Main | Monday, December 16, 2013

Actress Joan Fontaine Dies At 96

USA Today has the obituary:
Joan Fontaine, who died Sunday night at age 96 at her home in Carmel, Calif., represented more than an Oscar-winning career spanning almost six decades: She was one of the industry's last living links to Hollywood's golden era of the 1930s and '40s. While she was nominated for two Oscars and won another, she's known as much for her relationships with Hollywood icons including Alfred Hitchcock and sister Olivia de Havilland — a bitter rival. Fontaine, who changed her last name because the family didn't want the two actresses to share one, faced her sister for an Academy Award in 1942, when Fontaine was up for Suspicion, de Havilland for Hold Back the Dawn. Fontaine took the statuette that night, though de Havilland would win two others, for 1949's The Heiress and 1946's To Each His Own. The night of Fontaine's win, she famously rejected her sister's congratulations, and the relationship became so estranged that they stopped speaking. They remain the only siblings to win acting Oscars.

Labels: , ,

comments powered by Disqus

<<Home