Golden Age. But instead of bringing them together, these similarities exacerbated a rivalry that sprang up in childhood and lasted a lifetime. Yet even though they were rivals who became estranged, Olivia and Joan managed to respect and even admire each other — in a feud, you always care what the other is up to, of course.
Olivia and Joan were childhood rivals
Olivia and Joan didn't get along as children — younger sister Joan felt Olivia was favored by their mother. Olivia once said, "Our biggest problem was that we had to share a room." Though they did occasionally play together, their clashes were frequent, featuring slaps (Joan) and hair-pulling (Olivia). Joan also accused Olivia of tearing up her outgrown clothes because she didn't want them to go to her younger sister, and also of breaking Fontaine's collarbone when she tried to pull her older sister into a swimming pool.
A profile of the two in LIFE magazine in 1942 revealed one low point in the relationship: "At the age of 9, Joan decided she would kill her sister. She thought it all out carefully: she would let Olivia hit her once, and then again, in silence. But after the third blow, she would plug Olivia between the eyes." Joan's plan was to plead self-defense, but fortunately for American cinema, she didn't go through with it. Instead, the rancor between the two sisters would simply take different forms as they grew older.
Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine in 1934
Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine at a party in Saratoga, California, circa 1934
Photo: Getty Images
Joan initially lived in Olivia's shadow in Hollywood
When Joan returned home from spending a couple of years with their ex-pat father in Japan, she found her sister on the verge of a career in Hollywood and decided she wanted the same thing. Olivia instead tried to send Joan to finishing school. Olivia later admitted to Vanity Fair, "I suppose the way I saw it then was that I wanted Hollywood as my domain, and I wanted San Francisco society to be hers." But Joan insisted to her older sibling, "I want to do what you're doing."
So Joan came to live with Olivia and their mother in Hollywood. But Olivia, who was under contract with Warner Brothers, didn't want Joan to work at the same studio as her. And as she believed there was room for only one de Havilland in Hollywood, she encouraged her sister to use a different last name. Joan didn't like this, but when a fortune teller advised her that she needed a stage name ending in "e" to achieve success, she began using Fontaine, her stepfather's name.
Yet the name change remained a source of bitterness for Joan, who later said, "Joan Fontaine. I don't know who she is." She also hated having to be her sister's chauffeur, driving her to and from the studio, even though Olivia had given Joan somewhere to live in Los Angeles as she tried to launch an acting career.
The sisters became Hollywood rivals
While Olivia found success co-starring with Errol Flynn in Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Joan flopped with Fred Astaire in A Damsel in Distress (1937). Joan did manage to marry one of her sister's old boyfriends, tying the knot with Brian Aherne in 1939. At the time a woman getting married was seen as a way of completing her life, so marrying before her older sister was a coup.
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Olivia's career reached new heights when she played Melanie in Gone With the Wind (1939), and Joan's took off when she starred in Rebecca (1940). Still, the sisters didn't let the other taste success without claiming some credit. Joan said that when she'd been turned down for Melanie for being "too stylish," she'd suggested her sister for the part. And when Olivia's Warner Brothers contract kept her from starring in Rebecca, she agreed Joan would be perfect for the role because her sister was blonde and co-star Laurence Olivier had dark hair.
The sisters' rivalry played out in front of the world at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1942. Olivia and Joan were both nominated for Best Actress, Olivia for Hold Back The Dawn and Joan for Suspicion. Olivia was expected to win, but Joan received the Oscar instead. She then seemed to ignore her sister's congratulations when she went to collect her statuette.
When Olivia was triumphant herself on Oscar night in 1947, winning the Best Actress Academy Award for To Each His Own, she, in turn, snubbed her sister. But this wasn't exactly payback for Joan's earlier snubbing — instead, it was payback for Joan's sniping. After Olivia had married novelist Marcus Goodrich, Joan had said, "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 Fontaine and sister Olivia de Havilland during Marlene Dietrich's Opening Party - September 9, 1967 at Rainbow Room in New York City, NY
Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland during Marlene Dietrich's party in September 1967 at the Rainbow Room in New York City
Photo: Ron Galella/WireImage
Olivia and Joan were estranged when Joan died
Olivia and Joan had some closer moments in the years to come, such as when they attended a party for Marlene Dietrich in 1967. But when their mother became ill with terminal cancer, Olivia went to take care of her while Joan was on tour with a play. After their mother died in 1975, Joan accused her sister of not helping her see their mother, and of not inviting her to the memorial service (though she did attend).
In Joan's 1978 memoir, No Bed of Roses (which Olivia dubbed "No Shred of Truth"), she didn't hold back from sharing her resentments toward her sister, such as the "paralysis" that overcame her when she won her Oscar, giving her flashbacks to their childhood animosity. In an interview with People to promote the book, Joan said, "You can divorce your sister as well as your husbands. I don’t see her at all and I don’t intend to." She also declared, "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!"
At an Oscars reunion in 1979, the two were placed on separate ends of the stage. Ten years later, Joan changed hotel rooms when she found out she was booked next to Olivia's. But, contrary to what Joan had expected, Olivia expressed her sadness after her sister's death in 2013.
In an interview for her 100th birthday in 2016, Olivia addressed her relationship with Joan, saying, "A feud implies continuing hostile conduct between two parties. I cannot think of a single instance wherein I initiated hostile behavior." Olivia also stated she had sometimes been "defensive," and added, "On my part, it was always loving, but sometimes estranged and, in the later years, severed."
