- Next June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be paying homage to two-time Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland, who will be flying from France to Los Angeles for the event.
Academy to honor 2-time Oscar winner and sole surviving Gone with the Wind star Olivia de Havilland
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that in late spring 2006 it will be paying tribute to 89-year-old Hollywood veteran Olivia de Havilland. Succinctly titled “An Academy Tribute to Olivia de Havilland,” the event will be held on June 15, 2006, at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
A two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) and the sole surviving star of the 1939 mega-blockbuster and multiple Oscar winner Gone with the Wind, de Havilland will travel from her home in France for the event, which will feature the screening of movie clips and a discussion with the actress’ friends and coworkers. So far, the names of these friends and coworkers have not been divulged.
Also of note, de Havilland actually changed U.S. labor laws as a result of her lawsuit against her home studio, Warner Bros., in the mid-1940s, which kept her off the screen for more than two years.
Tickets for “An Academy Tribute to Olivia de Havilland” will be available beginning on June 1. Cost: $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members.
Olivia de Havilland movies
Besides Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind, for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (she lost to Hattie McDaniel for the same film), Olivia de Havilland’s most important movies – in a show business career that spanned more than half a century – include the following (in chronological order):
- Michael Curtiz’s Best Picture Oscar nominee Captain Blood (1935), her first of eight pairings with Errol Flynn.
- Michael Curtiz and William Keighley’s rousing Best Picture Oscar nominee The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), as Lady Marian, once again opposite Errol Flynn.
- Mitchell Leisen’s romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which earned her a Best Actress nod for her portrayal of a kind-hearted teacher who falls in love with Romanian “gigolo” turned refugee Charles Boyer. (De Havilland lost the Oscar to her younger sister, Joan Fontaine, for Suspicion.)
- Mitchell Leisen’s To Each His Own (1946), a tale of mother love, self-sacrifice, and business acumen that brought de Havilland her first Best Actress Oscar. (When Fontaine, who was also at the ceremony, went to congratulate her, de Havilland turned her back and walked away. The moment was captured on camera.)
A few more titles:
- Anatole Litvak’s Best Picture nominee and major box office hit The Snake Pit (1948), a plea for the humane treatment of mental patients that earned her another Oscar nod and the New York Film Critics Circle’s Best Actress Award.
- William Wyler’s The Heiress (1949), a remarkable adult drama costarring Montgomery Clift that deservedly brought her her second Best Actress Oscar and her second consecutive New York Film Critics Best Actress win.
- Henry Koster’s My Cousin Rachel (1952), an adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s Gothic novel, with relative newcomer Richard Burton as her leading man.
- Robert Aldrich’s commercially successful thriller Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), replacing Joan Crawford to make things a bit complicated for Southern belle turned old hag Bette Davis.
- Walter Grauman’s superior aging-actress-in-distress thriller Lady in a Cage (1964), in which she gets stuck inside her home elevator while street thug James Caan ravages her place.
Olivia de Havilland’s final big-screen appearance was in a cameo as the Queen Mother in Ken Annakin’s all-star box office dud The Fifth Musketeer (1979), starring Beau Bridges, Sylvia Kristel, and Ursula Andress.
“Olivia de Havilland Academy Tribute” notes
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website.
Olivia de Havilland image: Publicity shot ca. late 1940s.
“Olivia de Havilland Academy Tribute” last modified in October 2025.