Happy Birthday to the last great star from Hollywood’s Golden Age, Miss Olivia de Havilland! Olivia turns 100 on July 1, 2016. No one in today’s Hollywood of ephemeral celebrities comes anywhere near Olivia’s class, talent, and stature. She is a living reminder of another time and place where movies were much different.
The Pickwick Theatre Classic Film Series honored Olivia this past May with a screening of Captain Blood (1935). We were grateful to have Errol Flynn’s daughter, Rory Flynn, as a special guest. Rory shared with us a wonderful letter she had received from Olivia.
Olivia is best known for her roles in the Errol Flynn classics and for her two Oscar-winning performances in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). And, for an entire legion of fans, she will forever be remembered as Melanie in Gone With the Wind (1939).
Olivia de Havilland currently resides in Paris, France.
Vanity Fair recently published an article on Olivia which can be found here!
As 2016 is also the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, we thought for our summer movie recommendation we’d offer A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935). This was Olivia’s screen debut– and one of the most beautiful productions to come out of Hollywood.
