Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine: hate for aesthetics

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Is it wrong to hate? The world is full of well-meaning people who will say yes, that hate is a destructive feeling that dwarfs those who feel it inside, as seen in Michael Ende's books and Star Wars movies. Well, they're right: hating a lot makes us all feel bad, but there's nothing wrong with keeping a piece of heart for a couple of phobias or three , and directing them, if possible, against someone far away, so they can't do much hurt. Something will have to be done with bad feelings, right? The word hate, in fact, has a theatrical and festive nuance that makes it kinder than other resemblances such as resentment or resentment. It may even be less painful for a little hate than a disdainful indifference or a sad misunderstanding.

An example: Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland, sisters and actresses of outstanding career and very long enmity. Did they make each other suffer? No doubt, from babies, with very refined and systematic cruelty . But, after so many years and so much publicity, wasn't his rivalry a staging, a coquetry, an opera, anything more than a real wound?

Havilland-Fontaine's rivalry is not a secret. In addition to their respective memoirs and biographies, their case has inspired two books specifically focused on their fraternal hatred. One of them, Twisted sisters: to each her own , by Darwin Porter and Roy Moseley, is a phantom, unenforceable and not very promising work. The other title, Sisters: the story of Olivia De Havilland and Joan Fontaine (1982), by the poet and journalist Charles Higham, is not too presentable, but it is as fun as eating with your hands .

Thus, Higham tells in his book that Joan's real problem was the rather incestuous preference his father showed for her. His book recounts a probable affair between father and daughter with the tone of a psychoanalyst with a very bad heart. The funny thing is to look after the opinions of the readers in the internet forums. Two sentences summarize them. First: Higham invents half, as always. And second: what an obsession of this man to recreate sordid sexual stories .

We go with the data. Olivia and Joan's parents were Walter and Lilian de Havilland. He was an English gentleman, lawyer in Asia, and she, an amateur opera singer who had ascended socially through marriage . They lived in Tokyo the happy life of expatriates but they were not happy because Walter had become fond of the refinements of Japanese prostitution . Even so, Olivia was born, beautiful and bright, her mother's comfort, and then Joan was born, gray and sickly. Nobody paid much attention to him.

Walter and Lilian separated. Walter stayed in Japan. Lilian took the girls to live in California, in the suburbs of San Francisco. He took his house forward with work and pride but remained a damn mother: Joan was treated with distaste. Instead, he transmitted to Olivia a chilling competitive instinct .

If life were an institute film in the style of La chica de rosa , Olivia would be the beautiful and studious girl who always needs to be at the center of everything, while Joan would be the sinister sister who sabotages her prestige. Then, at home, Olivia made an alliance with her mother and together they avenged and humiliated her sister with delight.

Olivia was also autonomous and hardworking. She became independent soon because she collided with her mother's husband and arrived in Hollywood because someone noticed her in a collegiate representation of Shakespeare . Soon he earned a moderate good reputation. She was beautiful and transmitted a nosequé British patrician that worked well. His career rose steadily and without haste.

Joan, on the other hand, went to Tokyo to live with his father but returned soon and angry, which is why Higham points to the theory of incest (apparently, when his daughters were already stars, Walter wanted to blackmail them with a story about that assumption romance ) Without knowing very well what to do, Joan began to act. He chose his stepfather's last name and, after a few scores, was lucky enough to fall into Hitchcock's hands. His compatriot found in her the Gothic presence he needed for Sospecha and Joan's career took off later but with more speed. Lilian pulled their hairs.

From here, the classic scenes of fraternal rivalry follow one another. Joan went to an audition to do what the wind took . He thought he aspired to be Scarlett, but he was only offered to play Melanie, the naive sister-in-law. Disappointed, she said that for that they would better call Olivia. They called Olivia and Olivia won an Oscar and regained the lead. He married Errol Flyn, faced Warner with a lawsuit and re-empowered his career. Joan, on the other hand, did Rebecca, worked with Orson Welles, with Fritz Lang and married four times. When she won her first Oscar ( Suspicion ) she was sitting in front of Olivia, who was the favorite for If it didn't dawn . Joan didn't even want to go to the ceremony. When they announced her name, she was paralyzed with fear over her sister's fury.

How to judge your enmity? Olivia was, in short, the aggressor and Joan, the victim , but Joan was also one of those good people who do scary things. He adopted a Peruvian girl and, when his adolescence began to be irritating, he asked if he could return her. Olivia, on the other hand, has been one of those bad people with whom it is easy to laugh and tender . He went to live in France and wrote some libertine memoirs. She ran out of white and got Joan to rescue her. Joan may have had a more interesting career and her character is more attractive today, but Olivia won the last battle: she survived it. He is 103 years old and we will have to see how many of us will also see us die.

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