Althouse: "I would like respect for difficult work, well done."

July 26, 2020

"I would like respect for difficult work, well done."

Said Olivia de Havilland.

38 comments:

DavidUW said...: 104 and looks like she was active at least through 103.

Nice.; 7/26/20, 12:44 PM
gspencer said...: "difficult work, well done"

Okay, but "acting" doesn't meet that descriptor.; 7/26/20, 12:48 PM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/26/20, 12:51 PM
Fernandinande said...: We used to visit Olivia de Javelina and Gregory Peccary at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Small world.; 7/26/20, 12:52 PM
Ken B said...: The last big star of the 30s and 40s. Sad to see her go.
Norman Lloyd is still alive but was never a big star.; 7/26/20, 12:57 PM
wild chicken said...: acting" doesn't meet that descriptor.

Actually they worked pretty hard under the old studio system. Very long hot days with lots of hurry up and wait.; 7/26/20, 1:13 PM
chickelit said...: Geoffrey de Havilland, designer of early aircraft, was a cousin.; 7/26/20, 1:17 PM
Michael K said...: Nice tribute to her by Ron Radosh today. n She broke the stranglehold of the communists on Hollywood.; 7/26/20, 1:20 PM
rcocean said...: Its astounding she lived as long as she did. 104, wow. She'll always be remembered for GWTW and maybe Adventures of Robin Hood. I liked her best in "The Strawberry Blonde" a forgotten comedy. She also was responsible for the Dehaviland law limiting service contracts to 7 calendar years:

In response, actress Olivia de Havilland, backed by the Screen Actors Guild, filed a lawsuit on August 23, 1943 against Warner Bros..[4] Warner Bros. had typecast de Havilland as an ingénue, but she strongly preferred the other kinds of roles she had been given when she had been able to convince the studio to loan her out to other studios.[5] The lawsuit resulted in a landmark decision of the California Court of Appeal for the Second District in de Havilland's favor on December 8, 1944.

Then, as now, the Calf Legislature had been bought off by Big money interests, and it took a lawsuit to change the law. It had been 2 years, before Hollywood bribed them to increase it to 7.; 7/26/20, 1:20 PM
rcocean said...: She, Joan Fontaine, Eleanor Parker, Greer Garson, Margaret Sullivan, Jennifer Jones, and Susan Hayward who were great stars in their day but seem to be forgotten now. You really need to either be a big personality like Betty Grable or Monroe, or star in some great Classic film for people to remember you.

Brando had the luck to star in the Godfather, Streetcar, and On the Waterfront. Otherwise, I don't many would remember him.; 7/26/20, 1:28 PM
Original Mike said...: I've had a crush on her my entire life.; 7/26/20, 1:37 PM
Readering said...: With Brit OdH departing, the last of the Golden Age movie legends are Italian Sophia Loren (85) and Bahamian Sidney Poitier (93). May they both live long.; 7/26/20, 1:47 PM
rcocean said...: Thanks Dr.K. I didn't know that. Nice link. It could be her relative obscurity is due to her tangling with the Commies. Those assholes never forgive and never forget.

And the friends of the Commies never went away. That's why so many blacklisted/grey listed communists popped back in the late 60's and 70s and got all kind awards and jobs. Its amazing how often I'll watch some Academy Award nominated actor/actress from the 40s, 60s, 70s and think "why were they nominated?" and then look them up...and... yep, they're either communists or communist sympathizers.; 7/26/20, 1:48 PM
Ken B said...: “ She broke the stranglehold of the communists on Hollywood”

Gspencer's dis explained?; 7/26/20, 1:53 PM
Joe Smith said...: I am amazed at how skilled actors can make us feel...immerse us in a story. But it is a skill and a talent, and rarely requires work that most people would characterize as 'difficult.'; 7/26/20, 2:00 PM
n.n said...: If not you, then someone, anyone else. Embrace diversity dogma.; 7/26/20, 2:03 PM
Joan said...: Great link, Michael K. Thanks!; 7/26/20, 2:04 PM
Drago said...: Michael K: "She broke the stranglehold of the communists on Hollywood."

Her speech at HICCASP in late 45 (or was it 46?) was written by commie Dalton Trumbo and naturally sucked up to the Soviets so De Havilland simply read her own speech which blew the commies out of the water.

That was the breaking point for a lot of democrat anti-communists of the time, including Reagan.; 7/26/20, 2:20 PM
Wince said...: What stuck me most about the Ron Radosh tribute linked above were the parallels with the rhetoric and political spin of today. Excerpts:

The new anti-American [Communist Party] line quickly spread through the ranks of HICAASP. A June 1945 report to its board announced that Hollywood’s major problem was “reactionary elements” in the government who were using the Nazi tactics of “divide and conquer"...

By October 1945, Dorner was trying to get the organization to turn against the new President... Echoing the Communist line that Truman was ushering in fascism to the United States, she told the board that they were duty bound to oppose the “incipient native fascism” coming from the Truman... and show the public that there was no longer any “democratic purpose” to U.S. foreign policy.

Speaking to HICCASP the following month, Communist screenwriter John Howard Lawson told its members that the United States was starting to “strangle democracy everywhere,” and that this had to be the group’s sole issue. The Soviet Union had demonstrated that it had a peaceful policy, he told them, while the U.S. was “building up fascist forces in the Far East.”

The break between the liberals and Communists finally came in a major speech delivered to HICAASP by Olivia de Havilland, who was also a member, at a Seattle rally in 1946.

It had been written for her by the Party’s most prolific and highest-paid screenwriter, the legendary Dalton Trumbo... He gave de Havilland the draft of his speech, in which she would tell the HICAASP audience in Seattle that Americans had to condemn “the drive of certain interests toward a war against the Soviet Union,” and that the Truman administration’s policy was one supporting union-busting, anti-Semitism and bigotry against racial minorities.

Without telling anyone in advance, de Havilland, horrified by the words Trumbo wanted her to mouth—went to the podium, and substituted a speech of her own. In it she underlined the significant differences between those she termed genuine liberals and Hollywood Communists...

She was brave in breaking ranks so publicly. Communists controlled the Screenwriter’s Guild and were influential in the Screen Actors Guild as well, and were known to avoid giving roles to actors or scripts to writers whom they considered “fascist”. Moreover, in breaking so publicly, she risked losing associates and friends who thought the Hollywood Reds were just “liberals in a hurry” and sincere anti-fascists — many of whom would ostracize someone they considered to be a “Red-baiter.”

Trumbo exploded in a fit of rage when he heard what de Havilland had done.... “One fifth of the speech” she gave, he complained, was a “denunciation of Communism” with no mention of the danger of “fascism” and no trace of “my unfriendly references to it.” By omitting his pro-Soviet words, Trumbo wrote, the speech had degenerated into an exercise in “Red-baiting”...; 7/26/20, 2:32 PM
MayBee said...: I saw her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and her hand prints were so very tiny. She must have been a tiny woman.

gspencer- acting isn't hard like construction hard or hauling bags of cement hard, but it really is physically challenging work and it can be hard. You are on your feet a lot, you have very long days. It can be emotionally draining. Obviously, there's a lot of downtime in between jobs, but that's hard too. Auditions can be soul crushing.

So while nobody is going to throw a pity party for actors, I don't agree with saying it isn't hard work.; 7/26/20, 2:48 PM
Michael K said...: Her speech at HICCASP in late 45 (or was it 46?) was written by commie Dalton Trumbo and naturally sucked up to the Soviets so De Havilland simply read her own speech which blew the commies out of the water.

Yup and she did not tell anyone before the speech. Present day commies did a fiction movie about Trumbo a few years ago.; 7/26/20, 2:54 PM
PM said...: She and Flynn were great. Her performance in the The Heiress is terrific.; 7/26/20, 3:03 PM
John Althouse Cohen said...: When you say “acting isn’t difficult,” I read “I have no experience with acting.” Just memorizing the lines is a huge challenge, yet not the biggest challenge for an actor.

She didn’t say she wants to do the most difficult or physically demanding work ever, just “difficult” work.

From her Wikipedia article (which I link to in the first sentence of my post which this post links to):

De Havilland was praised for her performance as Virginia Cunningham in Anatole Litvak's drama The Snake Pit (1948), one of the first films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness and an important exposé of the harsh conditions in state mental hospitals, according to film critic Philip French.[184] Based on a novel by Mary Jane Ward and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, the film is about a woman placed in a mental institution by her husband to help her recover from a nervous breakdown.[185] Virginia Cunningham was one of the most difficult of all her film roles, requiring significant preparation both mentally and physically‍—‌she deliberately lost weight to help create her gaunt appearance on screen.[186] She consulted regularly with psychiatrists hired as consultants for the film, and visited Camarillo State Mental Hospital to research her role and observe the patients. The extreme physical discomfort of the hydrotherapy and simulated electric shock therapy scenes were especially challenging for the slight 5-foot-3-inch (160 cm) actress....

[She said:]

I met a young woman who was very much like Virginia, about the same age and physical description, as well as being a schizophrenic with guilt problems. ... What struck me most of all was the fact that she was rather likable and appealing. It hadn't occurred to me before that a mental patient could be appealing, and it was that that gave me the key to the performance.; 7/26/20, 3:05 PM
walter said...: That's raaaaaaaacist!; 7/26/20, 3:07 PM
traditionalguy said...: Mellie Hamilton was the true southern lady in GWTW. The fighting Scarlet Ohara was the star , but DeHavilland's Melanie played a 100% female in her role.; 7/26/20, 3:44 PM
Rory said...: "The Snake Pit (1948)"

Bullwinkle made a joke about Olivia and a snake pit. I didn't understand it until I was forty.; 7/26/20, 3:49 PM
Michael K said...: "The Snake Pit" was one of two movies that led significantly to the deinstitutionalization movement and has resulted in the "homeless" crisis. It was NOT representative of the mental institutions once chlorpromazine was available.; 7/26/20, 4:05 PM
mikee said...: The first time I kissed the woman who has been my wife for 33+ years, I was helped along by Olivia DeHavilland. In a bit of originality, as a date I borrowed a friend's car, a restored 240Z convertible, to drive this young woman to a local restaurant famous for its breakfasts. Early on a rainy Saturday morning, we ate well, then took a drive up and down a winding mountain road, enjoying the spring weather as the clouds cleared. We ended up at my basement apartment off campus, and switched on the TV while we talked onthe sofa. Near the end of the movie Robin Hood, Errol Flynn, swashbuckled his way to victory over the vile Sir John, Basil Rathbone, and reunited with the lovely Maid Marion, Olivia DeHavilland. We turned to each other and kissed along with the two stars, and failed to take any note of the rest of the movie.

And to think, we almost watched a bit of the Road Runner instead. Beep, beep, indeed.; 7/26/20, 4:11 PM
Bilwick said...: Just read the article Instapundit linked to about De Havilland versus the Commies, partiucularly Dalton Trumbo. I'm guessing nothing of this incident found its way into the Trumbo biopic.; 7/26/20, 4:13 PM
Original Mike said...: @mikee - I love that movie.; 7/26/20, 4:38 PM
Ken B said...: Rcocean
Those actresses were all bigger stars than Katherine Hepburn, but she's the name that lasted. Partly because of better movies, but not entirely.; 7/26/20, 5:00 PM
eddie willers said...: Partly because of better movies

I watched Chinatown last night and thought, "Faye Dunaway was not that good of an actress, but boy, could she pick the movies to be in!".; 7/26/20, 6:12 PM
BUMBLE BEE said...: So, acting is a lot like running a press in a stamping plant, without the "down time".; 7/26/20, 6:32 PM
Narr said...: She was no Ava Gardner.

Narr
But she was a Dame; 7/26/20, 6:56 PM
Michael K said...: I watched Chinatown last night and thought, "Faye Dunaway was not that good of an actress, but boy, could she pick the movies to be in!".

I showed my kids "The Thomas Crown Affair" a few years ago and they could not believe how good it was.; 7/26/20, 8:00 PM
gpm said...: >>Errol Flynn, swashbuckled his way to victory over the vile Sir John, Basil Rathbone

I believe that would be Guy of Guisborne)sp?). Fits in with you're not paying any attention . . .

--gpm; 7/26/20, 9:19 PM
Prairie Wrench said...: “I can't stand an actor or actress who tells me acting is hard work. It's easy work. Anyone who says it isn't never had to stand on his feet all day dealing blackjack.”
-Dean Martin; 7/27/20, 12:36 PM
Jim said...: Sigh. More of my world has evaporated.

RIP, Olivia.; 7/27/20, 3:52 PM