page_title: Olivia de Havilland
section_title: Retirement, honors and death, 1989–2020
hierarchical_section_title: Olivia de Havilland / Career / Retirement, honors and death, 1989–2020
caption_attribution_description: From Smithsonian Institute Wash. D.C. April 2000
context_page_description: Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland DBE was a British-American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. She was the last major surviving star from the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema and the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner until her death in July 2020. Her younger sister was the actress Joan Fontaine.
  De Havilland first came to prominence with Errol Flynn as a screen couple in adventure films such as Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. One of her best-known roles is that of Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind, for which she received her first of five Oscar nominations, the only one for Best Supporting Actress.
  De Havilland departed from ingénue roles in the 1940s and later distinguished herself for performances in Hold Back the Dawn, To Each His Own, The Snake Pit, and The Heiress, receiving nominations for Best Actress for each and winning for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She was also successful in work on stage and television.
context_section_description: In retirement, de Havilland remained active in the film community. In 1998, she travelled to New York City to help promote a special showing of Gone with the Wind. In 2003, she appeared as a presenter at the 75th Academy Awards, earning an extended standing ovation upon her entrance. In 2004, Turner Classic Movies produced a retrospective piece called Melanie Remembers in which she was interviewed for the 65th anniversary of the original release of Gone with the Wind. In June 2006, she made appearances at tributes commemorating her 90th birthday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
  On November 17, 2008, at the age of 92, de Havilland received the National Medal of Arts, the highest honour conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people of the United States. The medal was presented to her by President George W. Bush, who commended her "for her persuasive and compelling skill as an actress in roles from Shakespeare's Hermia to Margaret Mitchell's Melanie. Her independence, integrity, and grace won creative freedom for herself and her fellow film actors." The following year, de Havilland narrated the documentary I Remember Better When I Paint (2009), a film about the importance of art in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
  In 2010, de Havilland almost made her return to the big screen after a 22-year hiatus with James Ivory's planned adaptation of The Aspern Papers, but the project was never made. On September 9, 2010, de Havilland was appointed a Chevalier (knight) of the Légion d'honneur, the highest decoration in France, awarded by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who told the actress, "You honour France for having chosen us." In February the following year, she appeared at the César Awards in France, where she was greeted with a standing ovation. De Havilland celebrated her 100th birthday on July 1, 2016.
  In June 2017, two weeks before her 101st birthday, de Havilland was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to drama by Queen Elizabeth II. She is the oldest woman ever to receive the honour. In a statement, she called it "the most gratifying of birthday presents". She did not travel to the investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace and received her honour from the hands of the British Ambassador to France at her Paris apartment in March 2018, four months before her 102nd birthday. Her daughter Gisèle was by her side.
  De Havilland died of natural causes in her sleep at her home in Paris, France on July 26, 2020, at the age of 104. Her funeral was held on August 1, 2020, at the American Cathedral in Paris.
caption: De Havilland at the Smithsonian Institution in 2001
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