Joan Fontaine, 96, part of Hollywood golden era

JOAN FONTAINE, the Oscar-winner who was one of the last remaining links to Hollywood's golden age of the 1930s and '40s, has died at age 96, her assistant confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

She won an Oscar in 1941 for Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion" and was nominated for an Oscar the year before for "Rebecca," another Hitchcock classic.

The younger sister of Olivia de Havilland, Fontaine maintained an intense rivalry with her sibling who beat her to the big screen. Her sister most notably starred alongside Vivien Leigh in the 1939 classic "Gone with the Wind."

The Hitchcock roles made Fontaine famous. Fontaine tried to stretch with lustier roles - a lady on a pirate ship in "Frenchman's Creek" (1944), a poisoner in "Ivy" (1947). She was nominated once more for an Oscar for "The Constant Nymph" (1943).

Her later film work consisted mostly of smaller films and smaller roles, but she went on to a successful run on Broadway in such productions as "Forty Carats" and "The Lion in Winter."

She was happy in retirement when she passed away yesterday in Carmel, Calif. She married and divorced four times.