Joan Fontaine Net Worth

How much was Joan Fontaine worth?

Net Worth:$45 Million
Profession:Professional Actress
Date of Birth:October 22, 1917
Country:Japan-born British-American
Height:
1.61 m

About Joan Fontaine

Fontaine is renowned for her several leading roles in Hollywood’s “Golden Age” of motion pictures. After acting in Rebecca (1940), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Joan Fontaine’s rise to prominence was all but guaranteed. Fontaine received her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Mrs. de Winter.

The younger sister of Olivia de Havilland and a British actress, Joan Fontaine was born in Japan and rose to fame under Alfred Hitchcock. She was the only actor—male or female—to ever get an Oscar for their work with the Master.

British-American actress Joan Fontaine had an estimated net worth of $45 million dollars at the time of her death, in 2013. Forever in competition with her sister, Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine movies were hugely successful, grossing over $100 million on average. Records in her time.

She peaked in the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s, but throughout this time, much was made of the competition she had with de Havilland, which had its roots in their early years. Fontaine and her sister had a very serious argument about their mother’s illness and passing, despite her claims that the studios fanned the flames to gain attention. In the middle of the 1970s, communication between the two ended.

She continued acting until 1994 and published her memoirs, No Bed of Roses, in 1978.

Early Years

On October 22, 1917, Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her mother, Lillian Ruse, sometimes known as Lillian Fontaine, was an actress who earned a degree from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her father, Walter de Havilland, was a British-born patent attorney whose ancestry could be traced to kings Edward II and Henry VIII.

Having suffered from measles, anemia, and other diseases as a young girl, Fontaine’s mother decided to send her and her sister Olivia to the United States in 1919, leaving her father behind in Japan. However, their union was in trouble, and her parents’ divorce occurred in the same year.

The intelligent Fontaine, who had moved to Saratoga, California, was successful in school but had trouble with Olivia. The siblings’ relationship was tense their whole lives, and it only got worse once they both achieved fame.

When Fontaine was 15 years old, she returned to Japan and attended the American School of Tokyo. In the meanwhile, she graduated from Los Gatos High School. A year later, she had a falling-out with her father and went back to the United States, where she followed Olivia’s example and developed a passion for acting.

She Starts Her Career

After meeting the Australian performer May Robson, Fontaine changed her identity to Joan Burfield and made her acting debut in the 1935 film Kind Lady, costarring Robson. According to legend, her mother forbade her from using the de Havilland name out of concern that it may harm Olivia’s own career.

She signed a deal with RKO Pictures after appearing in a performance of Call It a Day. The play was made into a 1937 film, but Fontaine’s sister ended up playing the part she was originally cast in.

With No More Ladies, Fontaine made her film debut, and in A Damsel in Distress, she co-starred with Fred Astaire. The latter film was a failure. She appeared in minor roles in Gunga Din and The Women in 1939, now going by the name Fontaine, but she didn’t leave a lasting impact, and her contract eventually ran out. She wed actor Brian Aherne in the following year; the two were divorced in 1945.

Getting Star Status

When she was chosen to play the lead opposite Laurence Olivier in Alfred Hitchcock’s American debut, Rebecca, thanks to a chance encounter with famed producer David O. Selsnick, her career saw a resurgence. It took months of testing and beating out many other actresses for the role, but Fontaine persevered and was eventually nominated for her first Academy Award for Best Actress.

In 1941’s Suspicion, in which she played a lady who marries a guy she later learns may have done so in an effort to get rid of her and collect her estate, Fontaine reconnected with Hitchcock. She once more found herself up for Best Actress at the Oscars, but this time she was up against her sister Olivia, who was recognized for her work in Hold Back the Dawn.

When Fontaine went up to the platform to accept her award, both of them claimed that the other ignored them, which led to their relationship further deteriorating as a result of Fontaine’s victory.

Her Best Periods

Fontaine entered a successful phase where she succeeded in a number of romance movies that were acclaimed and commercial successes after becoming an American citizen in 1943. She was nominated for Best Actress for the third time for her work in The Constant Nymph. She also portrayed the title character in Robert Stevenson’s version of Charlotte Bronte’s classic Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles, and she played a man-eating vigilante in the noir picture Ivy.

Deborah Fontaine was born two years after her mother married actor William Dozier in 1946. The pair established Rampart Productions and worked with Max Ophuls to produce Letter from an Unknown Woman in 1948.

She continued to release successful singles and appeared with Bing Crosby and Burt Lancaster in Billy Wilder’s musical comedy The Emperor Waltz (1948) as well as his film noir Kiss the Blood Off My Hands.

An Absence of Popularity

As indicated by a handful of pretty average melodramas like Born to Be Bad and September Affair, Fontaine saw less success in the 1950s. Her union with Dozier came to an end in 1951, and in 1952, she wed once more—this time to scriptwriter Collier Young. Martita, a young Peruvian girl, was also adopted by her.

Fontaine suffered a slump when her run of successes started to dwindle. She appeared in a cameo as Rowena, the love of the play’s title character, Ivanhoe, played by Robert Taylor, in Orson Welles’ amazing production of Othello.

But her fall from grace was only accelerated by her leading roles in Bob Hope’s mild comedy Casanova’s Big Night and the toned-down Decameron Nights. Fontaine turned to Broadway and performed opposite Anthony Perkins in Robert Anderson’s 1954 production of Tea and Sympathy, doing the only thing one could in such a predicament.

later in life

As she got older, Fontaine tended to portray more intellectual and shrewd supporting characters instead of taking on main roles. She co-starred in Fritz Lang’s final American film, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, played a snooty art patron in Serenade, and in the ensemble drama Island in the Sun, she played an older socialite in love with a budding politician (Harry Belafonte).

In the 1960s, Fontaine made more appearances on television than in films. She hosted the syndicated series Perspectives on Greatness and participated as a panelist on game programs. In 1966’s The Witches, a supernatural horror film in which she becomes entangled in a voodoo cult and receives a curse from an African witch doctor, she made her final appearance in a major motion picture.

Throughout the decade, Fontaine continued to perform on stage; in 1968, she made a comeback on Broadway in Forty Carats. After divorcing Young, she married Alfred Wright, a journalist, for the fourth time. After their 1969 divorce, Fontaine never got remarried. Because the adoption was invalid in the United States, she also lost custody of Martita. She was never seen or heard from again by Fontaine.

No Bed of Roses, Fontaine’s autobiography published in 1978, included information on her ongoing conflict with Olivia. Concerned about their mother’s cancer diagnosis and death, the two lost all communication with one another.

She made her screen debut in The Users the same year, and for a guest starring performance in the serial opera Ryan’s Hope, she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy. In 1986, Fontaine produced her first miniseries, Crossings, and replaced Loretta Young in the Dark Mansions pilot, an Aaron Spelling-produced gothic primetime soap opera. The program was never put on television.

Fontaine retired from acting after portraying a grandmother in the Family Channel’s Good King Wenceslas, and she now lives alone in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She never made amends with her sister before quietly passing away from natural causes on December 15, 2013. She was 96. Joan Fontaine had an estimated net worth of $45 million at the time of his passing.

In the middle of the 1960s, Fontaine gave up acting in motion pictures and concentrated her efforts on Broadway and television. Fontaine continues to be remembered as one of the greatest actors from the Classic era thanks to his talent and Golden Age beauty.

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