Every Frenchman Has One (1962) by Olivia de Havilland
A review of Every Frenchman Has One (1962) by Olivia de Havilland.
“I am attracted by almost any French word - written or spoken. Before I knew its meaning, I thought ‘saucisson’ so exquisite that it seemed the perfect name to give a child - until I learned it meant ‘sausage!’”
Every Frenchman Has One by Olivia de Havilland (1962). Originally published by Random House.
I was wandering the biography section of my local library when I came across this one. I had no idea that Olivia de Havilland had written a memoir, despite her having been in many famous movies. I’m a big de Havilland fan, I think she was absolutely stunning as an actor and a human being. Her family background is also very interesting; the de Havilland family is well-known as having a distinguished background as a family. Olivia’s sister, too, was a famous actress: Joan Fontaine.
This little memoir is a quick read and is truly a tiny book: the entire book is configured to be pocket-sized, and the sections are tiny as you go through them. Each section is a musing about her life in France, where she primarily lived when she wasn’t working in Hollywood. That marriage ended in a divorce, but de Havilland remained in France. This book was published in 1962, when she was still married to the Frenchman.
Anyways, onwards with the review!
Book Blurb
Olivia de Havilland planted her standard on the Left Bank of the River Seine in late October of 1953, and it has been fluttering on both Left and Right Banks with considerable joy and gaiety from that moment on. She married a Frenchman, took on all his compatriots, and has been the heroine of a love affair ever since.
Her skirmishes with French traffic, French maids, French salesladies, French holidays, French law, French doctors, above all, the French language, are here set forth in a delightful and amusing record.
Paraphrasing Caesar, Miss de Havilland says, "I came, I saw, I was conquered."
Content
As mentioned before, this is an extremely short read clocking in at only 202 pages. There isn’t really a plot to this memoir, it’s just a bunch of random events and blurbs about her life in Paris and learning how to deal with French culture as an American. The ironic part of this memoir is at the beginning de Havilland recalls about how people think, in 1962, that she was already dead. This woman somehow lived to be 102. being one of the last living Hollywood starts from before WWII in the decade of the 2010s. Unfortunately, by the time I’m writing this, she had passed away in July of 2020. I just found it ironic that she had this humorous bit like “hey, I’m still alive” when she lived much, much longer than when this book was first published.
One thing about memoirs is that you really have to have the reader connect with you as an individual, and I think Olivia definitely has the upper hand in this because she’s already a mega Hollywood star. Most people coming across this memoir aren’t going to casually find it like I did—they’re looking for Olivia de Havilland or Old Hollywood content and came across this with a very specific original intent. I was already a fan, swaying how I already felt about Havilland as the main character in this novel, but I found her voice to be quite strong and can see how a reader connects (or does the complete opposite) because of how she sets herself up.
All in all, I think this is an interesting insight into how the late 1950s was for a Hollywood star and how life was like as an American expat abroad. You can tell it was in the sixties, though, because she teaches her son that a Confederate war hero was the perfect role model to grow up to be. Not the greatest decision in a contemporary viewing, but completely seen as fine during that era.
Structurally, this is a series of vignettes about little things about being a foreigner in Paris. How to convert to Celsius, have a quick passionate life with a Frenchman that turned into a marriage, superificial humorous things about her life. It’s not a deep memoir, don’t go looking into it for secrets or even really about life in Hollywood, it’s just a quick read.
Overall Thoughts
If you’re a big Olivia de Havilland fan, then this is a book that you might like to pick up. At times its age is definitely showing—you can clearly tell that this was written in the 1960s—but if you’re not a fan, this might be a more difficult book to read. Her privilege shows in the content because if you’re reading this with a certain expectation, then she’s definitely coming across as just whining and complaining about her life and France.
