Olivia de Havilland

It is not very often I can read an obit of someone who was born a year after my father and two years before my mother. If I stay alive long enough, there eventually will be no one who passes away whose years sit tucked between 1915 and 1918.

But right now, we have the obituary for the actress Olivia de Havilland, who has passed away in her early triple digits of 104. You never really make it too far into those triple digits. Pretty much the longest anyone lives is to be 116. The skin gives out.

When you pass away at 104 in 2020 it is very hard to realize how far back her career went. Of course there was 'Gone With the Wind' in 1939, but that was hardly the only notable film she made. She won two Best Actress awards. For many reasons I've always loved 'Robin Hood,' and still will watch some of it when it's on. As Maid Marian, she was worth sweeping her off her feet.

Of course there was Errol Flynn, who turns over tables and can keep five guards at bay with his sword. In the late '50s I annually went to a YMCA "sleep away" camp for two weeks at a time. One of the activities was archery.  I tried, but never could split the arrow like old Errol.

Olivia admitted to having a very serious crush on her co-star Errol Flynn, but the fact that he was married seemed to be enough to keep her from consummating any relationship. It was certainly a unilateral barrier, since Flynn had the nickname "in like Flynn," to acknowledge his seductive prowess at being able to get into the bedrooms of more women than the Gideon Bible.

Mentioned in her obit is that her father's cousin, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, was "an aviation pioneer" even before WW I. Unmentioned is that he developed the de Havilland jet engines, used in early versions of jet aircraft. The name for the engines has since disappeared due to several mergers with other manufacturers.

When someone of an advanced age passes away, I usually think of my mother and father, and how old they would be if they were still alive. Right now they would each be over 100, an age seldom attained, despite the growing number of people who are over 100. Actuarially, the odds are against it.

Last week my friend commented that it was his mother's birthday, and if she were alive today she'd be 100, being born in 1920. She never got close, passing away from cancer in 1979.  Her era was like my parents, WW II and baby boomer births. She sang in U.S.O. shows and met her husband there who was in the Army, producing the shows. A New York, Times Square dandy who helped entertain the troops.

Right now I've just about finished reading Chris Wallace's book, 'Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days that Changed the World.'  The massive explosion was of course achieved because, "we split the atom."

The massive entertainment of watching Ms. de Havilland and Errol Flynn in films for me was always achieved when Robin Hood split the arrow. Both events were a long time ago.

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