June30th
Be sure to check out this splendid tribute article about Olivia de Havilland and Gone with the Wind, written by fellow Vivien Leigh fan Adam Taxin. It contains some fantastic quotes from Mickey Kuhn, who played Beau Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and the young sailor in A Streetcar Named Desire. And there’s a little quote from yours truly, too. Check it out.
Examiner.com Actress Olivia de Havilland (“Gone With the Wind”, “Robin Hood”) Turns 95
January8th
Saturday morning began at the Marietta GWTW Museum for a little Vivien Leigh Get Together at 9:17 a.m. We met near the Vivien Leigh section of the Museum and I requested that everyone bring something from their collection to ‘show and tell.’ For my ‘show and tell,’ I brought a few publications from the 1960s club called The Vivien Leigh Society. VL fan Robert brought a brooch once owned by Vivien Leigh and Kendra brought her scrapbook full of rare photos. Then Dr. Chris Sullivan, owner of the collection housed in the Museum, provided everyone with an up close and personal tour of the Vivien Leigh cases. I wish, though, it had been a quieter moment so that I could have discussed with everyone our favorite actress in more depth. Next time! I brought every attendee of the get together a DVD copy of The Deep Blue Sea- a rare Vivien Leigh film that was never released on video. It’s always a wonderful experience honoring and discussing the fabulous Vivien Leigh!
The Museum was buzzing! It was packed with Windies and the celebrities. Saturday morning was the final autograph opportunity with the stars and the visiting authors. Dr. Sullivan also provided personalized tours of the Museum to fans. This GWTW Museum is my absolute favorite and I enjoyed looking around– there were new things to look since my last visit in 2007! For example, Dr. Sullivan recently acquired some chairs featured in the film. Specifically, the chairs were from Scarlett’s & Rhett’s house. The one chair you may recognize from the infamous “I’ll put my hands so – one on each side of your head – and I’ll smash your skull between them like a walnut, and that’ll block him out.” If you’ve never visited this treasure trove, you must! Read about it on Vivien-Leigh.com HERE. Since I already had my autograph signing moment, I enjoyed the Museum. I took a ton of photos and enjoyed meeting people in the Museum and the gift shop. For example, I was introduced to Robert Rostermann, a long time Vivien Leigh fan. He was in town from Chicago and he and I had a charming chat on a bench. He told me he was a member of the previously mentioned Vivien Leigh Society (at that point I showed him one of the publications I had brought). He also described to me his experience seeing Vivien Leigh on the stage in Duel of Angels in Chicago (multiple times) and Tovarich (on opening night) on Broadway. He met her backstage a couple times and he even had a drink with her in Chicago- she had never heard of the cocktail named Scarlett O’Hara! He was such a kind man, and he shared many stories with me. I hope to speak with him again in the near future.
After the excitement of the morning, I actually had a few moments of ‘down time.’ I enjoyed a restaurant establishment on the historical Marietta Square for lunch. No big surprise when Robert Osborne was seated near me 30 minutes later. I should note that he had a copy of Herb Bridges’ book Gone with the Wind: The Three Day Premiere in Atlanta. He read it throughout his solo lunch. After lunch I retired to my hotel room at the Marietta Hilton to prepare for the grand finale of the weekend, the Strand’s showing of Gone with the Wind! The big screen showing was preceded by a vintage car parade from the Hilton to the theater. It so happened that I was running late and caught the beginning of the parade at the hotel! I adored seeing all the shiny, classy cars pull up and welcome the stars, authors and special guests. The parade was police escorted so the parade received the royal treatment in Marietta!! I arrived and parked just in time to see the tail end of the parade as it arrived in front of the theater. The red carpet unfurled to greet its VIPs.
Inside the theater, and by ticket only, a special few (it was a sold out event), had the opportunity to wine and dine (on appetizers) with the stars and authors before the big show. It was a splendid last opportunity to speak at length with the friends I made that weekend. The theater seating was assigned and I was not seated next to anyone I knew. I had a second row, aisle seat so big thanks to Connie Sutherland, the GWTW Museum director, for giving me such a fabulous seat! Robert Osborne introduced the film (and told a story about how he met Vivien Leigh backstage) and a special audio recording made by Olivia de Havilland. De Havilland lives in France and was unable to attend the event. I must say that watching GWTW with a room full of fans is unlike anything! Everyone cheered when Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable first appeared and everyone laughed at everything– even things you never thought might have been funny! Aunt Pittypat, for instance, got a laugh anytime she spoke! It was a wonderful experience watching the film with people who appreciate every word and every scene.
Olivia De Havilland addresses the audience via prerecorded audio.
This video hows the inside the theater before the showing of GWTW. The stars are seated in the 2nd row next to me. An organist plays music from the film.
Please note that pictures from the entire weekend can be viewed at Vivien-Leigh.com. Click HERE to view them!
July14th
Olivia de Havilland recently agreed to an interview with a writer from the Independent. It’s a fascinating read and I highly recommend you read it! Olivia talks about Errol Flynn, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine (well not really) and that autobiography she’s been working on for a couple decades.
Golden girl: The divine Olivia de Havilland
With some actresses, it is the eyes. With Olivia de Havilland it is the smile, an elfin grin full of mischief and warmth and compassion, which illuminates scene after scene of one of the best-loved movies of all time, Gone with the Wind.
The marvellous, enigmatic De Havilland grin is still much sought-after on the internet. On YouTube, there are dozens of clips from her movies, mostly in chaste, highly-charged love-scenes with Errol Flynn in the celebrated series of swashbucklers and westerns that they made together in the 1930s and the early 1940s.
Seventy years after Gone with the Wind, 62 years after she won her first Oscar, 100 years after the birth of Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland’s smile is gloriously, impishly intact. “Come and sit on this side of me,” she says. “So that I can hear you better. And I do encourage you to help yourself. Please have at least a sip of champagne.”
Olivia de Havilland was 93 this month. She is the only survivor of the leading cast members of Gone with the Wind. She is the oldest living star from the golden period of Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s. She has lived in Paris for 56 years and has occupied her narrow, pretty, four-storey house near the Bois de Boulogne (houses of any kind are rare in Paris) for more than half a century.
Miss de Havilland agreed to give an interview to The Independent to mark the 70th anniversary of Gone with the Wind and the 100th anniversary of the birth of Errol Flynn. The interview was conducted first by an exchange of e-mail questions and answers and then in person. Both in writing and in speech (she still has the accent of her British parents, with only a trace of California), Miss de Havilland is precise, humorous, warm, only occasionally a little coy.
There is, however, one completely taboo subject: her sister, Joan Fontaine, of which more (but not much more) later. Read More | Comments
June23rd
The lovely Olivia de Havilland is in the news. Read the article below:
Written by Ben Leach for the Telegraph
For the first time – at the age of 92 – Miss de Havilland has confirmed they had a relationship, but one that was not fully consummated.
The double Oscar winner starred with Flynn in his breakthrough film, Captain Blood, in 1935, and seven others, including The Charge Of The Light Brigade in 1936 and The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938.
Despite Miss de Havilland’s earlier denials, decades of speculation suggested she and Flynn had had an affair, due in part to his reputation as a notorious womaniser.
Now she has admitted: “We were very attracted to each other. In his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, he wrote about falling in love with me.
“Yes, we did fall in love and I believe that this is evident in the screen chemistry between us. But his circumstances at the time [Flynn was married to Lili Damita, an actress five years his senior when he met Miss de Havilland] prevented the relationship going further.
“I have not talked about it a great deal but the relationship was not consummated. Chemistry was there though. It was there.”
Miss de Havilland made her comments about Flynn when questioned by Royal Society of Chemistry researchers investigating on-screen chemistry.
Flynn died of a heart attack aged 50 in 1959. He had become stereotyped for swashbuckling roles involving lots of sword fights.
He starred in The Sea Hawk in 1940 and Adventures of Don Juan in 1948 but by the 1950s had succumbed to heavy alcohol and drug abuse.
Miss de Havilland, who won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own in 1946 and The Heiress in 1949, is the last living star of Gone With The Wind from 1939 in which she played Melanie Hamilton Wilkes.
In 1946, she married Marcus Goodrich, a novelist with whom she had a son. They divorced in 1953 and she married Paris Match editor Pierre Galante. After having a daughter they divorced in 1979.
November19th
Olivia de Havilland was honored with the Medal of Arts at a ceremony at The White House yesterday. Both President Bush and his wife Laura were present, and the President placed the medal around Olivia’s neck, acknowledging her contribution to America’s cinema history.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6PsfmJ37Ao]
