The major works of her cinematic career spanned from to At the time of her death in at age , she was the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and was widely considered as being the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Her younger sister, with whom she had a noted rivalry well documented in the media, [ 2 ] was Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine.
One of her best-known roles is that of Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind , for which she received her first of five Oscar nominations, the only one for Best Supporting Actress. She was also successful in work on stage and television.
In addition to her film career, de Havilland continued her work in the theatre, appearing three times on Broadway , in Romeo and Juliet , Candida , and A Gift of Time For her contributions to the motion picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She and her sister remain the only siblings to have won major acting Academy Awards.
By birth, Olivia was a member of the de Havilland family , which belonged to landed gentry that originated from mainland Normandy. Lilian and Walter met in Japan in and married the following year; [ 7 ] the marriage was not a happy one, owing in part to Walter's infidelities. Both sisters became British subjects automatically by birthright. In February , Lilian persuaded her husband to take the family back to Britain for a climate better suited to their ailing daughters.
Olivia was raised to appreciate the arts, beginning with ballet lessons at the age of four and piano lessons a year later. In , a teenage de Havilland made her debut in amateur theatre in Alice in Wonderland , a production of the Saratoga Community Players based on the novel by Lewis Carroll. After graduating from high school in , de Havilland was offered a scholarship to Mills College in Oakland to pursue her chosen career as an English teacher.
