Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress best known for her roles in Hollywood films 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 and in Gunga Din. Her career prospects improved greatly after her starring role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, 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. A third nomination came with The Constant Nymph. She appeared mostly in drama films through the 1940s, including Letter from an Unknown Woman and the comedy You Gotta Stay Happy, 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, 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, and her final film role in The Witches, 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.
Early life
Joan de Beauvoir deHavilland was born on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo City, in the then Empire of Japan, to English parents. Her father, Walter de Havilland, 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, 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, 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 deHavilland, 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 deHavilland moved Joanreportedly a sickly child who had developed anaemia following a combined attack of the measles and a streptococcal infectionand 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.
Career
Fontaine made her stage debut in the West Coast production of Call It a Day and made her film debut in MGM's No More Ladies, in which she was credited as Joan Burfield. She was leading lady to Bruce Bennett in a low-budget independent film, A Million to One.RKO
Fontaine signed a contract with RKO Pictures. Her first film for the studio was Quality Street 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 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 with Preston Foster and Music for Madame 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. 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.
Edward Small borrowed her to play Louis Hayward's love interest in The Duke of West Point, then Stevens used her at RKO in Gunga Din 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 but her part was small. George Cukor gave her a small role in MGM's The Women.
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.File:Cary Grant Joan Fontaine Suspicion.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Fontaine and Cary Grant in promotional still for Suspicion ''Rebecca, 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, 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.
20th Century Fox borrowed her to appear opposite Tyrone Power in This Above All 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.
During the war Fontaine occasionally worked as a nurse's aide.
File:Arturo de Córdova and Joan Fontaine, Frenchman's Creek.jpg|thumb|Fontaine with Arturo de Córdova in Frenchman's Creek
She starred in the film Frenchman's Creek. Like Rebecca, this was based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier. Fontaine personally considered Frenchman's Creek one of her least favorites among the films she starred in.
Selznick wanted to cast her in I'll Be Seeing You but she refused, saying she was "sick of playing the sad sack". Selznick suspended her for eight months. Eventually she went back to work in The Affairs of Susan for Hal Wallis at Paramount, her first comedy. She returned to RKO for From This Day Forward''.
Rampart Productions
In August 1946 Fontaine set up her own company, Rampart Productions, with her then-husband William Dozier. Her contract with Selznick ended in February 1947 and Fontaine would work exclusively for Rampart apart from one film a year for RKO.Their first film was Ivy, a thriller where she played an unsympathetic part.
Fontaine also appeared in Letter from an Unknown Woman directed by Max Ophüls, produced by John Houseman and co-starring Louis Jourdan. It was made by Rampart Productions and released through Universal. It is today considered to be a classic with one of the finest performances of her career.
At Paramount, she appeared opposite Bing Crosby in Billy Wilder's The Emperor Waltz then went to Universal for another film for Rampart, You Gotta Stay Happy, a comedy with James Stewart.
Fontaine starred in Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, with Burt Lancaster, Nathan Juran and Bernard Herzbrun. Art directors, and set decorators created thirty blocks of huge sets to represent the waterfront district of London's East End in this successful film noir. At Paramount she did September Affair with Joseph Cotten for Wallis, Darling, How Could You! and Something to Live For, a third film with George Stevens. At RKO she was a femme fatale in Born to Be Bad.
MGM hired Fontaine to play the love interest in Ivanhoe, a big success. She was reunited with Jourdan in Decameron Nights then went to Paramount for the low-budget Flight to Tangier with Jack Palance.
Film, TV, and theatre
Fontaine made The Bigamist, directed by Ida Lupino. She began appearing in TV shows such as Four Star Playhouse, Ford Theatre, Star Stage, The 20th Century Fox Hour, The Joseph Cotten Show, and General Electric Theater.She won good reviews for her role on Broadway in 1954 as Laura in Tea and Sympathy, playing the role originated by Deborah Kerr. She appeared opposite Anthony Perkins and toured the show for a few months.
She was Bob Hope's leading lady in Casanova's Big Night, then supported Mario Lanza in Serenade. She was in Fritz Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt at RKO.
Fontaine had a big hit with Island in the Sun having a romance with Harry Belafonte. At MGM she appeared with Jean Simmons and Paul Newman in Until They Sail then she made A Certain Smile at Fox.