British-American Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, better known as Joan Fontaine, died in her sleep last Sunday at her house in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
Born in Japan in 1917 from British parents, Fontaine started her career in 1935 when she debuted in a production of Call It a Day, taking up in the same year a small role in No More Ladies. After a few more minor roles, she starred in The Man Who Found Himself (1937), appearing two years later in The Women (1939).
She had her big break in Rebecca (1940), starring also Laurence Olivier, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a film that won her a nomination to the Academy Awards for Best Actress. Fontaine did win the following year the Academy Award for Best Actress in Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941), which co-starred Cary Grant, beating her elder sister Olivia de Havilland, up for Hold Back the Dawn (Joan and Olivia eventually became the only set of siblings to win lead acting Academy Awards).
Fontaine continued acting throughout the '40s - earning a third best actress Oscar nomination for her role in The Constant Nymph (1943) - and the '50s. Her last theatrical film was The Witches (1966), which she also co-produced, while her last credited performance came in the 1994 television film Good King Wenceslas.
There is an interesting fashion/costume connection in a romantic thriller Fontaine shot in 1950. September Affair, directed by William Dieterle, is a love story between prominent businessman David Lawrence (Joseph Cotton) and pianist Marianne "Manina" Stuart (Joan Fontaine). David and Manina meet on a flight from Rome to New York and, when the plane is diverted to Naples for engine repairs, they go on some sight-seeing, ending up missing their flight.
As the plane they had to catch crashes into the ocean, and all on board are presumed dead, they decide to begin a new life in Florence, running away from their engagements, worries and fears, starting a love affair based on deception until their past catches up with them.
Fontaine's costumes for this film were designed by Edith Head who used the actress' wardrobe to reflect the changes in Manina's life.
At the beginning of the film Manina is ready to go back to America to star in a concerto and wears a formal skirt dress; when she falls in love with David in Capri we see her in a bathing suit while in Florence she adopts holiday dresses. A formal dark skirt suit marks her return to New York, while she officially re-enters her old life as a famous pianist when she wears a lavish evening gown for her Rachmaninoff concerto.
The elegant gown reappears in the opening picture in this post that shows Fontaine with a doll in a matching dress: Head often used dolls wearing small versions of the costumes she made for her actresses. The dolls were given away as gifts or used for publicity purposes.
Final suggestion: rewatch September Affair paying more attention to the costumes Edith Head made for Joan Fontaine - you will definitely find some lovely inspirations and ideas.
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