Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress best known for her film roles during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Fontaine appeared in more than 45 films in a career that spanned five decades. She was the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland. Their rivalry was well documented in the media at the height of Fontaine's career.
Fontaine began her film career in 1935, signing a contract with RKO Pictures. Fontaine received her first major roles in The Man Who Found Himself (1937) and in Gunga Din (1939). Her career prospects improved greatly after her starring role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), for which she received her first of three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The following year, she won that award for her role in Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941). A third nomination came with The Constant Nymph (1943). She appeared mostly in drama films through the 1940s, including Letter from an Unknown Woman and the comedy You Gotta Stay Happy (both 1948), which she co-produced with her second husband William Dozier through their film production company Rampart Productions. In the next decade, after her role in Ivanhoe (1952), her film career began to decline and she moved into stage, radio and television roles. She appeared in fewer films in the 1960s, which included Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), and her final film role in The Witches (1966), also known as The Devil's Own.
She released an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, and continued to act until 1994. Her Academy Award for Suspicion makes Fontaine the only actress to have won an Oscar for acting in a Hitchcock film. She and her sister Olivia remain the only siblings to have won lead-acting Academy Awards.
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo City, in the then Empire of Japan, to English parents. Her father, Walter de Havilland (1872–1968), was educated at the University of Cambridge and served as an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo before becoming a patent attorney. Her mother, Lilian Augusta Ruse de Havilland Fontaine (1886–1975), was educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a stage actress who left her career after going to Tokyo with her husband. Her mother returned to work with the stage name "Lilian Fontaine" after Joan and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland achieved prominence in the 1940s. Joan's paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882–1965), an aircraft designer known for the de Havilland Mosquito, and founder of the aircraft company which bore his name. Her paternal grandfather, the Reverend Charles Richard de Havilland, was from a family from Guernsey, in the Channel Islands.
De Havilland's parents married in 1914 and separated in 1919 when she was two; the divorce was not finalized, however, until February 1925.
Taking a physician's advice, Lilian de Havilland moved Joan—reportedly a sickly child who had developed anaemia following a combined attack of the measles and a streptococcal infection—and her sister to the United States. The family settled in Saratoga, California, and Fontaine's health improved dramatically during her teen years. She was educated at nearby Los Gatos High School and was soon taking diction lessons alongside Olivia. When she was 16 years old, Joan returned to Japan to live with her father. There she attended the American School in Japan, graduating in 1935.
Fontaine made her stage debut in the West Coast production of Call It a Day (1935) and made her film debut in MGM's No More Ladies (1935), in which she was credited as Joan Burfield. She was leading lady to Bruce Bennett (billed as Herman Brix) in a low-budget independent film, A Million to One (1937).
Fontaine signed a contract with RKO Pictures. Her first film for the studio was Quality Street (1937) starring Katharine Hepburn, in which Fontaine had a small unbilled role.
The studio considered her a rising star, and touted The Man Who Found Himself (1937) with John Beal as her first starring role, placing a special screen introduction, billed as the "new RKO screen personality" after the end credit. Fontaine later said it had "an A budget but a Z story".
RKO put her in You Can't Beat Love (1937) with Preston Foster and Music for Madame (1937) with Nino Martini.
She next appeared in a major role alongside Fred Astaire in his first RKO film without Ginger Rogers, A Damsel in Distress (1937). Despite its being directed by George Stevens, audiences were disappointed and the film flopped. She was top-billed in the comedies Maid's Night Out and Blond Cheat, then was Richard Dix's leading lady in Sky Giant (all 1938).
Edward Small borrowed her to play Louis Hayward's love interest in The Duke of West Point (1938), then Stevens used her at RKO in Gunga Din (1939) as Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s love interest. The film was a huge hit, but Fontaine's part was relatively small. Republic borrowed her to support Dix in Man of Conquest (1939) but her part was small. George Cukor gave her a small role in MGM's The Women (1939).
David O. Selznick and Hitchcock
Fontaine's luck changed one night at a dinner party when she found herself seated next to producer David O. Selznick. Selznick and she began discussing the Daphne du Maurier novel Rebecca, and Selznick asked her to audition for the part of the unnamed heroine. She endured a grueling six-month series of film tests along with hundreds of other actresses before securing the part sometime before her 22nd birthday.
Rebecca (1940), starring Laurence Olivier alongside Fontaine, marked the American debut of British director Alfred Hitchcock. The film was released to glowing reviews, and Fontaine was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Fontaine did not win that year (Ginger Rogers took home the award for Kitty Foyle), but she did win the following year for Best Actress in Suspicion, which co-starred Cary Grant and was also directed by Hitchcock. This was the only Academy Award-winning acting performance to have been directed by Hitchcock.
Fontaine was then one of the biggest female stars in Hollywood, although she was typecast in female melodrama. "They seemed to want to make me cry the whole Atlantic", she later said. However, historically, she had become the top female star of the 1940s.
20th Century Fox borrowed her to appear opposite Tyrone Power in This Above All (1942) then she went to Warner Brothers to star alongside Charles Boyer in The Constant Nymph. She was nominated for a third Academy Award for her performance in this film.
She also starred as the titular protagonist in the film Jane Eyre that year, which was developed by Selznick then sold to Fox.