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An old family friend takes with her the last living motion picture industry link to my grandfather’s legacy
On the subject of Olivia de Havilland
When you see an obituary of someone you knew very early in life, connected to you as a family friend, the memories of that person come back in a swirling haze of truth and wishes that clears only momentarily to reveal a wonderful character who once meant so much but who, over the years, stepped silently into the fog of uncertain recollection.
Sometimes, the headlined death make you feel like one of your life’s anchor chains, carelessly untethered, has slipped over the side of the boat, disappearing into the cold, dark depths of irretrievable time.
An enduring friendship
So it was that I felt that way upon hearing of the death of Olivia de Havilland, one of my grandfather’s, Charles Brackett’s, dearest friends who starred in two of the movies he wrote (Hold Back the Dawn, 1941, for which Olivia won an Oscar) and wrote and produced (To Each His Own, 1946).
