Posted on 07/01/2019 4:29:24 PM PDT by fhayek
Given my interest in the stars from yesteryear, I vividly recall a conversation I had with the late TCM film historian Robert Osborne about Gone With the Wind star Olivia de Haviland.
"We speak every Sunday," he told me. "And I would so like to do an on-camera interview with her for TCM. But she would rather be remembered for her illustrious career instead of anyone wondering what she might look like as an older woman."
My conversation with Mr. Osborne, if I remember correctly, was in 2003, which would have made the legendary two-time Oscar winning actress 87 years old at the time.
Today it is my honor, and my privilege, to wish Dame Olivia de Haviland a very Happy Birthday. She turns 103.
Movie fans, of course, will remember de Haviland as Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in 1939 classic Gone With the Wind, which netted the actress her first of five Academy Award nominations. But her initial movie role of prominence was in 1935 swashbuckling pirate film Captain Blood opposite Errol Flynn. Then of note, also pre-Gone With the Wind (and also opposite Errol Flynn), was The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938.
"This was an early Technicolor classic," Osborne said about The Adventures of Robin Hood during our memorable conversation. "It was the film that really was the best looking color film of the 1930s; more so than The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. It just never got the credit it deserves."
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Mine also.
Heart attack for me when I saw the name. Thought it would say she died!
What a great lady. A very great lady.
Wow!
Really don’t want to see what she looks like today. I want to remember her as she was in the film.
As of this spring Beverly Cleary is also 103.
Melanie was my image of the Southern lady. Beautiful, kind, forgiving, full of grace gentle and if she had to she would fight you to the death.
Pretty much like my Mother and I am serious.
:)
She is SO GREAT in GWTW. Her in that movie and Sean Adams in The Lord of the Rings are the two best film performances I’ve ever seen. They made those unbelievable characters, Melanie and Sam Gamgee perfectly real and understandable
It’s Sean Astin.
“But not ONCE, was the name Margaret Mitchell mentioned during the ceremony...”
That omission was because, as we say in the South, “She ain’t from around here.”
In this context (the Academy Awards) “here” was Hollywood.
Margaret Mitchell was from some podunk place in Flyover Country.... Atlanta, Georgia.
What could she possibly know about the War of Northern Aggression... er, I mean the Civil War?
/S
Actually, the last picture I saw of her, she was still lovely. White hair, of course, but still very attractive.
WELL SAID
Yours, TMN78247
More than an actress, or a beauty - she is a hero. She, like Reagan, stood up to the Commies when they tried to take over Hollywood in 1946.
She’ll always be Maid Marian opposite Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
In my mind too
The horse that Olivia rode in the movie was later sold to Roy Rogers and renamed Trigger.
A more recent (1960s) movie that I love her in is Light in the Piazza. Olivia is perfect as Yvette Mimieux mom.
She and her sister were members at a local Vitaphone Theater in Saratoga, CA, years ago: showed old films, run by a silver screen gaffer and Ziegfield Follies dancer from old Hollywood.
She and Fontaine grew up in Saratoga and attended Los Gatos High.
Charlton Heston and some others were members too.
The theater was in a WWII quonset hut. It had a vintage Wurlitzer organ. They got museum archive copies of old films, and the old couple had a soda fountain, and trivia contests. It was a lot of fun.
One of my favorite movies as well.
A very Happy Birthday to her-- Glad to know she is still with us.
My all time favorite movie. I bet I have seen it 25 times. Wonderful!
She was in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte- another of my favorites.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.