Hollywood's Last Golden Girl Reminisces

Seventy years after Gone with the Wind, Olivia de Havilland talks to the Independent about her similarities to Melanie Hamilton, what it was really like to work during the golden age of Hollywood, and her relationship with Errol Flynn. Though nothing ever happened between the frequent costars, “What I felt for Errol Flynn was not a trivial matter at all,” de Havilland says. “I felt terribly attracted to him.”

Of Melanie, de Havilland—who nursed an ex-husband and a son through terminal cancer—says, “I would say that she is the person that I would like to be.” Though she is perhaps best known for the role, de Havilland’s career opened up after she won a landmark 1943 court battle against the Hollywood studios—until that point, “You were a great celebrity but also a slave,” she says. (More Olivia de Havilland stories.)