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The casting of Joan Fontaine in Rebecca (1940) was the catalyst that escalated a childhood rivalry into a permanent professional feud. It elevated Joan to A-list status, challenging Olivia de Havilland's position as the family's sole star. While Olivia had wanted the role, she was blocked by her Warner Bros. contract, leading to a narrative (fueled by Joan) that Olivia had patronizingly 'given' her the part. The tension exploded at the 1941 Oscars (held in 1942) when Joan won Best Actress for Suspicion over Olivia, leading Joan to famously ignore Olivia's congratulations. This professional competition, compounded by their mother's favoritism and Hitchcock's manipulative isolation of Joan on set, solidified an estrangement that lasted until their deaths.
The casting of Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) was a pivotal moment that transformed a simmering childhood rivalry with her sister, Olivia de Havilland, into a full-scale, lifelong professional feud.
Here are the specific details of how that casting and the subsequent success affected their relationship:
Prior to 1940, Olivia de Havilland was the established star of the family. She had already achieved massive fame in adventure films with Errol Flynn and had received an Oscar nomination for her role as Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939). Joan, by contrast, had struggled in minor roles and was often dismissed as "the younger sister."
The role of the "Second Mrs. de Winter" in Rebecca was the most sought-after female lead in Hollywood at the time. When Joan won the role over hundreds of other actresses (including Vivien Leigh), it immediately catapulted her to the same "A-list" status as Olivia. This removed the hierarchy of "Big Sister/Star" and "Little Sister/Ingenue," creating a direct competitive environment.
Their mother, Lilian Fontaine, had historically favored Olivia’s career. When Joan decided to pursue acting, she was reportedly forbidden from using the family name "de Havilland" because their mother believed there was only room for one star with that name. Joan eventually took her stepfather’s name, Fontaine.
Joan's success in Rebecca—which was a massive critical and commercial hit—proved that she could succeed without the family name. This success was seen as a defiance of the family's expectations, further alienating Joan from her mother and Olivia.
According to Hollywood lore, producer David O. Selznick originally considered Olivia de Havilland for the role in Rebecca. Olivia supposedly suggested that Joan would be better suited for the part, as the character required a certain shy, mousy insecurity.
While this appeared to be a supportive gesture, Joan reportedly felt patronized by the suggestion. In Joan’s view, Olivia was "handing her a crumb" or suggesting she was naturally "weak" enough to play the part. When Joan’s performance earned her an Academy Award nomination, the narrative shifted from Olivia "helping" Joan to the sisters being bitter rivals for the same awards.
The casting of Rebecca set off a chain reaction at the Oscars that broke their relationship publicly:
When Joan won, the tension was palpable. As Joan walked to the stage, Olivia reached out to congratulate her, and Joan visibly recoiled or ignored her. Joan later remarked in her autobiography that all the childhood feelings of being the "unwanted" sister came rushing back, and she felt Olivia’s gesture was insincere.
On the set of Rebecca, Alfred Hitchcock intentionally played on Joan Fontaine’s real-life insecurities to get a better performance. He told her that the rest of the cast (including Laurence Olivier) hated her and thought she was a poor actress.
This psychological isolation mirrored the isolation Joan felt within her own family. Because Rebecca was the film that defined her career, she forever associated her professional peak with a sense of being an outsider—a feeling she blamed Olivia and their mother for fostering since childhood.
In short, Rebecca stripped away Olivia’s status as the "only" star in the family. It gave Joan the professional leverage to stand up to her sister, which manifested as a decades-long refusal to speak, culminating in the famous incident where they did not even speak at their mother’s funeral in 1975. Without the breakout success of Rebecca, Joan might have remained in Olivia’s shadow; with it, they became permanent adversaries.
The summary omits that Olivia was contractually prevented from taking the role in 'Rebecca', which is a crucial fact countering the narrative that she simply 'suggested' Joan out of pity or superiority.
While the summary focuses on 'Rebecca's' immediate aftermath, the 1947 snub (where Olivia snubbed Joan) is the most famous visual representation of the feud and provides balance to the 1941 snub description.