Olivia De Havilland to receive Honorary Oscar

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Oscars to honour screen great Olivia de Havilland

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Oscars organisers will honour Academy Award-winning screen legend Olivia de Havilland at a special ceremony next year, they announced.

The 89-year-old actress -- who starred in such classic films as 1939's "Gone with the Wind," in which she played Melanie Hamilton -- will be the subject of a tribute to be held in Beverly Hills on June 15, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said.

Double Oscar winner De Havilland, the sister of actress Joan Fontaine -- the star of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" -- was born in Tokyo in July 1916 of British parents who later moved their family to Los Angeles.

De Havilland made her screen debut as Hermia in Max Reinhardt's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1935 and won recognition for her role opposite swashbuckling actor Errol Flynn in "Captain Blood" later the same year.

The duo teamed up for seven more movies, notably "The Adventures of Robin Hood," which transformed De Havilland into a star.

She won the first of her five Academy Award nominations for her supporting performance as Melanie in producer David O. Selznick's classic civil war epic "Gone with the Wind."

Two years later, in 1941, her lead performance as Emmy Brown in "Hold Back the Dawn" was nominated, but she lost out on the Oscar to her sister Fontaine, who won for Hitchcock's "Suspicion".

De Havilland won her first Oscar for her portrayal of Jody Norris in "To Each His Own" (1946).

She won a further nomination for "The Snake Pit" (1948) and won her second Academy Award statuette for her role as Catherine Sloper in "The Heiress" one year later.
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