Heiress Olivia

Sipping tea with Hollywood royalty

A A A Comments By David Thomson Wednesday, Jun 7 2006

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She did stage. In time, she and Goodrich divorced and she married Pierre Galante, the editor of Paris Match. They had a daughter, Giselle, and Havilland began to live in Paris. She worked occasionally — as late as the 1980s she played the Queen Mother in a version of the Princess Diana story. Alas, the special son died too young. Then Havilland nursed her second husband as he died. She has known the ups and downs, and she has proved herself made of steel.

She will be honored at the Academy on June 15 in a program of clips and talk, with her old friend Robert Osborne from Turner Classic Movies, followed by an 11-film retrospective at the Academy and LACMA. It will be a great occasion, for surely the Academy has no member so illustrious or senior. Unless it is her sister, Joan Fontaine. Their rivalry is buried in the mists of time now, and there's no need to take sides. It is comic but tragic, and one day it may make a masterpiece, like The Duellists. But I ask how things stand with Joan now. “How shall I put it?” she says to herself. “Well, let’s just say they stand still.” Maid Marian never needed armor. She came equipped by nature.

De Havilland to Errol Flynn: ''I want respect for difficult work well done.'' (Photo by Kevin Scanlon)

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A TRIBUTE TO OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND | At the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art | June 15-July 1 | See Film & Video Events for ?more info.

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