Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo, Japan, in what was known as the International Settlement, to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her paternal grandfather's family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her father had 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. While Olivia pursued a stage career, Joan went back to Tokyo, where she attended the American School. In 1934 she came back to California, where her sister was already making a name for herself on the stage. Joan likewise joined a theater group in San Jose and then Los Angeles to try her luck there. After moving to L.A., Joan adopted the name of Joan Burfield because she didn't want to infringe upon Olivia, who was using the family surname. In this article, we will talk about Joan Fontaine's Biography including Net Worth, Age, Birthday, Height, Weight, Family, Children etc.
Joan Fontaine Biography
She tested at MGM and gained a small role in No More Ladies (1935), but she was scarcely noticed and Joan was idle for a year and a half. During this time she roomed with Olivia, who was having much more success in films. In 1937, this time calling herself Joan Fontaine, she landed a better role as Trudy Olson in You Can't Beat Love (1937) and then an uncredited part in Quality Street (1937). Although the next two years saw her in better roles, she still yearned for something better. In 1940 she garnered her first Academy Award nomination for Rebecca (1940). Although she thought she should have won, (she lost out to Ginger Rogers in Kitty Foyle (1940)), she was now an established member of the Hollywood set. She would again be Oscar-nominated for her role as Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth in Suspicion (1941), and this time she won. Joan was making one film a year but choosing her roles well. In 1942 she starred in the well-received This Above All (1942).
The following year she appeared in The Constant Nymph (1943). Once again she was nominated for the Oscar, she lost out to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943). By now it was safe to say she was more famous than her older sister and more fine films followed. In 1948, she accepted second billing to Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948). Joan took the year of 1949 off before coming back in 1950 with September Affair (1950) and Born to Be Bad (1950). In 1951 she starred in Paramount's Darling, How Could You! (1951), which turned out badly for both her and the studio and more weak productions followed.
Absent from the big screen for a while, she took parts in television and dinner theaters. She also starred in many well-produced Broadway plays such as Forty Carats and The Lion in Winter. Her last appearance on the big screen was The Witches (1966) and her final appearance before the cameras was Good King Wenceslas (1994). She is, without a doubt, a lasting movie icon.
To know her complete profile, check the following table.
| Name | : | Joan Fontaine |
| Birth Name/Full Name | : | Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland |
| Nickname (s) | : | - |
| Other Name (s) | : | Joan Burfield |
| Gender | : | Female |
| Date of Birth | : | October 22, 1917 |
| Birthplace | : | Tokyo, Japan |
| Citizenship | : | Japanese |
| Height | : | 1.61 m |
| Weight | : | - kg |
| Profession (s) | : | Actress , Producer , Soundtrack |
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Joan Fontaine Age in 2023 and Birthday Info
In this section, we will add Joan Fontaine's birthday-related information. Joan Fontaine was born in Tokyo, Japan on October 22, 1917.She died on in Carmel, California, USA (natural causes). Check the below table for more information.
| Date of Birth | : | October 22, 1917 |
| Birth Place | : | Tokyo, Japan |
| Country | : | Japan |
| Date of Death | : | 2013-12-15 |
| Death Place | : | Carmel, California, USA (natural causes) |
| Aged | : | 96 years |
| Next Birthday | : | 22 October, 2024 |
| Horoscope(Zodic Sign) | : | Libra |
Joan Fontaine Height and Weight
Now we are going to add Joan Fontaine's Height (In Meter, Centi Meter, and Feet-Inches) and Weight (In Kilogram and Pounds). As weight changes frequently, we may not have the current weight of Joan Fontaine. The height of Joan Fontaine is 1.61 m. Check the below table to see in more units.
| Height in Meter | : | 1.61 m. |
| Height in Centimeter | : | 161 cm. |
| Height in Feet-inches | : | 5'3" |
| Weight in Kilogram | : | - kg |
| Weight in Pounds | : | - lb |
Joan Fontaine Family (Spouse, Children, Parents, Siblings, Relatives)
In this section, we will add Joan Fontaine's complete family information including her martial status, husbandorwife, children, parents, relatives, and siblings.
| Marital Status | : | Married |
| Spouse (s) | : | Alfred Wright, Jr. (27 January 1964 - June 1969) (divorced) , Collier Young (12 November 1952 - 3 January 1961) (divorced) , William Dozier (2 May 1946 - 25 January 1951) (divorced) (1 child) , Brian Aherne (20 August 1939 - 14 June 1945) (divorced) |
| Children (s) | : | Martita Pareja , Debbie Dozier |
| Parents (Father and Mother) | : | Walter Augustus de Havilland , Lilian Fontaine |
| Relatives | : | Gisèle Galante (niece or nephew) , Benjamin Goodrich (niece or nephew) , Olivia de Havilland (sibling) |
Joan Fontaine Social Accounts (Facebbok, Instagram, Twitter, Website)
In this section, we will add Joan Fontaine's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and personal website.
| : | Joan Fontaine Facebook | |
| : | Joan Fontaine Instagram | |
| : | Joan Fontaine Twitter | |
| Personal Website | : | Joan Fontaine Webiste |
Joan Fontaine Net Worth in 2023
Are you curious to know what was the net worth of Joan Fontaine at time when she died. The net worth of Joan Fontaine was $40 Million. We do not guarantee the net worth of Joan Fontaine is the exact amount. This is based on several sources on the internet.
Joan Fontaine Facts and Trivia
Here is the list of top facts about Joan Fontaine.
- Younger sister of Olivia de Havilland.
- Elder daughter of Walter Augustus de Havilland (1872-1968), born Lewisham, London, England, who was a patent attorney in Japan and also the author of the 1910 book "The ABC of Go," which provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the Japanese board game; and of his wife, actress Lilian Fontaine (née Lillian Augusta Ruse), born in Reading, Berkshire, England.
- Joked that the musical comedy A Damsel in Distress (1937) set her career back four years. At the premiere, a woman sitting behind her loudly exclaimed, "Isn't she awful!" during Fontaine's onscreen attempt at dancing.
- Attended Oak Street School in Saratoga, CA.
- Gave birth to her only child at age 31, daughter Deborah Leslie Dozier (aka Debbie Dozier) on November 5, 1948. Child's father is her second ex-husband, William Dozier.
- She was a licensed pilot, champion balloonist, expert rider, prize-winning tuna fisherman, a hole-in-one golfer, Cordon Bleu chef and licensed interior decorator.
- At the age of three she scored 160 on an infant IQ test.
- Took her stage name from her step-father, George Fontaine.
- The only actor or actress to win an acting Oscar in a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She won Best Actress for Hitchcock's 1941 film Suspicion (1941).
- Became pregnant twice in 1964, at the age of 46, but miscarried both times.
- First husband Brian Aherne had a friend call her the night before their wedding to tell her he had cold feet and couldn't marry her. Joan told the friend to tell him it was too late to call it off, that he had better be at the altar the next morning to marry her, and he could divorce her afterwards if he wanted. He was there at the altar and they remained married six years, never mentioning this incident to each other.
- Daughter Martita, born 3 November 1946, adopted 1952. Ran away in 1963. When Joan found her she was refused contact with the child on the premise that her Peruvian adoption was not valid in the US. Martita and Joan in later years wrote and talked on the phone to each other quite often. Martita also visited Joan at her home in Carmel, CA.
- She and Olivia de Havilland are the first sisters to win Oscars and the first ones to be Oscar-nominated in the same year.
- Head of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1982
- When sister Olivia de Havilland was nine years old she made a will in which she stated, "I bequeath all my beauty to my younger sister Joan, since she has none".
- Ex-sister-in-law of Pierre Galante and Marcus Goodrich.
- Her autobiography, "No Bed of Roses" was published in 1979. Ex-husband William Dozier thought a more appropriate title should have been "No Shred of Truth".
- Relations between she and sister Olivia de Havilland were never strong, but worsened in 1941 when both were nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. Their mutual dislike and jealousy escalated into an all-out feud after Fontaine won for Suspicion (1941). Despite the fact that de Havilland went on to win two Academy Awards of her own, they have remained permanently estranged.
- In Italy almost all of her films were dubbed by Lydia Simoneschi. She was occasionally dubbed by Rosetta Calavetta and Renata Marini. She was dubbed once by Micaela Giustiniani in The Women (1939), once by Dina Perbellini and once by Paola Barbara in Suspicion (1941).
- Vice-President Emeritus of the Episcopal Actors' Guild of America.
- She and sister Olivia de Havilland worked tirelessly as nurses' aides during WWII and made numerous appearances at the Hollywood Canteen in support of American troops.
- She became an American citizen on April 23, 1943.
- Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor were her favorite directors.
- According to an in-depth article on her by Rod Labbe in "Classic Images" magazine, Joan was offered the role of Karen Holmes, the adulterous army wife, in Columbia Pictures' From Here to Eternity (1953), based on James Jones' novel, after the studio had purchased the film rights. Joan was subsequently forced to decline the role because, at the time, she was embroiled in a particularly ugly custody battle over daughter Debbie Dozier with ex-husband William Dozier. Leaving California to film extensively in Hawaii would have jeopardized Joan's case. The part went to second choice Deborah Kerr, who earned an Oscar nomination. Joan later replaced Kerr on Broadway in the original production of "Tea and Sympathy".
- Her personal favorite film of hers was The Constant Nymph (1943).
- Allegedly was treated horribly by Laurence Olivier during their time together on the set of Rebecca (1940) as he had campaigned for his then-girlfriend Vivien Leigh to be given the part of Mrs. De Winter.
- Lost her virginity to Conrad Nagel when she was 20.
- Is one of three Japan-born actresses to have won an Academy Award. The others are her sister Olivia de Havilland and Miyoshi Umeki.
- In a rare act of reconciliation, she and sister Olivia de Havilland celebrated Christmas 1962 together with their then-husbands and children.
- She was the last surviving cast member of George Cukor's The Women (1939) until she passed away in December 2013.
- She used to correspond with her fans on a regular basis until her 90th birthday. The only time fans received mail from her personally was at Christmastime.
- Was allergic to shellfish.
- From 2003 until her death of natural causes at 96 years of age, she resided in Carmel, CA, on her estate known as Villa Fontana.
- Her paternal grandfather, Rev. Charles Richard de Havilland, was from a family originally from Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. Her other ancestry included Anglo-Irish and English.
- She died in her sleep of natural causes at the age of 96 in her home in Carmel, California.
- Was a registered Democrat.
- Survived by her daughter Debbie Dozier and two grandsons.
- Was considered for the title role in Mildred Pierce (1945).
- Was the 18th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Suspicion (1941) at The 14th Academy Awards on February 26, 1942.
- At the time of her death there had been no reconciliation between she and sister Olivia de Havilland.
- In 1979, the year after Joan's frank autobiography was published, she and sister Olivia de Havilland attended the Academy's 50th-anniversary celebration of the Oscars and Oscar winners, but were seated on opposite ends of the stage for the "class photo", apparently at their request, and did not speak with each other at any time.
- In 1946 a huge crack in the already tense relationship between she and sister Olivia de Havilland occurred when Joan made an unkind remark about Olivia's new husband, author Marcus Goodrich. Olivia insisted on an apology or she would not talk to her anymore. Joan refused to do so. A year later when Olivia won her first Oscar, Joan, who was at the awards show as a presenter, went up to congratulate her sister but was completely snubbed.
- She claimed that she was the first choice for the role of Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939), but that director George Cukor felt she was too stylish to play the role. She then suggested sister Olivia de Havilland to him and Olivia went on to play the part. Olivia's version of how she got the part makes no mention of this or Joan.
- When she decided on a movie career, her mother told her that Warner Bros.--which had sister Olivia de Havilland under contract--was "Olivia's studio" and that Joan was not to pursue work there. She realized that she couldn't use the de Havilland name and instead took her stepfather's last name, Fontaine. Joan eventually got an agent and signed with RKO.
- The long-standing feud between she and sister Olivia de Havilland was seldom discussed by Olivia. Joan, on the other hand, was quite candid and felt the complete victim of Olivia's abuse and blamed her sister for the long estrangement. Her side of the story is that the feud started practically from Joan's birth--and that the root of their problem was Olivia's acute unhappiness at having to share the attention of her parents with a younger sibling. The fighting continued into their hair-pulling, clothes-tearing teen years as well.
- The Rose Society named a rose after her, The Joan Fontaine Rose.
- After a self-imposed retirement, Joan returned and played Good Queen Ludmella in the TV movie Good King Wenceslas (1994) because the base of her house in Carmel, CA, was damaged by an earthquake and Joan decided it was better to use the money she got for the movie to fix the house rather than take $200,000 out of her bank account.
- All of her memorabilia was to be donated to Boston University following her death.
- A close friend of Ida Lupino, Joan inherited her collie dog after Lupino died.
- Similar in theory to Bette Davis when she won her Oscar for Dangerous (1935) after losing for Of Human Bondage (1934), many felt Joan's Best Actress Oscar win for Suspicion (1941) was in sympathy for losing out for her brilliance in the classic film Rebecca (1940).
- She and Katharine Hepburn appeared in productions of 'The Lion in Winter', Hepburn in the 1968 film version, Fontaine in a 1979 Viennese stage production. Both women made their last acting appearances in 1994 and both passed away at the age of 96. Fontaine actually had a small role in Hepburn's Quality Street (1937).
- Suffered from anemia and measles as a child.
- In her autobiography, "No Bed of Roses", she wrote that when seeing a fortune teller in 1935 she was undecided about which last name to choose for acting. The woman told her to "go with Fontaine", that it was "a winner.".
- In her autobiography, "No Bed of Roses", she wrote that she never felt so alone as in 1939 when she celebrated her 22nd birthday on the set of Rebecca (1940) by herself.
- Bottle-fed her daughter Debbie Dozier as a baby.
- Starred in three Oscar Best Picture nominees: Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941) and Ivanhoe (1952). Rebecca is the only winner.
- Was five months pregnant with her daughter Debbie Dozier when she completed filming You Gotta Stay Happy (1948).
- Returned to work seven months after giving birth to her daughter Debbie Dozier to begin filming Born to Be Bad (1950).
- She has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Gunga Din (1939), The Women (1939), Rebecca (1940) and Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948).
- Having made a number of films without making any real impression she was on the point of giving up when she was sitting next to David Selznick at a party and mentioned that she'd just finished reading the book Rebecca to which he said that he'd just bought the rights and would she like to do a film test which led to her getting the part and a successful film career,.
- The day when Joan Fontaine was born was Monday.
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