Gone With the Wind' star Olivia de Havilland dies at 104
Olivia de Havilland, classic star of Hollywood and two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress, died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Paris, France on Saturday. She was 104.
De Havilland built her legacy — one of strong, beguiling characters in difficult circumstances — with her own hands. She rose to prominence in the 1930s as Errol Flynn’s imperiled lass in a series of swashbuckling adventure films like Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Typically, she’d be bound up and carried away, only to be saved by the hero and ensnared once more in the ties of matrimony. But in her own life, de Havilland refused to wait for the calvary. Confident in her abilities and wary of being typecast as the damsel in distress, she waged a legal battle against Warner Bros. when the studio tried to extend her seven-year contract as a penalty for refusing roles. She eventually won, swooping in and saving herself in a landmark ruling that is still known today as the “de Havilland law.”
just another day
