The Unprecedented Bravery of Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland was the last great living female star of the movies’ golden age, in the 1930s and ’40s. She died today at 104 at her home in Paris, and her radiant visage and sinuous voice will haunt audiences for at least another century, whether as Errol Flynn’s blushing Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood, or as her old friend Bette Davis’s scheming foil in the Grand Guignol of Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
Yet de Havilland’s most lasting impact on Hollywood history is lodged not on celluloid but in the less glamorous pages of California’s law books, the result of her risky 1943 decision to sue her bosses at Warner Bros. Pictures. That move destroyed the indentured servitude that was the studio system, and helped pave the way for the modern age of movie stars as
