Olivia de Havilland

She is reported to be working on an autobiography. Her most recent public appearance was as a presenter at the 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003. In 1994 her memoralilia were sold to the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek (after US insitutions showed no interest) where it became the core of the FilmMuseum Berlin in the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. A resident of Paris since the 1950s, de Havilland lives in retirement and makes appearances rarely. de:Friedenau Cemetery. She was reported to have declined the role of Blanche du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire, citing the unsavoury nature of the some elements of the script, and saying there were certain lines she could not allow herself to speak. She continued acting until the 1980s. Her body, covered with an American flag, was then returned to Berlin where she was interred in the Städtischen Friedhof III, Berlin-Schöneberg, Stubenrauchstraße 43-45. De Havilland appeared sporadically in films after the 1950s, and attributed this partly to the growing permissiveness of Hollywood films of the period. A service was conducted at La Madeline in Paris before 3,500 mourners and a crowd of well-wishers outside.

She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness, and de Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamour and, which confronted such controversial subject matter. Dietrich died peacefully at the age of 90 in Paris, of general old-age. The quality and variety of her roles began to improve. It is true that she quipped that she would return only when one of her Jewish friends (possibly Max Reinhardt) could accompany her. Her courage in mounting such a challenge, and her subsequent victory, won her the respect and admiration of her peers. Despite all of this, she was reportedly offered a king's ransom to return to Germany, due to her immense popularity as well as Hitler's ardour, which she declined. The decision was one of the most significant and far reaching legal rulings until that time in Hollywood. When Maria gave birth to a son in 1948, Dietrich was dubbed "the world's most glamorous grandmother." Although they never married, the great love of her life was the French actor and military hero, Jean Gabin.

De Havilland mounted a lawsuit in the 1940s and was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to the performers. 13, 1924. Most accepted this situation, while a few tried to change the system; Bette Davis had mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Brothers Studios in the 1930s. Her only child, Maria, was born on Dec. In theory this allowed a studio to maintain indefinite control over an uncooperative contractree. She married once, to director's assistant (and later director at Paramount Pictures, France) Rudolf Sieber. The law allowed for studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role, and for the period of suspension to be added to the contract period. Unlike her professional celebrity, which was carefully crafted and maintained, Dietrich's personal life was kept out of public view.

She felt that she had proven herself to be capable of playing more than the demure ingenues and damsels in distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role. Her public image and some of her movies included strong sexual undertones, including bisexuality. Accordingly, it is no surprise that she had affairs with women (Mercedes de Acosta was among her lesbian lovers) as well as men. Also by this time De Havilland was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles being assigned to her. Dietrich was a fashion icon to the top designers as well as a screen icon whom later stars would follow. The sisters have remained estranged since this time. She is also famous for having recorded Lili Marleen during World War II, a curious example of a song transcending the hatreds of war. He records that the sisters had an uneasy relationship, and though each has refused to comment, Higham has stated that this event was the catalyst for what would become a lifelong fued. Dietrich became an American citizen in 1937, raised a record number of War Bonds and entertained American troops during the Second World War.

Biographer Charles Higham has described the events of the award ceremony, stating that as Fontaine stepped forward to collect her award, she had pointedly rejected de Havilland's attempts at congratulating her, and that de Havilland was both offended and embarrassed by her behavior. Her singing helped here too, as she recorded a number of anti-Nazi records in German for the OSS. Fontaine won for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) over de Havilland's nomination for Hold Back the Dawn (1941). She sang for the Allied troops on the front lines in Algiers, Fance and into Germany with Generals Gavin & Patton. De Havilland and her sister Fontaine, were each nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. She was a staunch anti-Nazi who despised Germany's anti-semitic policies of the time. She played Melanie Wilkes in Gone With The Wind (1939) and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance. Dietrich was known to have a strong set of political convictions and a mind to speak them.

She appeared as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), and played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade (both 1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Madeline Kahn did the same in the Mel Brooks film "Blazing Saddles". De Havilland's career began in Alibi Ike in 1935. Her distinctive voice was later satirized, by Lotte Lenya, in the song Lieder by cult British trio Fascinating Aïda. Her sister is the actress Joan Fontaine (born 1917), from whom she is famously estranged. She spent the last twelve years bed-ridden, in seclusion in her apartment in Paris. She is the daughter of British parents, patent attorney Walter de Havilland, and actress Lillian Fontaine. Her show business career largely ended, however, in 1974, when she broke her leg during a stage performance.

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan), is a US film actress. Spectacular costumes (by Jean Louis) and careful stage lighting helped to preserve Dietrich's glamorous image well into old age. De Havilland was good friends with actress Bette Davis. His arrangements helped to disguise Dietrich's limited vocal range and allowed her to perform her songs to maximum dramatic effect. Subsequently, the school's theater is named after her. Until the mid-1960s her musical director was pop composer Burt Bacharach. De Havilland attended Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, California as a teen. Her repertoire included songs from her films as well as popular songs of the day.

From the 1950s to the mid-1970s Dietrich toured internationally as a successful cabaret performer. Following a slowdown in her film career, she made a number of records first for Decca, Elektrola, EMI, and for Columbia. Dietrich sang in several of her films (most famously in von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, in which she sings "Falling In Love Again"), having made records in Germany in the 1920s. She gradually broadened her repertoire in roles such as Destry Rides Again, A Foreign Affair, Witness for the Prosecution, Touch of Evil, and Judgment at Nuremberg.

Her most lasting contribution to film history was as the star in several films directed by Josef von Sternberg in the early 1930s, such as The Scarlet Empress and Shanghai Express, in which she played "femme fatales". After playing in only German movies at first, she got her first role in the 1st European talking picture, The Blue Angel(1930; directed by Joseph von Sternberg) and then moved to Hollywood to make Morocco (for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress). Born in Schöneberg, Berlin, Dietrich played the violin before joining an acting school in 1921, making her film debut the following year. Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich (December 27, 1901 - May 6, 1992) was a German actress and singer.