1935–1937: Early films DeHavilland made her screen debut in Reinhardt's ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1935), which was filmed at Warner Brothers studios from December 19, 1934, to March 9, 1935. The film is a
swashbuckler action drama based on the novel by
Rafael Sabatini and directed by
Michael Curtiz. According to film historian
Tony Thomas, both actors had "classic good looks, cultured speaking voices, and a sense of distant aristocracy about them". Filmed between August 5 and October 29, 1935, While deHavilland was certainly capable of playing this type of character, her personality was better suited to stronger and more dramatic roles, according to Judith Kass. By this time, she was having serious doubts about her career at Warner Bros. DeHavilland turned to Warner's wife Anne for help. Warner later recalled: "Olivia, who had a brain like a computer concealed behind those fawn-like eyes, simply went to my wife and they joined forces to change my mind." He relented, and deHavilland was signed to the project a few weeks before the start of principal photography on January 26, 1939. In early 1940, deHavilland refused to appear in several films assigned to her, initiating the first of her suspensions from the studio. She did agree to play in
Curtis Bernhardt's musical comedy drama
My Love Came Back (1940) with
Jeffrey Lynn and
Eddie Albert, who played a classical music student turned swing jazz bandleader. DeHavilland played violinist Amelia Cornell, whose life becomes complicated by the support of a wealthy sponsor.
Bosley Crowther of
The New York Times described the film as "a featherlight frolic, a rollicking roundelay of deliciously pointed nonsense", finding that deHavilland "plays the part with pace and wit". Warner Bros. reacted to the lawsuit by circulating a letter to other studios, which had the effect of a "virtual blacklisting". Consequently, deHavilland did not work at a film studio for almost two years. (March 20, 1944) She became a
naturalized citizen of the United States on November 28, 1941, ten days before the U.S. entered
World War II militarily. ruling freed her from her Warner Bros. contract, deHavilland signed a two-picture deal with Paramount Pictures. In June 1945, she began filming Mitchell Leisen's drama
To Each His Own, (1946) about an unwed mother who gives up her child for adoption and then spends the rest of her life trying to undo that decision. DeHavilland insisted on bringing in Leisen as director, trusting his eye for detail, his empathy for actors, and the way he controlled sentiment in their previous collaboration,
Hold Back the Dawn. The role required deHavilland to age nearly 30 years over the course of the filmfrom an innocent, small-town girl to a shrewd, ruthless businesswoman devoted to her cosmetics company. While deHavilland never formally studied acting, she did read
Stanislavsky's autobiography
My Life in Art and applied one of his "
methods" for this role. To help her define her character during the four periods of the story, she used a different perfume for each period. She also lowered the pitch of her voice incrementally in each period until it became a mature woman's voice. Her performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress for 1946her first Oscar. According to film historian Tony Thomas, the award represented a vindication of her long struggle with Warner Bros. and confirmation of her abilities as an actress. Her next two roles were challenging. In
Robert Siodmak's
psychological thriller The Dark Mirror (also 1946), deHavilland played twin sisters Ruth and Terry Collinsone loving and normal, the other
psychotic. In addition to the technical problems of showing her as two characters interacting with each other on screen at the same time, deHavilland needed to portray two separate and psychologically opposite people. While the film was not well received by critics
Variety said the film "gets lost in a maze of psychological gadgets and speculation" Directed by Phyliss Loughton, dramatic coach and de Havilland's dialogue director for
The Dark Mirror, the production sold out weeks in advance, offering standing room only for the week-long performance. In early August, de Havilland was reintroduced to novelist
Marcus Goodrich. Three weeks later, on August 26, 1946, they were married the same day she opened in
What Every Woman Knows. The wedding took place at the home of
Lawrence Langer, one of the founders of New York's
Theatre Guild, and his wife
Armina Marshall. Together, they owned and operated the Westport Country Playhouse. Irene Selznick was a guest at the wedding. After completing
The Snake Pit and
The Heiress, de Havilland decided to return to the stage in a production of
Romeo and Juliet. In 1934, when she toured in
Max Reinhardt's production of
''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', Reinhardt suggested that de Havilland one day play Juliet and she promised to do so. Additionally, de Havilland had admired
Katharine Cornell's Juliet, which she saw when the actress's repertory company played San Francisco in January of 1934. In 2012, de Havilland recalled, "Cornell's touring with these plays seemed so glamourous to me that I dreamed of one day doing the same." Following a week of rehearsals in Detroit, the production opened on January 22, 1951, running two weeks at Detroit's Cass Theatre. The production then moved to Cleveland's
Hanna Theatre, then on to Boston's
Schubert Theatre, where it opened on February 13 and played for three weeks. After 48 performances on the road, on Saturday, March 10, de Havilland's
Romeo and Juliet reached Broadway, opening at
The Broadhurst Theatre. Reviews were mixed. The production was lavish and de Havilland's salary high, making it both a critical failure and a financial loss. The play closed on April 21, 1951, with a total of 45 performances in New York. Undiscouraged, De Havilland immediately followed this production with the title role in a summer stock company of
George Bernard Shaw's Victorian comedy
Candida. As with
Romeo and Juliet, de Havilland was inspired by Cornell's 1935 production of
Candida. An ensemble play, a strong supporting cast was essential and de Havilland controlled the final casting, which provided a successful blend of talent. De Havilland's
Candida opened on June 11, 1951 at the Westport Country Playhouse, which was celebrating its 20th anniversary season. Over ten weeks, de Havilland played ten community theatres to sold out houses. Though some reviewers thought the play itself had become quaint, the provincial critics found de Havilland's performance "enchanting" and the supporting cast "perfectly splendid." In July 1951, de Havilland told a reporter, "Let's face it cliché and all,… I love the theater. I'm not unhappy working in Hollywood. How could I be? It's just that I'm happier in the livelier drama rushing from one summer theater to another and living in something less than the lap of luxury, well, these are part of this thing I love." A key to de Havilland's interpretation of Candida was her youth. In 1951, de Havilland was 35 and her co-star Ron Randall was not quite 40. Candida and her husband, Rev. James Morell, de Havilland explained, were frequently played by middle-aged actors. "People understand properly that Marchbanks is rather a callow teenager, but they have an idea that Candida and Morell are in their forties and fifties, respectively. Shaw's script, of course, is quite specific in the matter of age. Candida is 33 and Morell is an attractive, virile man only a few years older." She added, "[M]ost people have forgotten . . . When Katharine Cornell first played Candida, she was only 26 years old." Originally, de Havilland's
Candida was booked for only the summer months, and as of late July, de Havilland still considered taking her
Romeo and Juliet on a national tour, though simpler sets and streamlined production would have to be designed. By August, she had changed her mind, and a national tour of
Candida was planned. Largely recast, it was directed by
Norris Houghton (who suggested de Havilland play the role), and produced by Thomas Hammond. On the national tour, de Havilland performed for audiences and critics in major cities like San Francisco, Cleveland, and Chicago.
Candida opened in St. Louis on October 8, 1951. The company ultimately toured for 25 weeks, traveling over 10,000 miles and playing 43 cities, nearly all to capacity houses. De Havilland told columnist
Sheilah Graham, "I did two tours with the play, and broke seven house records. . . .You know Katharine Cornell did
Candida five times, but I chalked up 332 performances against her 316." In November 1951, de Havilland played a three-week run at San Francisco's
Geary Theatre, where she had seen Cornell as Candida. Critic Luther Nichols found the company "a smooth and competent professional ensemble." Critic Wood Soanes, however, found the production lacking in every regard, warning, "Candida has been a huge money-maker on the road, so I am informed, thanks to the draw of Miss de Havilland's name. It is headed for New York but unless something happens to improve it, Miss de Havilland is likely to have a worse time of it in Manhattan than she did with
Romeo and Juliet." Many of the national reviews were glowing. The
Tulsa Daily World noted, "Olivia de Havilland casts upon the famous, many-sided heroine a vivid fresh light, endows her with a new grace, a new appeal to tears and laughter. Critics have hailed her Candida interpretation, blessed, as it is, with a delightful sense of humor, as an artistic triumph, long to be cherished and remembered." Chicago's reception in January 1952, however, was generally negative and, when the tour concluded in New York City for a four-week limited engagement at the National Theatre, several important critics found the production lackluster. The show closed on May 18, 1952. The same day, de Havilland announced her plan to file for divorce from Marcus Goodrich. Her marriage to Goodrich had grown strained largely due to his unstable temperament. The divorce became final the following year. De Havilland considered a return to the stage in
Henry James's
Portrait of a Lady, to be produced again by Thomas Hammond. It was to open in mid-September of 1952, in St. Louis. Instead, however, she accepted the leading role in
My Cousin Rachel. In the summer of 1953, de Havilland starred in
The Dazzling Hour, a French farce (
L’Heure Eblouissante by Anna Bonacci) directed by
José Ferrer and co-produced by
Gilbert Miller. The play was mounted by the
La Jolla Playhouse and was scheduled to open on Broadway in mid-October. The adaptation written by Ferrer and
Ketti Frings was criticized as "dull and erratic", and the company did not continue to New York. De Havilland did not return to the New York stage until 1962 in
A Gift of Time. Her co-star was Henry Fonda, and the play ran at the
Ethel Barrymore Theatre from February 22 through May 12, 1962. De Havilland's television debut came on April 8, 1951, on
Showtime, U. S. A. when she acted in a scene from
Romeo and Juliet.
1953–1962: New life in Paris In April 1953, at the invitation of the French government, she travelled to the
Cannes Film Festival, where she met Pierre Galante, an executive editor for the French journal
Paris Match. Following a long-distance courtship and the requisite nine-month residency requirement, deHavilland and Galante married on April 12, 1955, in the village of
Yvoy-le-Marron, and settled together in a three-storey house near the
Bois de Boulogne park in Paris'
16th Arrondissement. As film roles became more difficult to find, a common problem shared by many Hollywood veterans from her era, deHavilland began working in television dramas, despite her dislike of the networks' practice of breaking up story lines with commercials. Her first venture into the medium was a
teleplay directed by
Sam Peckinpah called
Noon Wine (1966) on
ABC Stage 67, a dark tragedy about a farmer's act of murder that leads to his suicide. The production and her performance as the farmer's wife Ellie were well received. In 1972, she starred in her first television film,
The Screaming Woman, about a wealthy woman recovering from a nervous breakdown. In 1979, she appeared in the ABC miniseries
Roots: The Next Generations in the role of Mrs. Warner, the wife of a former Confederate officer played by Henry Fonda. The miniseries was seen by an estimated 110million peoplenearly one-third of American homes with television sets. She spoke mostly to women, addressing
Junior League Town Halls and various women's associations, raising funds for local charities from mental health clinics to restorations of theaters. From February 9 – 15, 1979, she cruised on the
Mississippi Queen, sharing her reminiscences with the river boat's passengers. During these tours, de Havilland reconnected with the United States and her American audience, past and present. Having lived in France for nearly twenty years, she considered moving back to the East Coast, particularly Washington, D.C. Ultimately, she never left her home in Paris. Additionally, during the late 1970s, de Havilland visited numerous US cities, raising funds for "Venture," a $100 million program to expand missions of the
Episcopal Church. She also appeared at several tributes to
Gone With the Wind, notably the lavish 40th anniversary celebration led by film historian
Ron Haver at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1979. In the 1980s, her television work included an
Agatha Christie television film
Murder Is Easy (1982), the television drama
The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) in which she played
the Queen Mother, and the 1986 ABC miniseries
North and South, Book II. In 2004,
Turner Classic Movies produced a retrospective piece called
Melanie Remembers in which she was interviewed for the 65th anniversary of the original release of
Gone with the Wind. In June 2006, she made appearances at tributes commemorating her 90th birthday at the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. On September 9, 2010, deHavilland was appointed a
Chevalier (knight) of the
Légion d'honneur, the highest decoration in France, awarded by President
Nicolas Sarkozy, who told the actress, "You honor France for having chosen us." In June 2017, two weeks before her 101st birthday, de Havilland was appointed
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the
2017 Birthday Honours for services to drama by
Queen Elizabeth II. She is the oldest woman ever to receive the honor. In a statement, she called it "the most gratifying of birthday presents". She did not travel to the investiture ceremony at
Buckingham Palace and received her honor from the hands of the British Ambassador to France at her Paris apartment in March 2018, four months before her 102nd birthday. Her daughter Gisèle was by her side. ==Personal life==