Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1280987
70 SAG-AFTRA | Summer 2020 | sagaftra.org W hen she died in her beloved Paris on July 26, less than a month after her 104th birthday, Olivia de Havilland was one of the last stars of Hollywood's "Golden Age." As a Screen Actors Guild board member and officer in the 1940s, de Havilland served with three SAG presidents: Edward Arnold, James Cagney and Ronald Reagan. In April 1936, the then-19-year-old signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. That same year, she joined Screen Actors Guild and she became an active participant in union affairs. In August 1939, soon after she completed filming her most famous role of Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, de Havilland joined a Guild committee to fight a jurisdictional takeover attempt by the IATSE. She became an AFRA member the following year, making numerous appearances on the Screen Guild radio show, which raised funds to build what became the Motion Picture and Television Fund Country House and Hospital. De Havilland was first elected to the SAG board of directors in 1941, just months before the United States entered World War II. In 1942, she joined the Hollywood Victory Committee, aiding the film industry's work promoting the sale of war bonds and raising money for the armed forces. She volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen and joined the Hollywood Victory Caravan of stars, which traveled by train to cities across the United States to raise money for the war effort. She participated in hospital tours in the United States, the Aleutian Islands and Fiji at great cost to her health. De Havilland was hospitalized in San Antonio, Texas, in early 1944 with influenza and with viral pneumonia in Fiji late in the year. In addition to her war work, on April 23, 1944, she was a presenter (with SAG 1st Vice President George Murphy) at the first annual Unity Awards, sponsored by the Committee for Unity in Motion Pictures for "Recognition of the screen as a constructive for inter-racial unity." Among the recipients were noted Black performers Lena Horne, Rex Ingram, Dooley Wilson and Hazel Scott. In 1945, de Havilland won a famous battle of her own in what became known as the "de Havilland decision" when the California State Supreme Court decided in her favor. She sued Warner Bros. in 1943 for tacking on 25 weeks' additional time to the end of her seven-year contract, from when it had suspended her for refusing several film roles. Upon her passing, SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris declared, "Olivia de Havilland was not only beautiful and talented, she was a courageous visionary and an inspiration to generations. She was a founding member of Screen Actors Guild in a time when organizing and joining a union was often a dangerous enterprise. She sued her studio, Warner Bros., in 1943 for extending her contract past its original seven-year expiration date. SAG-AFTRA members will be forever grateful to Ms. de Havilland for her contributions to the founding of our union and the protection of its members. She was a marvel and a legend." Right, de Havilland at the first annual Unity Awards, as seen in the pages of Screen Actor magazine, May 1944. Far right, de Havilland in a late 1930s photo by Warner Bros. studio photographer Scotty Welbourne. Screen Actors Guild founding member Olivia de Havilland and SAG President Ralph Morgan bid goodbye to SAG Executive Secretary Kenneth Thomson, left, flying to the East Coast to meet with AFL leaders over the IATSE jurisdictional challenge to performer unions in 1939. SAG-AFTRA SPECIAL COLLECTIONS OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND — Adieu and Merci