Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine, who starred in several Alfred Hitchcock-produced psychological thrillers, has died in the United States. She was 96.
Photo: AFP
Fontaine - whose real name is Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland - died in her sleep on Sunday in her home in Carmel, California, friend Noel Beutel said.
Born in Japan to British parents, she and her older sister Olivia moved to the US to pursue acting careers, the BBC reported.
She won an Oscar as a vulnerable wife in the movie Suspicion in 1942. Hitchcock also cast Fontaine in the lead role in his first Hollywood work Rebecca.
Her other films included The Constant Nymph, Jane Eyre and Letter from an Unknown Woman.
Fontaine's four marriages ended in divorce, and her long-running feud with her sister was a Hollywood legend.
She held dual British-US citizenship.
