And now the latest from Villa Fontana...

And here I thought she was a hermit. Joan Fontaine, who I consider my erstwhile penpal, filled out Vanity Fair's Proust questionnaire last month. Good to know the old dame remains vital -- nearly as vital as that sweater! -- and a tad randy; some germane excerpts:

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Virginity.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
D’Artagnan, from The Three Musketeers, who taught me some things were going on in Milady’s boudoir. My mother, when I questioned her at 10 years old, said, “You’ll have to ask someone else.”

She sounds exactly like my Aunt Loretto.

Happy birthday, Joan Fontaine

In her more sentient days, my great aunt Loretto was penpals with Joan Fontaine, one of Hitchcock's earliest blondes, still one half of the feuding de Havilland sisters (Olivia is also still alive, if not kicking) and living in semi-seclusion in Carmel. That penpalship was passed along to me, and for a brief time in college Joan and I sent short, polite cards to one another -- in one exchange she admitted that the ending to Hitchcock's Suspicion (for which she won her Oscar in 1942) was a severe compromise in order to satisfy studio suits and lazy audiences. Boy how times have changed. (Not.) If you've got the day off, TCM has over 12 hours of Joan today, her 90th birthday, with showings of Born to Be Bad, Gunga Din and The Women (currently being remade by Diane English). And for giggles, watch her above on What's My Line? in 1972 after she'd given up movies.

Update / 10.24.07, 11:34 / Check out the Self-Styled Siren's knowledgeable posts on Joan here and here.