Living to the grand old age of 104, Olivia de Havilland was starting to feel like a star whose shine would outlast us all. And yet, she died on Sunday in Paris.
But what a life... Born to British parents in Tokyo in 1916, she and younger sister Joan Fontaine after their parents divorced, settling with their mother in Northern California. Lilian Augusta taught diction and voice control, which benefited her eldest daughter. While de Havilland originally planned to become a teacher herself, she was seen by a talent scout whilst performing in a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and hired to be an understudy in a Hollywood Bowl staging on the play. She inherited the part of Hermia and impressed the play's director Max Reinhardt to such a degree that he cast her in the 1935 film version.
The film was far from a hit, but it did win de Havilland a seven-year contract with Warner Bros., where studio executives paired her with Errol Flynn for several films, including The Adventures Of Robin Hood, The Charge Of The Light Brigade, The Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex and They Died With Their Boots On in 1941. Their searing screen chemistry was born from real-life attraction, though despite years of rumours, de Havilland never let the feelings grow beyond the screen out of respect for Flynn's status as a married man.
While her screen presence was that of a demure heroine, she was ambitious and forthright in real life, moving her career forward and getting her due, even if it meant facing suspension by her employers at the studio. She argued for the role of Melanie in Gone The Wind, and it became one of her most famous performances, which nabbed her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. That led to films such as Strawberry Blonde and 1941's Hold Back The Dawn (cue her first Best Actress Oscar nom, though she lost the award to her sister).
When de Havilland's contract at Warners ended, the studio tried to hold on to her services, claiming she owed time for her suspensions. She took the case to court, spending $13,000 of her own money and battled on the argument of an old California law that forbade serfdom by limiting contracts to seven years. The win became known as the de Havilland decision and unlocked many other actors from their contracts.
The suit kept her from the screen for two years, and she then began to freelance for other companies, winning her first Oscar for 1946's To Each His Own. At the same time, her relationship with Joan began to sour, particularly when the latter made callous comments about de Havilland's new husband, Marcus Goodrich.
In her long career, she appeared in many more notable films, including The Snake Pit, The Heiress (for which she won her second Oscar), My Cousin Rachel, Hush... Hush Sweet Charlotte, The Light In The Piazza, Lady In A Cage and, later in life, was found in schlockier stuff such as The Swarm and Airport '77.
While she would step back from acting full time, de Havilland didn't rest on her laurels, writing non-fiction books, contributing to documentaries and returning to stage work.
"I feel not happy, not contented, but something else," she told the Independent in 2009. "Just grateful for having lived and having done so many things that I wanted to do and have also had so much meaning for other people."