Joan Fontaine - A Rising Star

JOAN FONTAINE comes close to her famous one-picture-to-stardom Rebecca role in her currently releasing Suspicion with Cary Grant. And so, the great question of whether Miss Fontaine - or Mrs. Brian Aherne, if you prefer - was a flash in the pan is definitely settled. She's not. 

She is an actress of the first water, crystal-clear, no flaws, and far outshadowing the sister who long cast a shadow over her, Olivia de Havilland. A moving, intensely human story lies behind this fait accompli. 

A blonde, Joan has more than her share of good looks and a bright and charming spirit that has made her a favorite with all Hollywood. However, as a child in Tokyo, Joan was ill a great deal of the time. She was a lonely little girl because she did not have the strength to play when her necessary schoolwork was done. After her family had moved to San Francisco, Joan regained her health in the dry, sunlit air of Saratoga. 

Five feet three inches tall, Joan weighs 108 pounds, favors outdoor sports for exercise, specifically swimming and tennis at which she is adept. Her favorite hobbies are reading history and indulging her life-long weakness for Japanese art. 

It probably was Olivia herself who first challenged Joan to be something besides Olivia's sister. Five years ago Joan was just a stock player, a girl for whom the screen producers held little promise. Olivia had arrived and great things were in store for her. She got many of them except the part of Rebecca which little sister Joan swiped right from under her nose. Joan also won or was won by the talented English actor Brian Aherne, and between them, their mutual romance worked wonders in giving Joan new self-assurance. So inspired, Joan delivered to director Alfred Hitchcock an amazing Rebecca, dissolved the shadow of Olivia, and all the time was having gruesome bouts with hay fever (which she still has in its meanest form every year). 

Suspicion, a picturization of "Before the Fact," with Alfred Hitchcock again wielding the megaphone, is the story, most difficult to convey, of what goes on in the mind of a young wife infatuated with her swashbuckling, loving husband, who in all respects but his marital fidelity is a no-good loafer with what apparently is a tendency toward homicide for funds. It is a thrilling, chilling and superbly acted drama by Grant and particularly Miss Fontaine ... despite her hay fever ... and Olivia. -Evans Plummer

Joan Fontaine never really outshadowed her sister Olivia, but she did have a unique presence onscreen and made a number of really fine films. The above portrait of her is one of the loveliest we've ever seen. This article originally appeared in Movie-Radio Guide ( Vol. 11, No. 7 ) dated the week of November 22-28th, 1941. 

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