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Hollywood actress Dame Olivia de Havilland, has died aged 104
Her most famous role was that of the virtuous Melanie opposite Vivien Leigh's wayward Scarlett, in the epic Gone with the Wind.
Her relationship with her sister, the actress Joan Fontaine, was a constant source of speculation in the gossip columns.
At the time of her death she was the oldest living performer to have won an Oscar.
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born in Tokyo on 1 July 1916 to Walter, a British patent lawyer and his actress wife Lilian.
Her paternal family originated in the Channel Islands; her cousin Geoffrey was the aircraft designer responsible for producing the famous World War Two plane, the Mosquito.
Her sister Joan was born in 1917. Both girls suffered from bronchial problems and her mother moved the family to California in 1919 in search of a more agreeable climate.
De Havilland was bitten by the drama bug while at Saratoga High School, making her stage debut in 1933 in an amateur production of Alice in Wonderland.
She was spotted by director Max Reinhardt, who cast her as Hermia in a production of a Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl. She made her screen debut when the play was filmed for Warner Brothers in 1935. It received lukewarm reviews.
Her breakthrough came when producer Hal Wallis persuaded the studio to cast her in Captain Blood, opposite an Australian actor named Errol Flynn.
She won an Oscar in 1946 for her role in To Each His Own, the same year in which she married a naval veteran named Marcus Goodrich. She went on to major dramatic roles in The Snake Pit in 1948 and in The Heiress a year later, for which she won a second Oscar.
In the 1950s she moved to France with her second husband, Frenchman Pierre Galante, the editor of Paris Match, and devoted most of her time to a growing family.
Dame Olivia de Havilland, who has died at 104 in Paris, was one of the last survivors of Hollywood's Golden Age.
Her most famous role was that of the virtuous Melanie opposite Vivien Leigh's wayward Scarlett, in the epic Gone with the Wind.
Her relationship with her sister, the actress Joan Fontaine, was a constant source of speculation in the gossip columns.
At the time of her death she was the oldest living performer to have won an Oscar.
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born in Tokyo on 1 July 1916 to Walter, a British patent lawyer and his actress wife Lilian.
Her paternal family originated in the Channel Islands; her cousin Geoffrey was the aircraft designer responsible for producing the famous World War Two plane, the Mosquito.
Her sister Joan was born in 1917. Both girls suffered from bronchial problems and her mother moved the family to California in 1919 in search of a more agreeable climate.
De Havilland was bitten by the drama bug while at Saratoga High School, making her stage debut in 1933 in an amateur production of Alice in Wonderland.
She was spotted by director Max Reinhardt, who cast her as Hermia in a production of a Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl. She made her screen debut when the play was filmed for Warner Brothers in 1935. It received lukewarm reviews.
Her breakthrough came when producer Hal Wallis persuaded the studio to cast her in Captain Blood, opposite an Australian actor named Errol Flynn.
She won an Oscar in 1946 for her role in To Each His Own, the same year in which she married a naval veteran named Marcus Goodrich. She went on to major dramatic roles in The Snake Pit in 1948 and in The Heiress a year later, for which she won a second Oscar.
In the 1950s she moved to France with her second husband, Frenchman Pierre Galante, the editor of Paris Match, and devoted most of her time to a growing family.
Dame Olivia de Havilland, who has died at 104 in Paris, was one of the last survivors of Hollywood's Golden Age.
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