Joan Fontaine (born October 22, 1917) is
an international actress. Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in Tokyo, Japan, the daughter of
a British patent attorney with a practice in Japan, she is the younger sister of actress
Olivia de Havilland.
Because Joan and her mother both had frequent illnesses, the family moved to Saratoga,
California for their health. But Joan's father soon went back to Japan, and he and his wife
divorced. Joan returned to Tokyo to attend the American School there, but she came back in
1934 to find that her sister was making a name for herself on the stage.
Both sisters moved to Hollywood to start film careers. Because Olivia was using the family
name, Joan began acting as Joan Burfield, in No More Ladies in 1935. Her career seemed to be
ready to die, even as her sister's blossomed, but Joan changed her name to Fontaine and began
receiving bigger parts in such movies as You Can't Beat Love, Quality Street, The Women and
Gunga Din.
In 1940, Joan received an Academy Award nomination for Rebecca. The next year she was again
nominated, for Suspicion, and this time she won the award. In 1944 she was nominated for The
Constant Nymph.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1645 Vine Street.
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wiki/Joan_Fontaine
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