JOAN FONTAINE - CONTRACT SIGNED 06/01/1956 - HFSID 178188

JOAN FONTAINE
She signs a multi-film contract with RKO (1956).
Contract signed: "Joan Fontaine". 2 pages, separate sheets, 8½x11. Los Angeles, California, 1956 June 1. Letter form confirmation of mutual agreement dated March 27, 1956 between RKO Radio Pictures and Fontaine for services in three motion pictures. Stage, screen and television actress Joan Fontaine (born Joan de Beavoir de Havilland, 1917-2013) started in film in 1935, but her career took off in the 1940s, when she starred in two of Alfred Hitchcock's films, Rebecca (for which she received an Oscar nomination) and Suspicion (for which she received the Best Actress Academy Award in 1941). The younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, they were the first sisters to win Oscars and the first to be nominated for Academy Awards in the same year (1941). When Joan won the coveted statuette in 1941, the sisters, who were known for their jealous feuds, became permanently estranged. Having once been quoted, "I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!" Fontaine's prediction came to pass when she died of natural causes in 2013, at the age of 96. The contract does not specify the films in which Fontaine will appear. An RKO movie starring Fontaine, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, came out in 1956. Staple holes at upper left and right corners. Lightly creased at lower left margin. Fine condition.