Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine dead at 96

Hollywood feud

The sisters were said to have stopped speaking altogether in 1975 after their mother died of cancer. Fontaine said de Havilland had not invited her to the memorial service but her sister claimed Fontaine had said she was too busy to attend.

"I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it," Fontaine was quoted as telling the Hollywood Reporter in 1978, according to the Washington Post.

Fontaine was born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland to British parents in Tokyo on October 22, 1917. In Hollywood she took her stepfather's surname to avoid being confused with the already-established Olivia.

Her first movie role was as Joan Crawford's rival in "No More Ladies" in 1935. It was two years, however, before she returned to the screen in a small role in "Quality Street," starring Katharine Hepburn. That was followed by roles in "A Damsel in Distress" opposite Fred Astaire and "Gunga Din" with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Cary Grant.

Fontaine was ready to quit movies until a dinner party conversation with producer David O. Selznick, who encouraged her to test for Hitchcock's "Rebecca." Her role as Olivier's shy second wife was a touching performance that brought her enormous attention.

Fontaine often fought with Hollywood studio executives who suspended her for rejecting assigned roles, but she was determined to play willful women instead of waifs.

She found the roles she wanted in films such as "Jane Eyre" opposite Orson Welles in 1944 and "The Affairs of Susan" in 1945, one of her best pictures, in which she plays a woman as seen through the eyes of four suitors.

In 1957, Fontaine caught the spotlight again as a white woman loved by a black man, played by Harry Belafonte, in "Island in the Sun." Critics praised her for "Tender Is the Night," but by the mid-1960s her film career was over.

Her last feature film performance was in the 1966 horror picture "The Witches." She earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for a 1980 guest spot on the television soap opera "Ryan's Hope" and made her final small-screen appearance in the TV movie "Good King Wenceslas."

She was married to British actor Brian Aherne, producer William Dozier, screenwriter-producer Collier Young and sports writer Alfred Wright Jr. She had two daughters.

In her memoirs, Fontaine maintained she repeatedly turned down marriage proposals from multimillionaire Howard Hughes, as well as offers to be the mistress of Joseph Kennedy and other political figures.

In later years she avidly tended her gardens and doted on her dogs, who numbered as many as five and were taken in from animal rescue agencies. Fontaine was also known for being exceptionally gracious to fans, answering correspondence and indulging autograph requests until shortly before her death.