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Sisters at War

Fontaine vs. de Havilland: Aging Hollywood legends keep the feud alive

by Peter Gilstrap
Posted May 16th, 6:00am | Celeb/Entertainment

Presumably it’s something more than just mutual hatred that’s kept golden-era screen legends Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine alive into their 90s, but, after all these years, the grumpy grand dames are still stoking the feuding flame. Oh, and they’re sisters.

The bitch fest that refuses to die got a shot of life support this month when the Academy of Motion Pictures invited the siblings to attend a party for the late Bette Davis’s 100th birthday; the actress knew and worked with both sisters, who can’t even be in the same room together, let alone the same country. So…when Paris-based Olivia said she couldn’t make it due to the distance, Joan, who lives in Carmel, California agreed to attend. Then Olivia changed her mind, so Joan bailed.

Hollywood legend says the whole thing dates back about 70 years when they were both up for the starring role in Hitchcock’s Rebecca, and Joan got it. At the 1946 Oscars, Joan presented Olivia with a Best Actress award, yet the pouty winner refused to shake her sister’s hand. There’ve been plenty more hissing matches over the decades—including blowing off their mother’s memorial service in ‘75—but it seems it’s really a case of childhood sibling rivalry.

As Joan wrote after yet another Oscar night showdown, “The hair-pulling, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia fractured my collar bone, all came rushing back in kaleidoscopic imagery. My paralysis was total...I felt age four, being confronted by my older sister. Damn it! I had incurred her wrath again.”

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