A Conversation with Olivia de Havilland
From: National Endowment for the Arts
Series: Art Works Podcast
Length: 27:53
Winner of two Academy Awards for best actress, Olivia de Havilland is quite simply a Hollywood legend, and at the age of 93 she's also one of the few who remembers first hand Hollywood's golden age. A natural beauty with refined elegance, de Havilland was an accomplished actress who wasn't afraid to tackle roles that would make her look unattractive, from a woman struggling with insanity in the Snake Pit to a plain unassuming girl in The Heiress, for which she won an Academy Award. In 2008, de Havilland was presented with The National Medal of Arts, the highest honor bestowed on an artist by the Federal Government.
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Related Pieces
Piece Description
Winner of two Academy Awards for best actress, Olivia de Havilland is quite simply a Hollywood legend, and at the age of 93 she's also one of the few who remembers first hand Hollywood's golden age. A natural beauty with refined elegance, de Havilland was an accomplished actress who wasn't afraid to tackle roles that would make her look unattractive, from a woman struggling with insanity in the Snake Pit to a plain unassuming girl in The Heiress, for which she won an Academy Award. In 2008, de Havilland was presented with The National Medal of Arts, the highest honor bestowed on an artist by the Federal Government.
Transcript
Transcript of an audio interview with Olivia deHavilland
ARTWORKS INTRO
[Take Five theme woven in and out of a montage of voices talking about the arts]
Kay Ryan: I demand a lot of sound from a poem.
Joe Haj: The arts are filled with people who are nontraditional thinkers.
Jo Reed: The arts are a wonderful window onto the soul of America.
Stan Lee: I started ending my columns by saying Excelsior!
[ Brubeck fades to piano piece by Todd Barton ]
Azar Nafisi, writer: Reading awakens your senses.
Kay Ryan, poet: If you write well, you are utterly exposed.
Olivia de Havilland: A voice said, "This is George Cukor."
Brenda Wineapple: Its value will never be diminished.
Marilynne Robison: The oldest art we have is narrative literature.
Lee Childs: The arts are what makes us human.
Tim O'Brien: There is a reason that fiction exists.
[Piano fades to Rain by the Birmingham Sunlights]
David Newe...
Read the full transcript
Musical Works
| Title | Artist | Album | Label | Year | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Take Five | Dave Brubeck Quartet (composed by Paul Desmond) | Take Five . | Derry Music Company | 1959 | 00:00 |
Additional Credits
Interviews conducted and edited by Jo Reed.
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