Olivia de Havilland is gone. She celebrated her birthday on July 1, 2020 with the world sincerely incredulous about her age of 104. A few days after her birthday, she was shown on a bike in her elegant neighborhood and the world was happy: the legend was alright and, noted, eternally beautiful. On July 26, her publicist announced the sad news: Dame Olivia de Havilland had passed on in her Parisian maison, like all those beauties of lore, in her sleep.
With the demise of de Havilland was also the passing of an age—that period when actresses and actors were called “stars.” Unreachable, these denizens of Hollywood were full of mystery and allure. They were almost not mortals and the studios made sure they remained so in the perception of fans and moviegoers.
Born in Tokyo, Olivia de Havilland carried the name of her father. That name was not manufactured; it belonged to her as that magnificent face belonged to her alone. Biographies of the actress always point to her as a thin ingénue but our memories—for they are many but consistent—of de Havilland began with a classic, Gone with the Wind. This was the biggest film project of the era. It was 1939 and, as they say, there were more stars in Hollywood (or in Warner Bros. or in MGM) than in heaven. It was a hyperbole born of witticism but when big stars who, by our current standard would be divas, fought for the roles in Margaret Mitchell’s sprawling tale of the South, eyebrows raised and eyes squinted amounted to extra-terrestrial battle. Between Clark Gable’s Rhett and Vivien Leigh’s Scarlet, there was Melanie played with such unforgettable gentility and loveliness by Olivia de Havilland. Leigh would win the Oscar for Best Actress, with Hattie McDaniel setting the record of the first black woman to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. No mention of the film is worth any film historian’s book, however, without mentioning the name of de Havilland.
It would take seven years before Olivia de Havilland would win her first Oscar for the film To Each His Own. She would be receiving nominations after that and again win as Best Actress for The Snake Pit, this time from the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics. She would win the Oscar again in 1949 for The Heiress. This was an extraordinary feat for actresses. She appeared on Broadway, as well. In the 1950s, she moved to Paris where she would stay till the end came.
Olivia de Havilland remained active even after she gained French citizenship, her third after being British and American.
She became active in television. For her appearance in the 1986 miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Movie or series.
The thing I remember most about Olivia de Havilland is that recorded appearance she made for a TV show, called This is Your Life, featuring Bette Davis. Unexpected, she flew in from Paris just to greet Bette, her good friend. From offstage, that famous contralto floated: “The first time I saw Bette Davis, she scared the daylight out of me.” Then out came de Havilland. Davis stood with her trademark arms on the waist, her legs spread apart, dominant. They embraced, with Davis exclaiming in that flamboyant inflection, “Oh my god, you look marvelous!” De Havilland indeed looked marvelous and even as she held on to her mock complaint about how she was terrified of this other diva, it was clear, Olivia de Havilland was a star in her own right.
Last month, on June 18, 2020, another Dame passed away. She was Vera Lynn, the singer whose wartime heroism as singer-entertainer for servicemen earned her the name “Forces’ Sweetheart.”
Vera Lynn was just barely starting with her career as a band singer in 1939 when Britain entered World War II. She was quoted as having sighed: “Oh, there goes my career.” Her worries were unfounded, for Vera Lynn became the most famous British entertainer during those days of bombing and destructions.
The year of the beginning of war would be the time she would record the song “We’ll Meet Again.” The song would go on to become the anthem of the generation that faced the cruelty of loss and separation and eventual reunion for the fated ones. On her death, BBC described Vera Lynn as the symbol of resilience and hope.
She would record many other songs during and after the war, like the “White Cliffs of Dover,” “You’ll Never Know” and “I’ll Be Seeing You.” Her voice a combination of the sweetness of a crooner, the brassiness of a vaudeville performer, and the lower notes hinting of a torch singer made those sentimental songs even more affecting.
Thanks to YouTube, we can now catch Vera Lynn’s performances at many points of her long, golden career. We see how she changes the rendition of her songs. We are also witness to how indeed she became a hero with what she described as her duty to sing to “servicemen and all those people who went through the war.” The VE (Victory of Europe) Day observed on May 8 each year was never complete without her.
In 2009, she was interviewed for another achievement: after 70 years, her record “The Very Best of Vera Lynn” made it to Top 20 immediately upon its release. After a few weeks, it made to No. 1 in the British chart. According to Britclip, it surpassed Arctic Monkey and the Beatles.
During her funeral, people lined up along the street going to the church for the final rites. Two World War II planes flew over in graceful arcs as the cortege passed by her village. And as the procession moved on with the representatives from the Royal British Legion, the crowd bidding goodbye Dame Vera Lynn erupted into the song “We’ll Meet Again,” poignant again but a powerful farewell to a woman who was once called “common.”