Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland was born on October 22, 1917, in Tokyo, Japan. At age 15, she met actress May Robson and adopted her mother’s maiden name, Fontaine, to distinguish herself from her sister, actress Olivia de Havilland. In 1935, she made her stage debut in Kind Lady and Call It a Day. While performing, she was discovered by Jesse Lasky and invited to appear in No More Ladies (1935) for RKO. The following year, she played a role in A Damsel in Distress (1937), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but the film underperformed both critically and commercially. After more than ten film appearances and little success, her RKO contract was not renewed in 1939.
