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Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine dies at age 96

Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine dies at age 96

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Actress Joan Fontaine has passed away at the age of 96. Fontaine is best remembered for two Alfred Hitchcock classics, Rebecca and Suspicion. She would be nominated for an Academy Award for both films, winning the Oscar for the latter – famously beating out her sister, Olivia de Havilland.

Fontaine never was able to match the heights of her fame in the early 1940s, but she was a reliable and steady performer for decades in films, TV and on Broadway. Other films of note included Gunga Din, Ivanhoe, Jane Eyre, The Bigamist and the Constant Nymph (for which she would receive her third Academy Award nomination).

She was married and divorced four times, and is survived by two daughters.

Fontaine’s relationship with her sister, actress Olivia de Havilland, was legendarily competitive. The two reportedly stopped speaking to each other in 1975.

No word on cause of death has been released.