Here’s a look at the life of Academy Award winning actress Joan Fontaine.
Personal:
Birth date: October 22, 1917
Death date: December 15, 2013
Birth place: Tokyo, Japan
Birth name: Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland
Father: Walter de Havilland, a patent lawyer and teacher
Mother: Lillian (Ruse) de Havilland, an actress
Marriages: Alfred Wright Jr. (1964-1969, divorced); Collier Young (1952-1961, divorced); William Dozier (1946-1951, divorced); Brian Aherne (1939-1944, divorced)
Children: with William Dozier: Deborah, November 5, 1948; with Collier Young: Martita, (born 1946, adopted 1952)
Other Facts:
Both parents were British.
She was the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland.
Her mother, actress Lillian Fontaine, began encouraging the sisters’ rivalry at an early age.
She took her stage name from her stepfather, George Fontaine.
During the filming of “Rebecca,” director Alfred Hitchcock convinced her that everyone on the set hated her in an effort to make her performance as a shy and uneasy character more credible.
At the time of her Best Actress Oscar win, February 1942, she was the youngest to win the award at the age of 23.
The long-standing feud with her sister was at such a peak during one Oscar winners’ reunion in 1979 that they had to be seated on opposite ends of the stage.
She received three Academy Award nominations and won one.
Timeline:
1919 – Parents separate, moves with mother and sister, to Saratoga, California.
1935 – Makes her screen debut in “No More Ladies”, under the name of Joan Burfield.
1942 – Wins the Best Actress Academy Award for “Suspicion,” and beats her sister, who is nominated for Best Actress for “Hold Back the Dawn.”
1947 – Forms Rampart Productions with husband William Dozier.
1954 – Stars in “Tea and Sympathy” on Broadway, taking on the role in the second run of the play.
September 1978 – Autobiography, “No Bed of Roses” is released. The book’s tell-all content explains and adds to the feud between Fontaine and her sister.
1980s – Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest/Cameo Appearance in a Daytime Drama Series for “Ryan’s Hope.”
2000 – The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejects a lawsuit filed by Fontaine against Blockbuster. The court holds she failed to show intent when Blockbuster overstated her role as an extra on the videocassette case for the re-release of Orson Welles’s “Othello.” Her role in the movie is uncredited.
December 15, 2013 – Dies in her sleep at her home in Carmel, California, at the age of 96.