Friday, July 01, 2016


Olivia de Havilland, the Melanie Wilkes whose unselfishness contrasted to the petulant Scarlett’s behavior in the 1939 classic “Gone With the Wind,” is still alive at the age of 100.

She’s celebrating with dinner and drinks with “dear, dear” friends in Paris, where she’s lived for six decades after marrying a Frenchman.

Miss de Havilland was born in Japan to English parents, who reared her in Los Angeles where she became an American citizen. She was in films for eight decades, but “Gone With the Wind” brought her an Oscar and a permanent place in the memories of moviegoers.

Not even eight on-screen romances with swashbuckling Errol Flynn could top that.

She may have been sweet and loving in “Gone With the Wind” but she took on and beat Warner Brothers in a 1944 lawsuit that forced movie studios to limit their strangehold on actors to seven years, instead of ad infinitum.

No comments: