When one thinks of “Old Hollywood,” they might picture the star-studded 1920s or the black-and-white film reel aesthetic and tales of typical old love stories and heartache in the ‘40s or perhaps the Marilyn Monroe age of the ‘50s and early ‘60s. For my part, I’ve always been quite intrigued by the classic films that were produced during those golden years.
My mom first introduced me to the 1940 production “Gone with the Wind,” a film adaptation of the 1936 Margaret Mitchell book with the same name. When I was 10, I watched the film (despite the suggested age rating). Although I didn’t understand anything about American history or the Civil War, I was captivated by the headstrong, alluring and beautiful main character, Scarlett O’Hara, portrayed by the iconic Actress Vivien Leigh.
But I was more so riveted by the gentle and kind Melanie Wilkes, portrayed by actress Olivia DeHavilland, being particularly drawn to her caring and trustworthy nature. As a kid, I had paid no attention to the greater message the film was trying to send about the Civil War and women’s roles, but was instead focused on the heated love triangle that had formed between three of the main characters.
There’s something about classic Hollywood that makes their movies unbeatable. To this day, moments from the film have stuck with me, and when I found out that DeHavilland, who was born in 1916, lived in Saratoga from 1922-1933. I was filled with awe and wonder. DeHavilland lived to the remarkable old age of 104 and passed peacefully in her home at Paris in 2020.
The old star’s home is located on La Paloma Avenue, right near Saratoga Downtown. Her family had moved from Tokyo when she was a small child, settling here for a better climate to help her younger sister Joan’s poor health, having developed anemia following a combined attack of the measles and an infection. Both sisters attended Los Gatos High school, and there’s even an acting award at Los Gatos High named after her.
At Los Gatos High, in the Class of 1934, De Havilland participated in the junior and senior plays, and even wrote for the El Gato student newspaper, of which she was the advertising manager and designed the masthead, a title of a newspaper at the head of the front or editorial page. In addition to the newspaper, she was also an editor of the Wildcat, the Los Gatos High School yearbook.
It was in Saratoga where she got her young start in acting and quickly rose to fame. Her acting career started with producer Dorothea Johnson in the Theater of the Glade, which no longer exists but used to be located behind the Saratoga Inn.
She starred in local productions such as “Alice in Wonderland” in which she played Alice, and the following year, was cast as Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” also under Johnson’s direction. Johnson also introduced DeHavilland to film director Max Reinhardt, who was visiting the Bay Area to present “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” DeHavilland asked to watch his rehearsals and, through a friend, met his casting director; she was soon cast for the role of Hermia and signed a Hollywood contract by the age of 18. The major years of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988.
Perhaps one of the most well-known scandals of her career is her lifelong feud with sister Joan Fontaine. Due to selective favoritism towards Oliva from their parents, started a feud that seemingly started at birth and only ended in death, the two’s arguments went beyond friendly childhood arguments, with Fontaine describing “the hair-pullings, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia fractured my collarbone.”
Throughout her long life, she did not forget Saratoga, nor has Saratoga forgotten her. DeHavilland returned to Saratoga many times to visit, most notably in 1978, to help with a Saratoga Historical Foundation fundraiser. There is a road in Saratoga named DeHavilland Drive in honor of her. She regularly remembered visiting Villa Montalvo and Hakone Gardens.
To know that my own hometown of Saratoga harbored such Hollywood royalty names makes me feel even more charmed by this little town, and I’ll definitely pay more attention to Saratoga’s rich history the next time I take a trip downtown.
