Joan Fontaine: biography, films and interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:45

Actress Joan Fontaine has lived a long and eventful life, played in many films. Despite not meeting Hollywood standards, she was a success thanks to her amazing ability to get used to the role. Her biography is interesting and in many ways instructive.

Family and childhood

The future actress Joan Fontaine was born in 1917 in the Japanese capital - Tokyo, in a special quarter for foreigners. The real name of the girl is Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland. The girl's parents were we althy people:

• father lawyer W alter Augustus de Havilland;
• mother - Lilian Augusta Ryuz - theater actress.

Joan also had an older sister, Olivia, whose rivalry can be traced throughout her life.

The girl was not in good he alth and was constantly ill, so in 1919, having divorced her husband, Lillian moved the children to the USA, where Joan began to feel much better.

At the age of 15, the future actress moves to Japan, wherelives with his father for two years. Returning to the US, she learns that Olivia has become a famous actress and decides to do everything possible to surpass her.

Career start

Joan's decision to become an actress was coolly received by the family. Her mother forbade her to use her own surname, since the name of Olivia Havilland was already widely known to the public. Therefore, the girl had to use the creative pseudonym of her mother, Fontaine. The aspiring actress received her first role in the theatrical production Name This Day, which was the beginning of her success. Representatives of the film company drew attention to Joan Fontaine and she made her film debut. The first works of the beginning star are as follows:

• "Only without the ladies."
• "Girl suffering".

The paintings did not bring the girl any fame or any awards.

First success

In 1943, Joan Fontaine becomes an American citizen. Luck begins to accompany her: having decided to audition for a minor role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, the aspiring actress unexpectedly gets the main role. This work was Fontaine's first success, but it is known that she had a hard time. Hitchcock noticed that Joan's partner, Laurence Olivier, clearly did not sympathize with the actress and caused her timidity. The director made the entire film crew treat her badly. As a result, the character of Fontaine turned out to be frightened and unsure of herself, which, of course, benefited the picture.

Work with Hitchcock continued, Joan Fontaine playedin his next film, Suspicion, where Cary Grant, who was famous at that time, became the partner of the actress.

The film won several Oscars, Joan herself received the coveted statuette in the Best Actress nomination. She finally got ahead of Olivia.

Follow-up work

The forties of the last century - the heyday of the career of Joan Fontaine. She starred in the following films:

• "Above all".
• Jane Eyre.
• “Letter from a stranger.”

In the 50s, her career gradually declined, however, even in these years, the actress played several good roles in the films:

• "Bigamist".
• "Beyond a reasonable doubt."
• Tea and Sympathy production, which received a lot of positive reviews.

The sixties are the time of theatrical activity in the biography of Joan Fontaine, she played in several productions: "Cactus Flower", "The Lion in Winter". The last of the well-known films of the actress - "Witches" (1966), a horror film, where Joan played the role of a teacher. After that, she did not return to the big screen.

Last years of life

Until 1994, the actress worked on television, her most famous roles in the television films "Dark Mansions", "Good Lion Vaclav", the series "Ryan's Hope".

At the end of her career, Joan Fontaine led a secluded life in a small American town, devoting all her time to taking care of her dogs. The actress died in 2013age 96.

Husbands and marriages

Of particular interest is the personal life of Joan Fontaine and her relationship with her husbands. The actress has been married several times:

1. In 1939, she tied her life with actor Brian Ahern, but after a long disagreement, the couple divorced in 1945.
2. 1946 - Marriage to producer William Dosier. There is a joint daughter. The couple separated in 1949, but officially divorced in 1951
3. The actress's marriage to Collier Young continued for eight years, they were together from 1952 to 1960
4. In 1964, Fonteyn married Alfred Wright Jr., but they separated in 1969.

The actress has only one daughter, but in 1951 Joan became the legal guardian of a four-year-old girl from Peru - Martita. The poor parents agreed to the adoption so that she would receive a normal education, which her relatives themselves could not give her. At the age of 16, the girl was supposed to return back, but she did not want this and ran away.

Interesting facts

Joan Fontaine's films are being reviewed to this day and loved by fans of the Golden Age of Hollywood. But not everyone knows some facts from her biography:

1. Fontaine did not attend her own mother's funeral for an unknown reason. After that, the sisters finally stopped talking.
2. When Joan received her Oscar statuette, Olivia tried to congratulate her, but she ignored her sister's prompting.
3. During World War IIalready a well-known actress worked as an assistant to nurses, repeatedly supported the soldiers in radio appearances.
4. Actress Joan Fontaine was by nature a strong and strong-willed woman, but in the movies the image of a vulnerable, feminine and touching girl was firmly stuck to her. Despite all the efforts, the actress failed to get away from him.

Joan Fontaine is an amazing woman whose desire to annoy her sister and prove her superiority made her achieve amazing success.