Joan Fontaine

📷 Wikimedia Commons — domaine public — Whitey Schafer — 1940

1917 — 2013

États-Unis, Royaume-Uni

Performing ArtsLiterature20th Century20th century — Hollywood Golden Age and classic American cinema (1930s–1960s)

A British actress born in 1917 in Japan and died in 2013, Joan Fontaine became a major Hollywood star in the 1940s. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion, cementing her place among the great stars of classic American cinema.

Key Facts

Born on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo, to British parents
Won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock)
Nominated for the Oscar for Rebecca (1940) and The Constant Nymph (1943), earning three consecutive nominations
Sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, with whom she maintained a famous rivalry throughout their lives
Died on December 15, 2013, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, at the age of 96

Works & Achievements

Rebecca (1940)

Alfred Hitchcock's first American film, adapted from Daphne du Maurier's novel. Joan Fontaine plays a young woman haunted by the ghost of her husband's first wife, earning her first Oscar nomination.

Suspicion (1941)

An Alfred Hitchcock thriller in which Joan Fontaine plays a woman convinced that her husband (Cary Grant) is plotting to kill her. The role earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942, a historic win in Hitchcock's filmography.

Jane Eyre (1944)

An adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's classic novel directed by Robert Stevenson, with Orson Welles as Rochester. Joan Fontaine brings a romantic sensitivity to the title role that perfectly suits her signature style.

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

A film by Max Ophüls, widely regarded by critics as one of Joan Fontaine's finest performances. She plays a woman hopelessly in love with a pianist who never remembers her, set against a hauntingly beautiful fin-de-siècle Vienna.

No Bed of Roses (autobiography) (1978)

Joan Fontaine's memoirs, in which she reflects on her career, her four marriages, and her fraught relationship with her sister Olivia de Havilland. The book is a valuable primary source on the behind-the-scenes reality of Hollywood.

Anecdotes

Joan Fontaine and her sister Olivia de Havilland are the only sisters in Oscar history to have both won the Best Actress award. Their legendary rivalry, which lasted decades, reportedly began on the very night Joan received her Oscar in 1942: Olivia, nominated the same year, is said to have turned her back on her sister after the ceremony.

During the filming of Rebecca (1940), Alfred Hitchcock asked Joan Fontaine to genuinely feel intimidated by her co-stars. He reportedly told her in secret that the entire crew disliked her — a manipulation that allowed her to portray, with unsettling authenticity, the fragility of the nameless heroine in the face of the imposing Mrs. Danvers.

Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in 1917 in Tokyo, Joan chose the stage name 'Fontaine' to distinguish herself from her sister Olivia, who was already an established presence in Hollywood. She took the name as a tribute to her stepfather, George Fontaine, determined to build an independent career without living in her older sister's shadow.

Joan Fontaine was the first actress to win an Oscar for a Hitchcock film. Paradoxically, the director initially opposed her casting in Suspicion (1941), preferring another actress. The film's success and its Academy recognition ultimately proved him wrong — and vindicated her against the objections of the RKO studio producers.

Primary Sources

No Bed of Roses — Joan Fontaine's autobiography (1978)

I have never been able to say with certainty what my nationality is. Born in Tokyo of British parents, raised in California, I became an American citizen only after years of working in Hollywood.

Oscar acceptance speech — Academy Awards, 14th ceremony (1942)

Joan Fontaine accepts the Best Actress award for Suspicion, becoming the first — and to this day the only — actress to have won an Oscar for a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Interview with The New York Times (1966)

Hitchcock told me I was surrounded by people who disliked me. I believed him completely. It made my performance possible. That was his genius — he understood how to use fear.

RKO Pictures archive file — filming contract (1940)

Miss Fontaine is hired for the female lead in Suspicion under the direction of Mr. Hitchcock. Studio management expresses reservations about her suitability for the role, but agrees to the screen test.

Key Places

Tokyo, Japan

Joan Fontaine was born in 1917 in the Japanese capital, where her father worked as a patent lawyer. This exotic, cosmopolitan upbringing shaped her entire life and contributed to the ambiguity of her national identity.

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

It was in Hollywood's studios that Joan Fontaine built her career throughout the 1930s–1960s, working notably for RKO Pictures and Universal. Hollywood was then the world capital of cinema and the heart of the star system.

RKO Pictures Studios, Los Angeles

It was under contract with RKO that Joan Fontaine filmed Suspicion with Alfred Hitchcock, the film that earned her the Academy Award in 1942. RKO was one of the five major studios of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Dolby Theatre (formerly Grauman's Chinese Theatre), Hollywood

The venue for the Academy Awards ceremonies in the 1940s, it was here that Joan Fontaine received her Best Actress award in 1942. This iconic theatre is a symbol of the Golden Age of American cinema.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California

Joan Fontaine settled in this elegant coastal California town for her final years and passed away there in December 2013 at the age of 96. This quiet, artistic community suited the cultured and private image she maintained away from the studios.