Joan Fontaine Interview (1991) Part 1/3

[@travelseatsyellowlab]

Joan is articulate, warm, genuine, poised, intelligent and graceful. She seems the more open, personable and humble of the de Havilland sisters.

[@gatewayski1]

I adore Joan Fontaine AND Olivia de Havilland. Joan seems to me to be the more real of the two.

[@tomsarp2900]

I love Joan Fontaine. Such talent, class, intelligence, beauty and sincerety. She was a truly fine lady.

[@bewiseasowls]

I like this lady. Her intelligence has character and her honesty has grace. This is an authentic movie star! I also remember her in two episodes of I Dream Of Jeannie.

[@thecatman4ever]

Joan Fontaine was such a lovely actress. Thank you for the upload. Enjoyed the interview.

[@tunde818]

Joan was real and told it like it was. Olivia held back a lot in interviews.

[@MARCMANTELL]

Thank you for posting this... This is the lovely lady that I knew and still love and miss.

[@mortimer1976]

Love these interviews with the stars from the golden age, so insightful and interesting!

[@andrewnicholas4951]

JOAN was the bone to hone on. Gorgeous delightfull n a extreme keen mind an truly independent spirit x

[@theprisonerofzenda2862]

She was great. She had amazing grace and talent.

[@popstarboy]

Thank you! Thank you for sharing! This is a dream come true! She was such supreme class and sophistication!!!

[@simonebittencourt8251]

I have always tried to find an emotional identification with Joan Fontaine's performances, but never could for some reason. However, this interview here made me love her a great deal. What a great lady! Very smart, gentle, fascinating personality, really great charisma!! She is so amazingly captivating here! I am so glad I could see this side of her persona. Beautiful, elegant, interesting... Thank you so much for sharing this interview. I am in love with Joan Fontaine!!!

[@rongreen2976]

I like how she compared watching her old performances to hearing oneself on the answering machine. I can relate.

[@bewiseasowls]

I like this lady. Her intelligence has character and her wisdom has grace. This is an authentic movie star who is happy to share her stories with grace! I also remember her in two episodes of I Dream Of Jeannie.

[@jimmyl324]

Rebecca was her greatest role

[@IreneXandra]

So wonderful to watch her and hear her stories. Thanks :)

[@RocyMartinez]

You're welcome!! She's great!!! =)

[@avuncular300]

Joan Fontaine acquits herself as a thoroughly pleasant woman with oodles of common sense. and that attractive touch of humility. In this interview, she facially resembles Deborah Kerr, another attractive and down--to-earth person with interesting memories of a golden age. I loved it....

[@rebeccalouisejohnson3772]

one of my favourite actresses.

[@pallabidutta968]

Love the way she emphasized upon "by your own expense" repeatedly..!!

[@pattyoneill6724]

I love Carmel, and visited with my husband many times. We liked Tuckhouse tearooom and other restaurants there. Clint Eastwood was mayor.

[@DearLilyy]

Love love love! Thank you so much for uploading.

[@RocyMartinez]

You're welcome! ;)

[@mcmurral07]

I love this what a treasure thank you so much

[@johnflynn9619]

Joan was a Great Actress. RIP

[@outinsider]

I like her insights.

[@KTChamberlain]

I do regret that I forgot to mention Joan Fontaine when I did a birthday video for Olivia de Havilland on her 96th birthday. This is something I do plan to rectify for her 100th birthday come July.

[@MrQbenDanny]

Bravo! Bravissimo! La MAGIA de La Fontaine, con todo cachet.

[@catherinedouglas8911]

I am so glad you uploaded this!

[@randyacuna3248]

Joan , not Rita was my dream fantasy goddess of the 1940s actresses. Timeless beauty.

[@manuellarodrigues]

I love Joan! Beautiful and elegant lady. I believe that, analyzing her life, her behavior, and that of her sister Olivia, Joan was extremely deprived of the love and attention she longed for from her mother and sister her whole life. She always tries to demonstrate a certainty and a bit of irony when asked about her rivalry with Olivia. Her mother's declared preference for Olivia has affected her deeply, though she has always tried to hide it, but by analyzing her expressions when she speaks of her sister and mother, we can clearly see that.

[@jimhaggard7436]

Joan was always a bit of a rule-breaker. I agree with everything you said, but try to see it from Olivia’s side. Olivia was the “Marcia” to Joan’s “Jan”. Olivia was the apple of her mother’s eye until Joan was born when Olivia was fifteen months old. To their mother Lillian’s credit, despite her preference for Olivia, she doted over Joan as a baby with eczema and asthma that precluded Olivia from handling Joan and forming any sort of bond with her. Years later, Olivia decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps as an actress. By convention, it was assumed that Joan would not be an actress herself. Joan defied convention and decided to be an actor anyway, despite having to use her stepfather’s surname so as not to be associated with Olivia. Joan also married first, divorced first, won the Oscar first, and once claimed in an interview that If she died first, Olivia would be furious that Joan accomplished that feat first as well. Joan Fontaine (1917-2013), Olivia de Havilland (1916-2020), Lillian de Havilland Fontaine (1886-1975).

[@texan903]

@@jimhaggard7436 unfortunately, both de Havilland girls were casualties of a marriage where the decision to exchange vows was based on a bet, a coin flip by their father. Walter de Havilland made a deal with Lilian Ruse that if she lost the coin flip, she would marry de Havilland. Ruse lost, so she married de Havilland. This began a tumultuous, complicated marriage between de Havilland and Ruse, the latter of whom had acting ambitions that never fully materialized. Olivia was expected and a girl was acceptable enough for a first child, a boy could possibly come along later. Lilian, soon grew discontented in the marriage and one evening as de Havilland returned home from work, dinner was being prepared, leaving a free moment which found his wife lying about on a chaise lounge. De Havilland made love to his wife, impregnating her at a time when she already had doubts about the future of the marriage. To add insult to injury, Mrs. de Havilland gave birth to a second girl. The fact that Joan was born sickly didn't help matters. Upon physician's recommendation, the de Havilland family was told to relocate to a better climate for Joan to have a fighting chance at good health. Originally, the de Havillands set out for the United Kingdom. However, upon arriving in San Francisco, Olivia also became ill, at which time de Havilland abandoned his wife and children, returning to Japan. Mrs. de Havilland decided to remain in California. Joan was ill so frequently that she took to her bed, missing long periods of schooling, and attended to by Mrs. de Havilland, who became Joan's closest friend. After divorcing de Havilland and marrying the embittered widower, George Fontaine, who had two children with his first wife to die prematurely, began complaining about the massive medical bills produced by his younger stepdaughter's repeated ailments. He also disliked her nervous habit of biting her fingernails and dug a grave for her if she refused to stop. Adding to his complaints was Olivia's growing interest in the theater, which eventually led to Olivia leaving home early. Lilian refused to advocate for Olivia and allowed her husband to put her daughter out of the house. George Fontaine had been a harsh, stern, unrelenting disciplinarian who made the girls use khaki colored bedding, and each week made the girls write a schedule to budget nearly every minute of their week. Olivia hated him, so did Joan but she found valuable lessons in his abrasive manner. There are stories that Fontaine behaved inappropriately with his stepdaughters when his wife was out of town. When Olivia went to Hollywood with Lilian's backing, she tried to get Joan married off so as not to be a threat to Olivia's budding career. Fontaine helped Joan, becoming her manager, arranging a portfolio for her that would propel his stepdaughter to wealth. It should be noted that for a period in the 1930s Joan returned to live with Walter in Japan but the arrangement failed once he allegedly made sexual advances in his stepdaughter, which angered Lilian because her husband had supposedly cheated on her during the marriage but was accused of coming into their daughter. Joan see speculated that her mother wanted two, high achieving sons and had to settle for daughters, leading the mother's relentless ambitions to push the girls into success.

[@jimhaggard7436]

@@texan903 fascinating! Thanks for the info! It stinks how many stepfathers may have been inappropriate with their stepdaughters. Joan Crawford is another example.

[@hodawg7762]

@@jimhaggard7436 Joan was the one who pursued it though. She admitted it to Bette Davis.

[@jimhaggard7436]

@@hodawg7762 pursued what?

[@operabilia]

Well, class cannot be invented!

[@joey13zzzbee]

my aunt played bridge with ms. fontaine in carmel

[@Carefree6714]

I remember vividly the academy awards show JF speaks of here- can you imagine? I actually saw her walking behind whatever nobody the moron reporters were interviewing and I practically SCREAMED- “It’s JOAN FONTAINE!!! Joan Fontaine just strolled past and NOBODY NOTICED HERE!!!” it totally blew me away.

[@orchardist1965]

Such a resemblance to Olivia. Show business is so fickle when Joan tells of her later experience to the Oscar ceremony,quite disgraceful, how different from the heddy days of "Rebecca ". A true Star in the golden age of Hollywood. Long live her legacy.

[@08CARIB]

6:39 this is fascinating to hear the reason for the creation of the academy awards, I agree with her

[@Cedricfollyman]

I lost it at 0:48 - she is charming and hilarious!

[@hodawg7762]

I first saw her in The Women and was like yeah she's the prettiest one. I watched her whenever she was in a scene. Then I later watched Rebecca and it was one of those you just watch her the whole entire time and don't even take your eyes off her throughout the whole movie and don't even look at any other actors. I wasn't even paying attention to what they were saying or what was going on in the movie. I was just drawn to her like a magnet. She was that stunning in that movie.

[@nwlman]

She was so interesting

[@scotnick59]

I suspect she was indeed a genius

[@scotnick59]

her most underrated movie, IMHO was "Ivy" : terrific melo

[@barrylangford3276]

Wonderful interview. Shame the interviewer says "Anyway..." before almost every question!

[@Delicious1922]

Joan was awesome in both The Women and Rebecca! She ses to be way more warm than her sister who was shrewd and arrogant.

[@henrygrove100]

So classy and mature, not childish

[@manuellarodrigues]

I’d love to seat in front the Pacific Ocean, in Carmel (her home) in a chair, and talk to her for hours and hours and hours...

[@vadjulawakaru]

so george cukor offered a role to her but she refused and gave the role to her sister olivia.

[@ccaammiinniiito2]

I upon this movie as Robert Osborne was finishing an interesting synopsis of a movie starring Charles Boyer and Joan Fontaine, in which a mature Fontaine was called upon to play a 14 year old to her 24. Quite a demand for anyone. But Fontaine so far has pulled it off without cascading into the caricature many an older star falls into trying to play a much younger character. Deanna Durbin, playing dapper Adolph Menjou's daughter in a movie whose name I forget. But Durbin wore me out with her caricature of a much younger girl. The director should've stopped her in the initial phase of the production. Durbin was just all over the place with caricature, reflected in the way she pronounced "DADDEE." Go back to your early childhood and recall how your sister addressed your father. She didn't say "DADDEEE." Suffice it to say I'm not turned off at all with Fontaine's version of a much younger girl.

[@hodawg7762]

I saw that and was amazed at Joan's transformation. Especially having seen her in previous roles.

[@noshulal]

Which was the last interview of Joan Fountain

[@travelseatsyellowlab]

Joan was still interviewing as recently as a month-and-a-half before her death. I believe it was one of at least two that Joan gave in 2013.

[@noshulal]

@@travelseatsyellowlab Thanks Can you share the link of last interview

[@travelseatsyellowlab]

@@noshulal www.google.com/amp/s/backlots.net/2013/10/22/a-qa-with-joan-fontaine-in-honor-of-her-96th-birthday/amp/

[@noshulal]

@@travelseatsyellowlab Thanks

[@williamwuwungan6108]

This can’t be 1991, she looks like in the 70s and 80s

[@jaxalexander7162]

she is 74 here and she looks gorgeous!!!!!!!

[@KTChamberlain]

Her voice reminds me of Phyllis Diller. Now bear in mind I mean that in a good way.

[@yedon68]

classy/ very charming! one of a kind..Joan Fontaine tho Kerry Grant called her a Bitch..huh!

[@MissAmandaJB95]

I have never seen or heard of Cary Grant calling Joan a Bitch where did you see or hear the comment

[@yedon68]

I read it somewhere..perhaps it was said in humor...I was a big fan of Joan (my mom was too)..its ironic, I live next door to her former home in Palm Springs (Villa Fontaine) & just sold!

[@lightshift3431]

Putting herself down in one reply after another and complimenting his country to the skies. Why are actors trained to do this. Besides gaining the moral and critical approval of the audience.

[@erik5222]

Great But a bit too la de da???

[@mariedewitt5033]

Rebecca was essentially the same as the Jane Eyre script.

[@direfranchement]

Not at all.

[@marioarguello6989]

Ah, the days when women were women.