Frank Romer Pierson^[1] (born May 12, 1925) is an American screenwriter and film director.

Life and career[link]

Pierson was born in Chappaqua, New York, the son of Louise (née Randall), a writer, and Harold C. Pierson.^[1] Pierson attended Harvard. He got his break in Hollywood in 1958 as scripted editor for "Have Gun, Will Travel," and moved on to write for the television series Naked City "Route Sixty Six" and others. He went on to write or co-write several notable films, including Cat Ballou and Cool Hand Luke which were both nominated for Academy Awards. He wrote Dog Day Afternoon, which won Pierson his Oscar statuette. He directed and contributed to the screenplay of A Star Is Born, and the in-fighting between himself, Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson and producer (and at the time boyfriend of Streisand) Jon Peters on the film led him to write the notorious and controversial article "My Battles with Barbra and Jon" in New West magazine.

Pierson has directed several notable films produced for television, including Dirty Pictures, Citizen Cohn, Conspiracy, and Somebody Has To Shoot the Picture. His direction on Conspiracy won a Directors' Guild Award for Best Television Movie, and his second Peabody and BAFTA Award.

He was President of the Writers Guild of America, west from 1981—1983 and again from 1993—1995 and was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) from 2001-2005. In 2003, Pierson was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland presented him with the Award. He is also currently a consultant on Mad Men^[2], a member of the teaching staff of Sundance Institute, and is Artistic Director of the American Film Institute.

Pierson's parents, family and their lives, were the subject of the 1945 film Roughly Speaking, starring Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson as his parents.

He most recently co-wrote (with Matthew Weiner) "Signal 30" - the fifth episode of Mad Men's season five, a show on which he is consulting producer.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Frank Pierson at the Internet Movie Database
• Frank Pierson to Receive Edmund H. North Award WGA News, February 1999.

This article about a United States film director born in the 1920s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Sally Kristen Ride
NASA astronaut
Nationality	American
Status	Teaching
Born	(1951-05-26) May 26, 1951 (age 61) Encino, Los Angeles, California
Other occupation	Physicist
Time in space	14d 07h 46m
Selection	1978 NASA Group
Missions	STS-7, STS-41-G
Mission insignia
Retirement	August 15, 1987

Sally Kristen Ride (born May 26, 1951) is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. Ride joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman—and then-youngest American, at 32—to enter space.^[1] In 1987 she left NASA to work at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Early life[link]

The eldest child of Carol Joyce (née Anderson) and Dale Burdell Ride, Sally was born in Encino, part of Los Angeles, California. Of Norwegian ancestry, she has a sister named Karen "Bearful" Ride, who is a Presbyterian minister. Ride attended Portola Middle School and Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles (now Harvard-Westlake School) on a scholarship. In addition to being interested in science, she was a nationally ranked tennis player. Ride attended Swarthmore College and then transferred to Stanford University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English and physics. Also at Stanford, she earned a master's degree and a Ph.D. in physics, while doing research in astrophysics and free electron laser physics.^[2][3]

NASA career[link]

Sally Ride on Challenger's mid-deck during STS-7.

Ride was one of 8,000 people to answer an advertisement in a newspaper seeking applicants for the space program.^[4] As a result, she joined NASA in 1978. During her career, Ride served as the ground-based Capsule Communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights (STS-2 and STS-3) and helped develop the Space Shuttle's robot arm.^[3] On June 18, 1983, she became the first American woman in space as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger for STS-7. (She was preceded by two Soviet women, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982.) On STS-7, during which the five-person crew deployed two communications satellites and conducted pharmaceutical experiments, Ride was the first woman to use the robot arm in space and the first to use the arm to retrieve a satellite. Her second space flight was in 1984, also on board the Challenger. She has spent more than a total of 343 hours in space. Ride, who had completed eight months of training for her third flight when the Space Shuttle Challenger accident occurred,^[3] was named to the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, and headed its subcommittee on Operations.^[3] Following the investigation, Ride was assigned to NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, where she led NASA's first strategic planning effort; authored a report entitled "Leadership and America's Future in Space"; and founded NASA's Office of Exploration.^[2] Ride married fellow NASA astronaut Steve Hawley in 1982, but the two divorced in 1987.^[5]

After NASA[link]

In 1987, Ride left her position in Washington, DC, to work at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. In 1989, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego and Director of the California Space Institute. In 2003, she was asked to serve on the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board. She is currently on leave from the university, and is the President and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she founded in 2001, that creates entertaining science programs and publications for upper elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls.^[6][7][8]

According to Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who warned of the technical problems that led to the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, Ms. Ride was the only public figure to show support for him when he went public with his pre-disaster warnings (after the entire workforce of Morton-Thiokol shunned him). Sally Ride hugged him publicly to show her support for his efforts.^[9]

Ride has written or co-written five books on space, aimed at children, with the goal of encouraging children to study science.^[3][10][11]

Ride endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008.^[12]

Ride is a member of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee, an independent review requested by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on May 7, 2009.

Awards and honors[link]

Sally Ride communitcates with ground controllers from the flight deck during the six day mission in Challenger, 1983

Ride has received numerous awards, including the National Space Society's von Braun Award, the Lindbergh Eagle, and the NCAA's Theodore Roosevelt Award. She has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and has twice been awarded the NASA Space Flight Medal.^[3] Ride is the only person to serve on both of the panels investigating Shuttle accidents (those for the Challenger accident and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster). Two elementary schools in the United States are named after her: Sally K. Ride Elementary School in The Woodlands, Texas, and Sally K. Ride Elementary School in Germantown, Maryland.^[2]

On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Ride into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.^[13]

Bibliography[link]

See Also[link]

• List of female adventurers

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sally Ride

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sally Ride

• NASA biography
• Sally Ride Science Festivals
• Sally Ride Girls Science Camps
• Sally Ride Science page, founded 2001
• USA Today Q&A
• Sally Ride on The California Museum's California Legacy Trails

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2010)

Lee Pace
Pace at the ET Post-Emmys Party, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Sept. 21, 2008
Born	Lee Grinner Pace (1979-03-25) March 25, 1979 (age 33) Chickasha, Oklahoma, U.S.
Education	Juilliard School (BFA 2001)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2002–present

Lee Grinner Pace (born March 25, 1979) is an American actor. Pace has been featured in film, stage and television. He is known best for his starring role as Ned in the ABC series Pushing Daisies^[1] for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe award and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2008.

Early life and education[link]

Pace was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, the son of Charlotte (née Kloeckler) and James Roy Pace.^[2] As a child, Pace spent several years in Saudi Arabia, where his father was in the oil business; the family later moved to Houston, Texas. Pace attended Klein High School in the suburb of Spring in Houston, Texas, with fellow actor Matthew Bomer. Pace temporarily quit high school to act at Houston's Alley Theatre before returning to graduate. At the Alley, he appeared in productions of The Spider's Web and The Greeks.

In 1997, Pace was accepted by the Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of Group 30 (1997–2001), which also included actors Anthony Mackie and Tracie Thoms.^[3] While there, he acted in several plays, including Romeo and Juliet as Romeo, Richard III in the title role, and Julius Caesar as Cassius. He graduated from Juilliard with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.^[1]

Career[link]

Theater[link]

After graduation, Pace starred in several off-Broadway plays, including The Credeaux Canvas and The Fourth Sister. He also starred in a production of Craig Lucas's Small Tragedy, for which he was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Actor. In 2006, Pace starred in the two-character play Guardians by Peter Morris, which earned Pace his second nomination for a Lortel Award as Outstanding Actor.

19th April 2011 marked Pace's Broadway debut, when The Normal Heart began its previews; it opened 27th April at the Golden Theatre. The show ran for a total of 96 performances, with its closing night on 10th July 2011. Pace played the character Bruce Niles in the show.

Film[link]

Pace first gained recognition for his role in the 2003 film Soldier's Girl, based on fact, in which he played the central role of Calpernia Addams, a transgender woman dating Army soldier Barry Winchell, played by Troy Garity. Winchell was murdered because of his sexuality and relationship with Addams.

Of the role, Pace said:

"Not even my excellent training at Juilliard prepared me for my first movie role, where I played a transsexual who falls in love with a military guy in Soldier's Girl. Here I was, this 6'3" 190-pound lanky kid from Chickasha, Oklahoma, not knowing how to begin being a woman. So I saw documentaries about transsexuals, I lost twenty-five pounds, and I put on prosthetic boobs and hips to become that character. There were times I'd look in the mirror and wonder 'what am I doing to my life here? My dad is going to kill me!' But the reason I went into acting was to be able to play parts as complicated and important as this one. In playing a transsexual, I got the chance to help change people's perspective about other people and that is a powerful thing. I'm playing a swashbuckling bandit in my next film, but I'll always be proud of Soldier's Girl."^[4]

Pace won a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor and was nominated for several other awards, including a Golden Globe, for his work in this film.

He starred in the film Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and in Tarsem Singh's The Fall, both released in 2008. The Fall was very well received amongst critics and viewers alike and where Lee starred in one of his most artistic roles. His next film was the movie Possession with Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Pace also played supporting roles in The White Countess, Infamous, When in Rome and The Good Shepherd.

He has recently been cast as Garrett in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. On April 30th 2011, it was announced that Pace would play the role of the Elven king Thranduil in Peter Jackson's upcoming two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit", due for release in December 2012 and 2013 and currently in production in New Zealand.

Television[link]

Pace played Aaron Tyler in the acclaimed but short-lived 2004 television series Wonderfalls, which was co-created by Bryan Fuller. Later, Fuller cast Pace in the lead role of Ned in the series Pushing Daisies, which debuted on ABC in October 2007 and returned for its second, and final season, on October 1, 2008.

Pace has also appeared on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in season 3, episode 18 'Guilt'.

Pace was recently cast in the new HBO pilot The Miraculous Year.^[5]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lee Pace

• Lee Pace at the Internet Movie Database
• Lee Pace at AllRovi
• Interview at Sci-fi-online.com

Calpernia Addams
Calpernia Addams, at 2009 Outfest Legacy Awards
Born	(1971-02-20) February 20, 1971 (age 41) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Actress, author, musician, activist, spokesperson
Years active	2002–present
Website
http://www.calpernia.com/

Calpernia Sarah Addams (born February 20, 1971) is an American author, actress, musician, and a spokesperson and activist for transgender rights and issues.^[1]

Biography[link]

Addams grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.^[2] She served as a Hospital Corpsman with the Navy and United States Marine Corps. During her last year in the military she came out as a transgender woman.^[3] Addams chose the name "Calpernia" from the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar (a variant spelling of Caesar's wife Calpurnia) and its appearance on a tombstone in the film The Addams Family.^[3]

In 1999, while working as a performer, Addams began dating PFC Barry Winchell. Word of the relationship spread at Winchell's Army base where he was harassed by fellow soldiers and ultimately murdered.^[4] Winchell's murder and the subsequent trial resulted in widespread press^[5] and a formal review of the U.S. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) military policy, ordered by President Bill Clinton.^[6][7][8] The case became a prominent example used to illustrate the failure of DADT to protect LGBT service members.^[5] Addams' and Winchell's romance and the crimes of their abusers are depicted in the film Soldier's Girl, released in 2003. Addams was portrayed by Lee Pace. A subsequent New York Times article, "An Inconvenient Woman", documented the marginalization and misrepresentation of transgender sexuality even by gay rights activists.^[5][9]

Career[link]

Adams and Andrea James at the Out and Equal Workplace Summit

Addams began entertaining as a child by playing Bluegrass and Gospel-style fiddle in church, and acting in school plays. While in the Navy she worked in community theater as an actor and director. After completing military service and returning to Nashville, Calpernia played fiddle with a Celtic band. In 1993, she began work at The Connection, a 40,000 sq ft (3,700 m²) nightclub/theater, where she eventually met Winchell in 1999. She gradually began headlining up to 10 shows a week for audiences of up to 2,000 people.

In her sixth year as a full-time cast member and after winning one Miss Nashville Entertainer of the Year, Addams won Tennessee Entertainer of the Year in 1999. With Winchell's death Addams suspended her performances, then left Nashville to move first to Chicago and then to Los Angeles.

In 2002, she formed Deep Stealth Productions in Hollywood with Andrea James.^[10] Deep Stealth creates educational and entertainment material around gender-identification issues and the experiences of differently-gendered people. Addams and James coached Felicity Huffman for her Academy Award-nominated performance as a transgender woman in the film Transamerica.^[11]

At the Sundance debut of Soldier's Girl, Addams met Jane Fonda, whose son Troy Garity had played Winchell. Fonda suggested Addams mount an all-transgender production of The Vagina Monologues.^[3] The production was to contribute funds and help raise awareness of violence against women; it became the subject of the 2006 documentary film Beautiful Daughters.^[12]

A reality television series entitled Transamerican Love Story, featuring Addams choosing among eight suitors, debuted 11 February 2008 on Logo TV.

In April 2008, Addams performed alongside Fonda, Glenn Close, Salma Hayek, Alicia Keys, and others in a tenth-anniversary production of The Vagina Monologues at the Louisiana Superdome.^[3][13]

In May 2008, PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) chose Addams as PFLAG's spokesperson for their educational campaign, This Is Our Love Story.^[14] Addams said, "I hope This Is Our Love Story will help young transgender people as they come out. By seeing the happy, confident woman I've become, I hope I can act as a role model for these young people at a critical moment in their development."^[15] Addams writes a blog on gender issues for Psychology Today.^[16]

Addams has released a single entitled "Stunning", available on iTunes.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Calpernia Addams, Mark 947: A Life Shaped by God, Gender, and Force of Will (Writers Club Press, 2002). ISBN 0-595-26376-3
• Jonathan Ames (ed.), Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs (Vintage, 2005). ISBN 1-4000-3014-5

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Calpernia Addams

• Calpernia Addams at the Internet Movie Database
• Calpernia Addams at AllRovi
• Calpernia Addams's official website
• Calpernia Addams: Widowed by Hate - Podcast interview
• “Beautiful Daughters” documentary featuring Calpernia Addams

Olivia de Havilland
in 1940
Born	Olivia Mary de Havilland (1916-07-01) 1 July 1916 (age 95) Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1935-present
Spouse	Marcus Goodrich (m.1946-1953; divorced) Pierre Galante (m.1955-1979; divorced))

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born 1 July 1916) is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.

Early life[link]

In 1933

Olivia de Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan, to parents from the United Kingdom. Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (31 August 1872 – 20 May 1968, aged 95), was a patent attorney with a practice in Japan, and her mother, Lilian Augusta (née Ruse; 11 June 1886 – 20 February 1975, aged 88)^[1][2] was a stage actress who had left her career after going to Tokyo with her husband – she would return to work after her daughters had already won fame in the 40s, with the stage name of Lillian Fontaine. Her parents married in 1914 and they separated in 1919, when Lilian decided to end the marriage after discovering that her husband used the sexual services of geisha girls, but divorce was not signed until February 1925.

Her younger sister is the actress Joan de Havilland – better known as Joan Fontaine (born 22 October 1917). Her paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882–1965), an aircraft designer, notably of the De Havilland Mosquito,^[3] and founder of the aircraft company which bore his name. Her paternal grandfather was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands.^[4][5]

When her mother came from Tokyo, Olivia was two years old, and due to health problems of Joan, who had anemia at the time, they had to go to the United States, by medical recommendation. There, they settled in the town of Saratoga, California. Joan's health improved after they emigrated.

Although she left the profession as an actress, her mother did not fail to appreciate the arts, as she read Shakespeare to her children, and taught them diction and voice. In April 1925, the girls' mother remarried, this time to the owner of a department store, named George M. Fontaine, a man hated by both girls. It was the surname of her stepfather which, years later, Joan took as her stage name after her mother refused to allow her to use the de Havilland name. Her sister Olivia, was already a rising star under the family surname. The girls have never had a good relationship. Olivia, 95, and Joan, 94 years of age, have not spoken since the death of their mother in 1975.^[6]

Both sisters attended Los Gatos High School and de Havilland also attended the Notre Dame High School, Belmont.^[7] An acting award at Los Gatos is named after her. She participated in school drama club, and in 1933 made her debut in amateur theater, in the lead role in Alice in Wonderland, a production of the Saratoga Community Players based on the work of Lewis Carroll. Her talent for art was beginning to be noticed from there.

Career[link]

De Havilland appeared as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, her first stage production, at the Hollywood Bowl. The stage production was later turned into a 1935 movie, her film debut.^[8] Although the stage cast was largely replaced with Warner Bros. contract players, she was hired to reprise her role as Hermia. After appearing with Joe E. Brown in Alibi Ike and James Cagney in The Irish in Us, she played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Overall, she starred opposite Flynn in eight films.

Allegedly, Joan Fontaine, de Havilland's sister, was approached by George Cukor to audition for Gone with the Wind. He had just directed her in No More Ladies. She was excited until she learned he wanted her for the part of Melanie and not Scarlett. She reportedly turned him down flatly by saying, “Why don’t you ask my sister!” Olivia de Havilland went on to play Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

In 1941, de Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States.^[9]

De Havilland was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles assigned to her. She felt she had proven herself capable of playing more than the demure ingénues and damsels in distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role. When her Warner Bros. contract expired, the studio informed her that six months had been added to it for times she had been on suspension; the law then allowed for studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role and the period of suspension to be added to the contract period. In theory, this allowed a studio to maintain indefinite control over an uncooperative contractee.^{[citation needed]}

Most accepted this situation, while a few tried to change the system. Bette Davis had mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the 1930s. De Havilland mounted a lawsuit in the 1940s, supported by the Screen Actors Guild and was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to the performers. The California Court of Appeal's decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings in Hollywood^[10] and the statute on which it is based is still known as the De Havilland Law. Her victory won her the respect and admiration of her peers, among them her own sister Joan Fontaine who later commented, "Hollywood owes Olivia a great deal".^[11] The studio, however, vowed never to hire her again. The ruling interpreted the already existing California Labor Code Section 2855.^[12] That code section imposes a 7-year limit on contracts for service unless the employee agrees to an extension beyond that term.

In Gone With the Wind (1939)

De Havilland in 1940

Following the release of Devotion, a Hollywood biography of the Brontë sisters filmed in 1943 but withheld from release during the suspension and litigation, de Havilland signed a three picture deal with Paramount Pictures. The quality and variety of her roles began to improve. James Agee, in his review for The Dark Mirror (1946), noted the change, and stated that although she had always been "one of the prettiest women in movies", her recent performances had proven her acting ability. He commented that she did not possess "any remarkable talent, but her playing 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."^[13] She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award–nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness, an 'historically important Hollywood exposé of the grim conditions in state mental hospitals' ^[14] and de Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamor and that confronted such controversial subject matter. She won the New York Film Critics Award for both The Snake Pit and The Heiress.

During this era, de Haviland was also notable as a staunch liberal, campaigning for Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman.^[15][16] In 1946, determined to protect liberalism from infiltration by communists, she provoked a highly-publicized row: concerned about reports of Stalinist atrocities, de Havilland removed pro-Communist material from speeches prepared for her by the Independent Citizens' Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, a group later identified as a communist front organization.^[17] De Havilland became concerned that the liberal membership of the Independent Citizens' Committee was being manipulated by a small group of communists in leadership positions and that their pro-Soviet statements were damaging the election chances of the Democrats in the 1946 mid-term elections. She organized a fight to regain control of the committee and, upon their failure she resigned, triggering a wave of resignations from other Hollywood figures, including her own star-recruit to the reform camp, Ronald Reagan.^[18] Ironically, given her role in galvanizing Hollywood resistance to Soviet influence, de Havilland was denounced that same year (along with Danny Kaye, Frederic March, and Edward G. Robinson) as a "swimming-pool pink" by Time magazine^[19] and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1958 due to her vocal liberal activism in this period.^[20]

De Havilland appeared sporadically in films after the 1950s and attributed this partly to the growing permissiveness of Hollywood films of the period. She declined the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, allegedly citing the unsavory nature of some elements of the script and saying there were certain lines she could not allow herself to speak. De Havilland denied this in a 2006 interview, saying she had recently given birth to her son when offered the role, which had been a life altering experience, and was unable to relate to the material.^[16] The role went to her Gone with the Wind co-star, Vivien Leigh, who won her second Academy Award for her role.^[21]

Of her few film appearances in the 1960s chiefly notable are Lady in a Cage (1964), as a crippled widow trapped in a lift and terrorised by intruders, Robert Aldrich's Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and Sam Peckinpah's TV film of Katherine Anne Porter's novella Noon Wine (1966). In 1965, she was the first woman to preside over a Cannes jury. De Havilland continued acting on film until the late 1970s, afterward continuing her career on television until the late 1980s, highlighted by her winning a Golden Globe and earning a Emmy Award nomination for her performance as the Dowager Empress Maria in the 1986 miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.

In 2008, de Havilland was awarded the United States National Medal of Arts.^[22]

Personal life[link]

Relationships[link]

De Havilland and Errol Flynn were known as one of Hollywood's most exciting on-screen couples, appearing in eight films together, but contrary to salacious rumours, were never linked romantically. The eight films in which they co-starred are Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood and Four's a Crowd (1938), Dodge City and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940) and They Died with Their Boots On (1941).

De Havilland stated, "He never guessed I had a crush on him. And it didn't get better either. In fact, I read in something that he wrote that he was in love with me when we made The Charge of the Light Brigade the next year, in 1936. I was amazed to read that, for it never occurred to me that he was smitten with me, too, even though we did all those pictures together."^{[citation needed]} However, in an interview cited on Turner Classic Movies^[23] de Havilland claims she knew the crush was reciprocal and further states that Flynn proposed, though de Havilland turned down the proposal as Flynn was at the time still married to actress Lili Damita.

Marriages[link]

De Havilland married novelist Marcus Goodrich in 1946 and they divorced in 1953. Their son, Benjamin (born in 1949) became a mathematician and died in 1991 after a long battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma. She was married to French journalist and Paris Match editor Pierre Galante between 1955 until 1979. Their daughter, Giselle (Gisèle in French), who later became a journalist, was born in July 1956 when de Havilland was 40.^[24] After the divorce, de Havilland and Galante remained on good terms, and she nursed him through his final illness (lung cancer) in Paris, which was the stated reason for her absence from the 70th anniversary of the Oscars in 1998.

Later years[link]

De Havilland was good friends with Bette Davis with whom she starred in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), It's Love I'm After (1937), and In This Our Life (1942). She remained a close friend of actress Gloria Stuart until Stuart's death in 2010, at the age of 100. In April 2008, she attended the Los Angeles funeral of Charlton Heston. In 2008, she was a surprise guest at the Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis.

Sibling rivalry[link]

Of the two sisters, de Havilland was the first to become an actress; when Fontaine tried to follow her lead, their mother, who allegedly favored de Havilland, refused to let her use the family name. Subsequently, Fontaine was forced to invent a name, taking first Joan Burfield, and later Joan Fontaine. Biographer Charles Higham records that the sisters have always had an uneasy relationship, starting in early childhood when de Havilland would rip up the clothes Fontaine had to wear as hand-me-downs, forcing Fontaine to sew them back together. A large part of the resentment between the sisters allegedly stemmed from Fontaine's perception that de Havilland was their mother's favorite child.^[25]

Both de Havilland and Fontaine were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Fontaine won that year for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion over de Havilland's performance in Hold Back the Dawn. Charles Higham states that Fontaine "felt guilty about winning given her lack of obsessive career drive...". Higham has described the events of the awards ceremony, stating that as Fontaine stepped forward to collect her award, she pointedly rejected de Havilland's attempts at congratulating her and that de Havilland was both offended and embarrassed by her behavior. Several years later, de Havilland remembered the slight and exacted her own revenge by brushing past Fontaine, who was waiting with her hand extended, because de Havilland allegedly took offense at a comment Fontaine had made about de Havilland's husband. De Havilland's relationship with Fontaine continued to deteriorate after the two incidents. Charles Higham has stated that this was the near final straw for what became a lifelong feud, but the sisters did not completely stop speaking to each other until 1975. According to Fontaine, de Havilland did not invite her to a memorial service for their mother, who had recently died. De Havilland claims she informed Fontaine, but Fontaine brushed her off, claiming she was too busy to attend.

Charles Higham records that Fontaine has an estranged relationship with her own daughters as well, possibly because she discovered that they were secretly maintaining a relationship with de Havilland.^[25] Both sisters have refused to comment publicly about their feud and dysfunctional family relationships, though in an interview with John Kobal, Fontaine stated categorically that the so-called rivalry was a pure hoax, cooked up by the studio publicity hounds.^{[citation needed]}

In a 1979 interview, Fontaine says the reason she stopped speaking with her sister was because Olivia wanted their mother (who was suffering from cancer) operated on at the age of 88. Joan also says that when their mother died, Olivia didn't even bother to phone to find out where she could be reached (Fontaine was on tour). Instead, Olivia sent a telegram, but it was mailed to Joan two weeks later at her next stop.^[26]

De Havilland today[link]

Receiving National Medal of Arts from President Bush in 2008

A resident of Paris since the 1950s, de Havilland rarely makes public appearances. According to John Lichfield in a 14 July 2009 interview published in the Independent, she was working on an autobiography and had hoped to have a first draft by September 2009.^[27] The book has not yet appeared.

She appeared as a presenter at the 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003, earning a minute-long standing ovation on her entrance. In June 2006, she made appearances at tributes for her 90th birthday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Los Angeles County Art Museum.

In 2004, Turner Classic Movies put together a retrospective piece called Melanie Remembers in which de Havilland was interviewed for the 65th anniversary of Gone with the Wind's original release. The film's last surviving principal cast member, de Havilland remembered every detail of her casting as well as filming. The 40-minute documentary can be seen on the Gone with the Wind four-disc special collector's edition.

Four of de Havilland's Gone with the Wind co-stars are alive as of April 2012: Alicia Rhett (born February 1, 1915), who played Ashley Wilkes's sister India Wilkes, is the oldest surviving cast member. Also surviving are Mary Anderson (born April 3, 1920), who played Maybelle Meriweather; Ann Rutherford (born November 2, 1920), who played Scarlett O'Hara's younger sister, Carreen O'Hara; and Mickey Kuhn (born September 21, 1932), who played Beau Wilkes.

On 17 November 2008, at the age of 92, de Havilland received the National Medal of Arts.

De Havilland narrated the 2009 documentary, I Remember Better When I Paint.^[28] The film is about the importance of art in the treatment of Alzheimer’s.^[29] On 22 March 2011, she presented the film at a special screening in Paris. ^[30]

On 9 September 2010, at the age of 94, Olivia de Havilland was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, a decoration awarded by the President of the French Republic.^[31]

In February 2011, Olivia de Havilland appeared in France at the César Award. The president of the ceremony, Jodie Foster, introduced her and de Havilland received a standing ovation.^[32]

Memoirs[link]

In 1960, de Havilland published her first memoir called Every Frenchman Has One. Her second memoir Now Is the Time is awaiting publication.

Filmography[link]

Features[link]

Short subjects[link]

Television work[link]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• de Havilland, Olivia. Every Frenchman Has One. Random House, 1962, 202 pages. Comic observations on life in Paris; little actual biographical information.
• Fontaine, Joan. No Bed of Roses. Morrow, 1978, 319 pages. Fontaine's autobiography, containing much detail about growing up with her sister.
• Higham, Charles. Sisters: The Story of Olivia De Haviland and Joan Fontaine. Coward McCann, May 1984, 257 pages.
• Lamparski, Richard. Manhattan Diary. BearManor Media, 2006 ISBN 1-59393-054-2
• Shipman, David, The Great Movie Stars, The Golden Years, Bonanza Books, New York, 1970. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 78-133803
• Thomas, Tony. The Films of Olivia de Havilland. Citadel Press, 1983, 255 pages. Foreword by Bette Davis.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Olivia de Havilland

• Olivia de Havilland
• Olivia de Havilland at the Internet Movie Database
• Olivia de Havilland at the TCM Movie Database
• Olivia de Havilland at the Internet Broadway Database
• Screen Actors Guild
• Photographs and bibliography