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Olivia de Havilland: Hollywood’s queen of radiant calm | Peter Bradshaw

The Gone With the Wind star, known for her lifelong feud with her sister as much as the bewitching brilliance of her acting, and the last link to Hollywood’s golden age

Olivia de Havilland established herself for ever in the film world’s collective memory at the age of 22, as the wise, gentle and beautiful Melanie Hamilton in the colossal epic Gone With the Wind. The film appeared in 1939 as war was breaking out in Europe: the mighty theme of old orders being swept away was especially potent. De Havilland was an exemplar of radiant womanly calmness, a polar opposite to the capricious sexiness of Vivien Leigh’s bewitching belle Scarlett O’Hara. The role probably encumbered her with something stately and reserved, which she never entirely lost – though with a hint of mystery and suppressed emotional tumult, on screen and off. Because, however sedate her image, De Havilland was the subject of two of the juiciest scandals of Hollywood’s golden age: her relationship with longtime co-star Errol Flynn, and her lifelong feud with her sister and rival Joan Fontaine.

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