Oscar winning actress Joan Fontaine died in California a week ago aged 96. The star of several thrillers produced by Alfred Hitchcock, and the sister of fellow Oscar winner Olivia De Havilland, she also had major parts in The Constant Nymph, Jane Eyre and Letter from an Unknown Woman.

She played the lead role opposite Laurence Olivier in Hitchcock’s first Hollywood work, Rebecca. Her and her sister had a notoriously difficult relationship, with Fontaine saying to a reporter in 1978, “I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she’ll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it.” The pair remain the only siblings to have both won Academy Awards for acting.

Text by Beccy Hill

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