Showing posts with label Rebecca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebecca. Show all posts

Sunday, 1 December 2019

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again



The beginning of December is depressing in so many ways - World AIDS Day, the meteorological advent of Winter proper and, inevitably, the time when despondent shoppers and radio listeners start being "treated" to the endless dross that is Xmas music from now until doomsday. It's dark and gloomy, and eminently suitable for an appearance by one of the most sinister of Alfred Hitchcock movies, the adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca - and who better to give us a faboo introduction to that film than Steve Hayes, aka Tired Old Queen at the Movies?!


Just think - "The Second Mrs DeWinter" might have been a whole lot different had she been played by another actress who auditioned, in a list that included Vivien Leigh, Margaret Sullavan, Loretta Young, Anne Baxter ...or Nova Pilbeam (who?!)

Wednesday, 22 October 2008

You could never be the real Mrs DeWinter



We celebrate the 91st birthday today of the classic Hollywood star Joan Fontaine.

Together with her beautiful sister Olivia de Havilland, Joan was one of those actresses whose elegant charm entranced audiences in the golden age of cinema. An early favourite of Hitchcock (she won an Oscar for her role in Suspicion), she began her career slowly but soon eclipsed Olivia's career. In fact the two have not spoken since 1941!

Married four times, her former husband waspishly commented that her autobiography No Bed of Roses should have been better titled "No Shred of Truth".

It is for her superb role as the second Mrs DeWinter in Rebecca that Joan Fontaine is indelibly etched on the collective memory, however, and despite starring in hundreds more films she never quite shook off the role. Happy birthday to a living legend!


Joan Fontaine on IMDB