Joan Fontaine was an American actress. She won Academy Award for her outstanding acting. She appeared in many successful movies like Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), Jane Eyre (1944) and Othello (1952).
Joan born in Tokyo, Japan on October 22, 1917. From Childhood she was a sick child. Her mother Lilian divorced her husband and moved her children to California in order to improve their health. She went to meet her father to Japan in 1932. But she left staying with her father soon. In fact, she moved to America within a year.
Joan appeared first in films using her primary family name Joan Burfield. She got this surname from her stepfather. Her career as a film actress started by acting in a musical film A Damsel in Distress in 1937. Then she appeared in many dramatic films like Gunga Din(1939) and The Women(1939). She brought her career on a higher step by appearing in the films of director Alfred Hitchcock. Joan acted in films Rebecca and Suspicion which won box office success and she achieved Academy Award nominations.
Joan Fontaine won another Academy Award nomination as she showed outstanding performance as an actress in movie Constant Nymph in 1943. She appeared in other amazing films like Jane Eyre(1944), Othello (1952) and Ivanhoe(1952). Her once-amazing career began to slow down in the beginning of the 60’s. She then appeared in very few movies in minor roles.
In personal life, Fontaine got married and divorced four times. Actor Brian Aherne was her first husband. After Divorcing him, Joan married William Dozier in 1946 who was an actor and producer. But they became separated in 1951. She married writer Collier Young in 1952. After Divorcing him in 1961, she married Alfred Wright in 1964. But this last relationship lasted only 5 years. Actually, her love life was not happy but full of sufferings. In her autobiography ‘No Bed No Roses’ she wrote her complicated relations with her family and her former husbands.
Joan Fontaine died on 15 December in 2013 in her sleep. Present time Hollywood stars still remember her for her amazing films.
Profile
Born: October 22, 1917, Tokyo, Japan
Died: December 15, 2013, Carmel Highlands, California, United States
Height: 5′ 3″
Family
Spouse: Alfred Wright, Jr. (m. 1964–1969), More
Siblings: Olivia de Havilland
Filmography
- No More Ladies(1935)
- Quality Street(1937)
- You Can’t Beat Love(1937)
- A Damsel in Distress(1937)
- The Women(1939)
- Born to Be Bad(1950)
- Casanova’s Big Night(1954)
- Beyond a Reasonable Doubt(1956)
- The Users(1978)
- Good King Wenceslas(1994)