Impossibly Rare Video Interview of Gone with the Wind’s Olivia De Havilland: at 94 years old, it’s “too much fun to live” A Big Scoop from Writer Tracey Jackson

Tracey Jackson, author, screenwriter, documentarian, blogger @traceyjacksononline.com

Champagne coursing through her veins, writer Tracey Jackson has a mind so provocatively exciting she could distract a stuck elevator full of strangers from panicking. Jackson listens tightly, one eye on detail, the other on the big picture, balancing self with others. Add this to the fact that she lives in the world of words and nature takes its course in her blog www.traceyjacksononline.com. She often leaves you with a laugh and more questions than answers.

In her series “50 Over 50,” the screenwriter-author-essayist-documentarian (with the born instincts of journalist), recently interviewed her friend, the legendary actress Olivia De Havilland, now 94 years old and long enjoying her life in Paris.

Actress Olivia DeHavilland today

Tracey Jackson's new book Between A Rock and Hot Place

Exploring aspects of human life as it endures past the half-century mark is but one element of Tracey Jackson’s adventurous curiosity. She is also the author of the new and best-selling, Between A Rock and a Hot Place, Why 50 Is Not The New 30. (On a personal note, Tracey Jackson was crucial in convincing me of the value of starting this blog – and also loved “Muriel,” my crème de menthe-colored 1967 Ford Fairlane convertible when I picked her up for dinner in October).

Olivia de Havilland in her role as Melanie from Gone with the Wind (1939)

Most famous for her role as “Melanie” in Gone with the Wind (1939), DeHavilland might easily have insulated herself in the adulation; instead, she employs integrity in her outlook, as noteworthy for being the human she is as for her talents on screen, never confusing person and persona.

Both Tracey Jackson and Olivia De Havilland exemplify a method I’ve been observing in highly individualistic people from which I’ve developed a theory of how everyday life can be made into a genuinely rich experience. Something along the lines of an old Mae West movie title –Everyday’s A Holiday. I’d summarize it with words it took quite some time to choose: “Once enduring the process of becoming the person one inherently knows themselves to be, it becomes impossible to be anything else.” Believing people succeed best in teaching themselves, I’m not sure it’s a theoretical practice wise to write about, but for what it’s worth, I call it “Personal Culture.”

Regardless, enjoy traceyjacksonline.com and Jackson’s De Havilland interview.


Categories: Personal Culture

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