- Olivia de Havilland, "sacred monster" of the Hollywood golden age died this Sunday.
- She fought for the rights of actors by having the “De Havilland Law” established.
- The actress is also the first woman president of the jury of the Cannes festival.
The dean of the Hollywood golden age of the 1930s and 1940s passed away in Paris this Sunday. Known worldwide for her role in Gone with the Wind, Olivia de Havilland was far from the ingenuous often embodied on screen.
"Olivia de Havilland had made her career alone, at a time when actresses landed roles thanks to a husband or a lover producer, director or actor", underlines in Le Parisien the journalist Henry-Jean Servat, who had interviewed the actress on several occasions. It illustrated "strength and courage" summarized Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival to AFP.
Judicial showdown with the Warner
Olivia de Havilland owes her career alone. But for the others, the actress did not hesitate to raise her voice to assert rights and freedom. She demonstrated her iron will in the 1940s without knowing that she was going to reform the world of cinema forever. While the actress stands up to Warner Bros by refusing yet another rosewater scenario proposal, the studio suspends her contract and prevents her from turning to the competition.
Remain confined to roles to which she no longer aspires? No. Submit to these unjust regulations? Even less. Rather, Olivia de Havilland goes to court and begins a long lawsuit against the studio following in the footsteps of her predecessor Bette Davis who had failed ten years earlier. A triumphant success, the authority established what would be called “De Havilland Law” by reducing the power of the studios and rehabilitating their rights to actors. A company that will earn him all his life the respect and admiration of his colleagues.
First woman to chair the Cannes Film Festival
"At a time of questioning the place of women in cinema and in society in general, we must above all remember her through the force that was hers when she attacked the studio system to free the actresses. contracts that exploited them, ”Thierry Frémaux told AFP. A few years later, the actress will play in one of her first roles far removed from the shackles of romance film, La Fosse aux Serpents (Anatole Litvak, 1948) in which she subtly brushes mental illness. Goodbye sweetness and grace.
A precursor, she was also a precursor by becoming the first woman to chair the Cannes Film Festival in 1965. "It will be the heaviest role of my career", she said, moreover, quoted by Le Monde . In 2010, her immense career - two Oscars for best actress with To each his own destiny , by Mitchell Leisen (1946) and a second for L'Héritière, by William Wyler (1949) - was honored by Nicolas Sarkozy who decorated her with the highest French distinction: the legion of honor.
“The world has lost an international treasure,” his ex-lawyer Suzelle Smith told AFP on Sunday. She would like to be remembered with joy, pride, and with a glass of champagne! "
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