Social Entertainment / People

Joan Fontaine

Acting · Born October 22, 1917 · Tokyo, Japan

Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was an English-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". She was born in Tokyo, Japan, in what was known as the International Settlement. Her father was a British patent attorney with a lucrative practice in Japan, but due to Joan and older sister Olivia de Havilland's recurring ailments the family moved to California in the hopes of improving their health. Mrs. de Havilland and the two girls settled in Saratoga while their father went back to his practice in Japan. Joan's parents did not get along well and divorced soon afterward. Mrs. de Havilland had a desire to be an actress but her dreams were curtailed when she married, but now she hoped to pass on her dream to Olivia and Joan.

Movies with Joan Fontaine

• Rebecca (1940) — Mrs. de Winter
• Suspicion (1941) — Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth
• Jane Eyre (1943) — Jane Eyre
• Ivanhoe (1952) — Rowena
• Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) — Dr. Susan Hiller
• Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) — Susan Spencer
• Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) — Lisa Berndle
• The Women (1939) — Peggy Day
• Othello (1951) — Page
• Island in the Sun (1957) — Mavis Norman
• The Man Who Found Himself (1937) — Doris King
• Born to Be Bad (1950) — Christabel