Hollywood Knitting - Olivia de Haviland
Posted by Kelli Ladwig on
My foray into Robin Hood got me thinking about Olivia de Havilland. Here she is as Melanie Wilkes crocheting and reading to the sewing circle in Gone with the Wind. 1939 was a great year for movies, wasn't it?
De Havilland was born in Tokyo to English parents in 1916. She played many memorable roles alongside Errol Flynn including the beloved The Adventures of Robin Hood.
I loved her in The Heiress, a movie made in 1949 at Paramount Studios. She won an Academy Award for this picture. You may not be aware that until this point she had been a contract player at Warner Brothers and had sent some time suspended for rejecting roles she felt were too light. In 1943, she took the studio to court over the restrictions on contract players and won in a landmark California Supreme Court decision. It is called the de Havilland law to this day.
De Havilland is still with us and is one of the last three surviving cast members of Robin Hood and the last surviving major role actor from Gone with the Wind. By the way, her sister was Joan Fontaine.
#tbt #mcknittey #consciouslycrafting #hollywoodknitting