Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

(Dame) Olivia de Havilland

Actress

Born - 1 July 1916, Tokyo, Japan
Died - 26 July 2020

Dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet-faced, notably long-lived Hollywood star actress, who began her star career at 19 and remained one of the most appealing 'ladyes fayre' in Hollywood action yarns throughout the 1930s, before proving herself a serious actress to be reckoned with in the following decade, during which she won two Oscars for Best Actress, plus two more nominations (to follow the one she had received for Gone With the Wind [1939]). Middle age became her, but neither films nor TV made the most of her talents in her later years. The sister of actress Joan Fontaine (also an Oscar-winner), Olivia made her film debut in Alibi Ike (1935) and was seldom off screen for the next 20 years: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Captain Blood (1935), Anthony Adverse (1936), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Great Garrick (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Dodge City (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), They Died With Their Boots On (1941), The Male Animal (1942), In This Our Life (1942), Devotion (1943, released 1946), The Dark Mirror (1946), To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), The Heiress (1949), My Cousin Rachel (1952), That Lady (1955), Not As a Stranger (1955), The Ambassador's Daughter (1956), The Proud Rebel (1958), Libel! (1959), Light in the Piazza (1962), Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Adventurers (1970), Pope Joan (1972), Airport '77 (1977), Behind the Iron Mask/The Fifth Musketeer (1977, released 1979), The Swarm (1978), her last, and more. Twice married and divorced, she remains famous not only for her acting achievements, but for winning a 1943-45 court case against her then-studio (Warner Brothers) over having her contract extended for rejecting roles - it cost her two years of her film career. Created Dame in 2017, she died from natural causes, in Paris, her home since the mid-1950s.