[photo credit: Pasadena Senior Center]
The program, “Olivia de Havilland: The Woman Who Changed Hollywood,” closes the center’s Women’s History Month programming in its Masters Series Lifelong Learning. Steven C. Smith, who has produced more than 200 documentaries on Hollywood history, will present the talk at 2 p.m. at the center, 85 E. Holly St.
De Havilland sued Warner Bros. in 1943 after the studio added six months to her seven-year contract to make up for periods when she had been suspended without pay for rejecting roles, according to the Pasadena Senior Center’s event description. In 1944, the California Court of Appeal for the Second District ruled in her favor, finding that seven years meant seven calendar years — not seven years of actual work.
The ruling, still known as the De Havilland Law, curtailed the studios’ ability to keep actors under contract indefinitely and remains part of the California Labor Code. It has been invoked in modern disputes, including by the band Thirty Seconds to Mars in a 2009 contract case against its record label.
De Havilland, who was born in Tokyo to British parents and raised in California, had been under contract with Warner Bros. since 1936. She first gained fame opposite Errol Flynn in adventure films such as “Captain Blood” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and played Melanie Hamilton in “Gone with the Wind.”
After winning her legal case, she signed with Paramount Pictures and won two Academy Awards for best actress — for “To Each His Own” in 1946 and “The Heiress” in 1949. She died in 2020 at age 104.
Smith specializes in Golden Age Hollywood and has worked with filmmakers including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, according to his website. He is the author of three books published by Oxford University Press and the University of California Press, and has spoken at the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
His presentation Tuesday will feature film clips and interviews with de Havilland, according to the center’s event listing.
The program is part of the Pasadena Senior Center’s Masters Series, which in March has featured presentations on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and a woman who served as a “Donut Dolly” during the Vietnam War.
Registration is suggested and can be completed at pasadenaseniorcenter.org. Tickets will also be available at the door. The program is in-person and will not be recorded.
The Pasadena Senior Center is a donor-supported nonprofit organization serving adults 50 and older across Pasadena and Altadena. For more information, contact the center at (626) 795-4331.
Smith’s presentation will trace how one actress’s refusal to accept the roles Warner Bros. assigned her led to a legal ruling that changed the balance of power between studios and performers — a shift that remains codified in California law more than 80 years later.
