Joan Fontaine, English-American actress best known for her roles in Hollywood films during the Golden Age of Hollywood was born on this date in 1917. 10 facts about her:
She was born 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 parents gave her the name Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland.
The family moved to California because it was a better climate for the health of the children. Joan was British by birth but later became an American citizen.
If the name de Havilland seems familiar, it may be because her older sister, Olivia, was a famous actress as well. Joan took her step-father’s surname as her stage name.
Despite bing in the same profession, the sisters never got on well, even as children. When Olivia was nine, she made a will, which stated "I bequeath all my beauty to my younger sister Joan, since she has none". As adults, jealousy and rivalry soured their relationship. When Joan won an Oscar one year and Olivia didn’t, that was the final straw and they barely spoke again, even after Olivia won some Oscars of her own.
Joan’s first film role was in 1935, in No More Ladies, but it didn’t get her noticed. It was another year and a half before she got the role of Trudy Olson in You Can't Beat Love. Her big break came when she happened to be sitting next to David Selznick at a party and mentioned that she'd just finished reading the book Rebecca. He told her he’d just bought the film rights to the book and offered her the chance to test for a part in the movie. Unfortunately, her getting the role didn’t go down well with her co-star, Laurence Olivier, because he’d wanted his then girlfriend, Vivien Leigh to get the part. Allegedly, he was horrible to Joan on set because of it.
She married four times and was divorced four times. Her husbands were Brian Aherne, who got cold feet the night before the wedding and had a friend call Joan to tell her he couldn’t go through with it. Joan wasn’t having any of it and told the friend to tell him it was too late to back out. He had better show up, she said, and divorce her later if need be. They stayed married for six years and never spoke of the incident again. Next was William Dozier, with whom she had her only child, a girl named Debbie. Her next marriage was to Collier Young, and her fourth and last husband was Alfred Wright.
She adopted a child from Peru. While visiting Incan ruins there, Joan met a little girl called Martita, aged four, the daughter of the caretaker. She came to an arrangement with Martita’s parents that she would adopt the girl to give her a better life in the US, and would send her back to visit when she turned 16. She kept her word in that she bought Martita a return ticket to Peru when she turned 16, but Martita refused to go and ran away. Joan hated that the girl had forced her to break a promise and declared Martita was no longer welcome until she’d been to see her parents.
Joan’s last film was Good King Wenceslas (1994). She came out of retirement to make that film because her house in Carmel, California had been damaged in an earthquake and Joan decided she would rather use her fee for the film to fund the repairs than take money from her bank account.
She was the only person to win an acting Oscar in a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She won Best Actress for Hitchcock's 1941 film Suspicion (1941).
At the age of three, she scored 160 on an infant IQ test. She had many interests outside of acting, including being a licensed pilot, champion balloonist, expert rider, prize-winning Tuna fisherman, hole-in-one golfer, Cordon Bleu chef and a licensed interior decorator.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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