- Marriage, as an institution, is as dead as the dodo bird.
- If you keep marrying as I do, you learn everybody's hobby.
- I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia [sister Olivia de Havilland] did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!
- [Before the failure of her first marriage] Too many Hollywood marriages have smashed up because husbands were Mr. Joan Fontaine. That will never happen in our marriage because I am 100% Mrs. Brian Aherne.
- [on working with Orson Welles on Jane Eyre (1943)] You cannot battle an elephant. Orson was such a big man in every way that no one could stand up to him. On the first day at 4 o'clock, he strode in followed by his agent, a dwarf, his valet and a whole entourage. Approaching us, he proclaimed, "All right, everybody turn to page eight." And we did it, though he was not the director.
- [on Charles Boyer] Charles Boyer remains my favorite leading man. I found him a man of intellect, taste and discernment. He was unselfish, dedicated to his work. Above all, he cared about the quality of the film he was making, and unlike most leading men I have worked with, the single exception being Fred Astaire, his first concern was the film, not himself.
- [on Olivia de Havilland] We're getting closer together as we get older, but there would be a slight problem of temperament. In fact, it would be bigger than Hiroshima.
- [on working with director George Cukor on The Women (1939)] I learned [more] about acting from George than anyone else and through just one sentence. He said, "Think and feel and the rest will take care of itself."
- I hope I'll die on stage at the age at 105, playing Peter Pan.
- [on Olivia de Havilland] My sister is a very peculiar lady. When we were young, I wasn't allowed to talk to her friends. Now, I'm not allowed to talk to her children, nor are they permitted to see me. This is the nature of the lady. Doesn't bother me at all.
- You know, I've had a helluva life. Not just the acting part. I've flown in an international balloon race. I've piloted my own plane. I've ridden to the hounds. I've done a lot of exciting things.
- I made about seven tests for Rebecca (1940). Everybody tested for it. Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Vivien Leigh, Susan Hayward, Anne Baxter, you name her. Supposedly, [Alfred Hitchcock] saw one of my tests and said, "This is the only one". I think the word he used to describe what set me apart was "vulnerability". Also, I was not very well-known and producer David O. Selznick saw the chance for star-budding. And may I say he also saw the chance to put me under contract for serf's wages.
- [on beating sister Olivia de Havilland for the Oscar] I froze. I stared across the table, where Olivia was sitting. "Get up there!" she whispered commandingly. Now what had I done? All the animus we'd felt towards each other as children, the savage wrestling matches, the time Olivia fractured my collarbone, all came rushing back in kaleidoscopic imagery.
- [in 1978, about sister Olivia de Havilland] Olivia has always said I was first at everything. If I die, she'll be furious because, again, I'll have got there first.
- [in 1978, on marriage] The main problem in marriage is that, for a man, sex is a hunger-like eating. If a man is hungry and can't get to a fancy French restaurant, he'll go to a hot dog stand. For a woman, what's important is love and romance.
- When I came to Hollywood I did not know [Ida Lupino], and she was married to Collier Young, his nickname was "Collie". A few years after they were married, they got a divorce, but remained friends. I had been in pictures for a few films and Ida wanted me to be in a film with her called The Bigamist (1953). It turned out that Collie was going to co-produce the film with Ida. I got a chance to meet Collie, I fell in love with him, and I married him. So, as it turned out, when Ida was very ill and in the hospital I visited her. She knew that I loved animals and asked if when the time comes, would I take Holden [Lupino's dog] to come and live with me. So this is how I came to be Holden's owner. So it turns out that I got two collies from Ida Lupino, and they both turned out to be dogs!
- I'm a very affectionate person, and no man was ever able to satisfy that need for affection as well as my dogs do.
- I make pictures because I like to be able to get a good table when I go to a nightclub and because I like to travel.
- I have had eight names, counting my four married surnames. Professionally de Havilland was Olivia's; she was the first-born and I was not to disgrace her name. I took my first theatrical name, Joan Burfield, from Burfield Street in Hollywood. Then I became Joan St. John. One evening at the Trocadero nightclub, at the urging of a fortune teller, I picked Fontaine, my stepfather's name. "Take that," she advised, "Joan Fontaine is a success name." She was right.
- [when asked, "Which of your films are you proudest of?"] Rebecca (1940) is a fantastic story, marvelously directed and produced. I like The Constant Nymph (1943) very much, and although Suspicion (1941) isn't a classic like Rebecca, it's damn good.
- [when asked if her mother ever saw her films] She claimed not, but I found out recently that she actually did see our pictures. She told a friend of hers that in Jane Eyre "Joan was defeated by her beauty." How's that for a remark? Mother never could express pride in either of her daughters.
- He asked me to marry him three times, but it was Olivia who loved Howard Hughes. One day she invited me to a surprise party at the Trocadero where Hughes was the host. On the dance floor, he leaned down and proposed. I was furious - no one two-timed my sister, no matter what our quarrels might be. But when I tried to warn Olivia, sparks flew. I showed her his telephone number in his own handwriting that he had given me, but she was furious at me. No, I was never in love with Howard. He had no humor, no sense of joy, no vivacity. Everything had to be a "deal."
- By the way, we may not get along personally, but I am absolutely thrilled that my sister has accomplished what she has. Imagine what we could have done if we had gotten together. We could have selected the right scripts, the right directors, the right producers - we could have built our own empire. But it was not to be.
- [1978] I just haven't time [to remarry]. On two separate occasions recently men offered me $1 million if I would marry them. So I said, "Suppose I already have $1 million? Now what will you give me?" They couldn't offer anything, not love, not a life together, not adventure - just the dough. I don't need that. I'm very good with money.
- [1978] This is the best period of my life. There are lots of offers, but going back to a sound stage in Hollywood doesn't appeal anymore. After some 50 films, I want to do things I haven't done, like appear on the London stage and write a novel. Life's too short.
- [on her romance with Adlai Stevenson] We had a tenderness for each other that grew into something rather serious. There was so much speculation about our marrying in the press that over lunch at his apartment in the Waldorf Towers he told me he could not marry an actress. He still had political ambitions and the "little old ladies from Oshkosh" wouldn't approve. I told him it was just as well. My family would hardly approve of my marrying a politician.
- [on two of the men she loved] John Houseman and I were going to be married, but at the last minute I discovered his mother wanted to move in with us. Aly Khan was a marvelous fairy-tale prince and he knew it. He was a butterfly covering as many flowers as he could.
- [1982] You know it's amazing to win an Oscar when you really don't know what you're doing. You really don't know your art for many, many years. And the sad part about my profession is that to play any juicy part you have to be very young. They don't write - as Glenda Jackson said the other day - they just don't write plays for people over 40, much. That's why "Golden Pond" is so marvelous. In fact, I'm much too young. She's supposed to be 79 in the play. I had a great compliment today. One person asked me, "Are you playing the daughter?" I nearly kissed her!
- There is much in my life that might make me the envy of many ... fame, fortune, romance, self-expression, independence. Yet I have found no lasting romance, no marriage that I could salvage without jeopardizing my own happiness or freedom, my own brand of integrity. My career is the result of opportunity and luck as much as anything.
- [1985] I have no family ties anymore, so I want to work. I was trying to keep busy. I had a big house to furnish and a wonderful garden to create. I do needlepoint to the ceiling. I still host an interview show for cable in New York. I lecture all over the country. But it wasn't enough. My theory is that if you stay busy, you haven't time to grow old. Or at least you don't notice it.
- [1985] I rarely watch television. When you live in New York, as I did for 25 years, you don't have time. I was out every night at premieres or operas, or if I was at home, I was entertaining. TV is for married couples and their children who have nothing left to say to each other. Conversation has become a lost art.
- [1985] At my time in life, I don't want to do bit parts. Also, Rosalind Russell once said, "Always escape the mother parts." And I've avoided them.
- [on dressing rooms] In the old days they were so lavish that you would bring the paintings from your home to hang on your dressing room walls.
- [1985] I loved my New York apartment. I had a whole floor with a wonderful library. The only problem with the apartment was that it looked out on a wall of concrete on 72d Street instead of onto the ocean. A year ago when I was in Carmel I walked into a house with an identical library to the one I had, except that it overlooked the Pacific. So I sold my apartment for 20 times what I had paid for it, and I moved to California.
- [on the Academy Awards, 1990] The Academy has now become, in my opinion, a spectacle for television; it's become a "show". It was originally to honour the profession... Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Conrad Nagel, a couple of other people, got together after all the scandals that had occurred in motion pictures... and decided they had to do something to make it an Honorable profession so that's why they got the academy for the finest people in the industry, the finest writers, and to give them an accolade for quality. Well, I'm sorry to tell you I haven't seen much quality in any of the Academy shows I have witnessed and I've given up watching them... Two years ago I was asked to fly down from where I lived, buy a new frock of course, something lovely, and stay in the Beverly Hills Hotel, at my own expense, and have an escort, at my own expense. And they said, 'you must be dressed up at three thirty in the afternoon, because it goes on at five or whenever it was... so we parade through the lobby feeling ridiculous in evening clothes, get into this long stretch limousine. Well, we go through Beverly Hills down toward the Shrine auditorium... and there are telephones in all the cars and they say, 'Stay there! We're having a traffic jam. You can't get in'. There was no air conditioning. It was eighty-five outside. And we, my friend from England and I, we sat in this car for two hours and we finally got to the auditorium. There was no interview for us, no recognition. We were shown to our seats and boom the lights go out and the thing starts and my friend says to me 'do you think I can go to the ladies' room?'... When it was all over and we go outside there is no long white limousine for us. We stand in the cold... and nobody will do anything... finally two girls of questionable virtue came by in a car and took us home, back to the hotel. Very kind of them!
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