Joan Fontaine

I find Joan Fontaine endlessly fascinating — born in Tokyo, raised in California, and somehow she became the very picture of trembling, doe-eyed elegance that Alfred Hitchcock used to perfection in Rebecca and Suspicion. That 1942 Academy Award for Best Actress was well earned; she had this gift for playing women on the edge of their nerves without ever tipping into melodrama, and it made every scene feel genuinely tense. She was also Olivia de Havilland's younger sister, and the two famously did not get along for most of their lives, which adds a bittersweet layer to two such extraordinary careers running in parallel. Beyond acting she wrote, she designed interiors, she lived to 96 — a full, complicated, glamorous life that stretched from the silent era all the way to the 21st century. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame feels like the least they could do.

Name (English)

Joan Fontaine

Name (Japanese)

ジョーン・フォンテイン

Reading

じょーん・ふぉんていん

Born

October 22, 1917 – December 15, 2013

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Snake

Origin

Tokyo, Japan

Occupation

actor / writer / television actor / interior designer

High school

Los Gatos High School

Awards & achievements

• 1942 Academy Award for Best Actress
• star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A7%E3%83%BC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%95%E3%82%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%83%86%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3

Tags

• Tokyo
• actor
• writer
• television actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.