Olivia de Havilland by Victoria Amador
Most of us remember Olivia de Havilland from Gone With the Wind as Scarlet O’Hara’s shy friend Melanie. In real life she also embodied elegant reserve, yet she was no shrinking wallflower. De Havilland risked her career by sueing studio mogul Jack Warner. Her victory freed herself from a restrictive contract and also set a precedent for movie actors as free agents.
The biography Olivia de Havilland: Lady Triumphant (out now in paperback) is written by a film scholar and a fan. As an adolescent in rural Wisconsin in the late ‘60s, Victoria Amador, typed a letter to de Havilland after seeing Gone With the Wind in a cinema. Weeks later she received a reply. As unlikely as it sounds, a long-distance friendship developed over time. In 2013, Amador and de Havilland finally met in Paris, where the actress had lived since the 1950s. De Havilland’s remarkable life ended seven years later. She was 104 when she died.
Lady Triumphant is sourced in part from the author’s extensive correspondence with her famous friend. It’s a favorable, gracious account that aims to set the record straight on several points, especially de Havilland’s legendary feud with her sister and fellow star, Joan Fontaine. Both women were long lived and elegant, “celebrated beauties and Oscar winners” influenced by their stage actress mother. “They even dated some of the same men and shared directors and costars.” They didn’t get along as children and as adults, they competed for roles and attention. Their careers wound down almost simultaneously. And they really disliked each other, albeit some of the remarks and incidents attributed to their sibling rivalry never occurred, the author insists.
Lady Triumphant leaves a picture of de Havilland as witty and discrete, a private person in a public life, chic and indomitable, an actress distinct for the “thoughtfulness of her performances.” Amador’s writing is as elegant as her subject.
Olivia de Havilland: Lady Triumphant is published by University Press of Kentucky.
