Most people know Olivia de Havilland as one of Hollywood’s most graceful stars – the luminous Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind, a two-time Oscar winner, and the last major survivor of cinema’s golden age. She seemed to glide through life on elegance alone.
But behind that composed exterior lived a story of family rivalry, childhood cruelty, and a feud so bitter that it lasted until death itself finally ended it. The darkness was always there. It just never made the screen.
A Rivalry Born Before Hollywood
Olivia de Havilland and her younger sister Joan were born just 15 months apart, raised by a distant, perfectionist mother who quietly pitted them against each other. Her mother’s habit of looking at capable Olivia and sickly Joan and saying “Livvie can, Joan can’t” planted a seed of resentment that never stopped growing. Home was not a refuge. According to Biography.com, the sisters’ childhood clashes involved slaps, hair-pulling, and Joan fracturing her collarbone in a poolside struggle with Olivia. It started early. It never fully stopped. And the worst of it was still years away.
One Studio, One Name, One Rule
When Joan moved to Hollywood to pursue acting, she discovered that Olivia had quietly claimed the territory. According to the Hollywood Reporter, their mother told Joan she could not work at Warner Bros. because it was “Olivia’s studio” and forbade her from using the de Havilland name – because that apparently belonged to Olivia too. Joan was forced to take her stepfather’s surname, Fontaine. She resented it for the rest of her life, later saying, “Joan Fontaine – I don’t know who she is.” The wound went deep. And in a few years, it would explode in front of the entire world.
The Oscar Night That Froze Time
In 1942, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine both received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress, becoming the first sisters to compete in the same acting category. Fontaine won for Suspicion, while de Havilland was nominated for Hold Back the Dawn.
The rivalry grew even more public a few years later. In 1947, de Havilland won Best Actress for To Each His Own, and reports have long claimed that Fontaine tried to congratulate her backstage but was rebuffed. Whether seen as a misunderstanding or a deliberate slight, the moment became one of the most famous stories in their feud.
Their Oscar rivalry made the tension impossible for Hollywood to ignore, but a later family tragedy would deepen the divide even further.
The Telegram That Was Never Forgiven
When their mother fell ill and eventually died, a new fracture split the sisters apart. Joan claimed she was never told of her mother’s passing while touring with a play. According to Wikipedia, de Havilland had sent a telegram – but it took two weeks to arrive, and she never phoned to find out where Joan could be reached. Each sister held her own version of the story as fact. Neither ever fully let go. The grief became another weapon in a feud that no one knew how to end.
A Century of Life, a Lifetime of Tension
De Havilland lived to 104, dying in Paris in July 2020, making her the oldest surviving major star of Hollywood’s golden age, according to Wikipedia. Even in her final years, the drama continued. When Ryan Murphy’s FX series Feud cast Catherine Zeta-Jones as de Havilland, the centenarian actress sued the network, claiming she had been portrayed in a false light. She was over 100 years old and still fighting for control of her own story. That was Olivia. Undefeated. But the ending with Joan was harder to process than anyone realized.
What Happened When Joan Died
On December 15, 2013, Joan Fontaine passed peacefully in her sleep at age 96, having once quipped about her sister, “If I die first, she’ll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it.” According to Factinate, de Havilland did not use her sister’s passing to get the final word. Instead, she issued a rare and heartfelt statement saying she was “shocked and saddened” by the news. The feud that had defined both their lives ended not with a cutting remark but with grief. It turned out they were always more bound to each other than either would admit.
The Legacy That Outlasted the Rivalry
Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine remain the only siblings in history to each win Academy Awards in a lead acting category, according to Wikipedia. De Havilland also won a landmark legal battle against Warner Bros. that freed actors from studio contracts, a ruling still known today as the De Havilland Law. Two sisters. A lifetime of tension. And a legacy that belongs to both of them equally. This article is for informational and entertainment purposes only.
Featured Image: instagram.com/oliviadehavilland
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