While de Havilland’s long life might be over, her storied career will stay, as she so eloquently put it, vibrantly and joyfully alive.
Olivia de Havilland represented a throwback to a bygone era, one of the last vestiges of Hollywood during its glamorous golden age. On screen, her characters held their own opposite Scarlett O’Hara and Robin Hood, appearing in black and white and florid color. Although she was a beautiful, often demure personality in movies, de Havilland exhibited a grit offscreen that might have helped explain her longevity, dying decades after many of her co-stars, at the age of 104. As if to punctuate that point, the actress sued the FX network production of “Feud: Bette and Joan,” a series devoted to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, for its depiction of her as a supporting player, making clear that even as a centenarian, she was not someone with which to trifle. Olivia de Havilland, star of ‘Gone With the Wind,’ dies at 104 De Havilland, famously, had gone to court to protect her rights before, suing Warner Bros. — at the height of her career — after the studio suspended her for demanding more substantial roles and rejecting scripts. Sidelined for the duration of the lawsuit, de Havilland won the case, and in the process struck a blow for the freedom of actors that had been bound by the strictures of the studio system.
