Olivia deHavilland as Catherine Sloper in 'The Heiress' Designed by Edith Head

Two-piece burgundy velvet antebellum gown, [326A] fitted bodice, bell sleeves, 1" burgundy pleated taffeta band and neckline, front closure and cuffs, taffeta covered cording running from shoulders down front and back (Motion Picture Costume Company label inscribed "17"); [326B] matching four tier full skirt with matching burgundy pleated taffeta bands (Illegible Paramount label inscribed in white "MPCC # 17"); [326C] prop white lace dickey; [326D & 326E] prop white lace sleeves; [326F] prop petti-coat; [326G] prop hoop skirt.

"The Films of The Forties," Tony Thomas, The Citadel Press, 1975, Pg. 275 (Photo). "The Great Movie Stars The Golden Years," David Shipman, Bonanza Books, 1970, pg. 153 (photo).

Olivia deHavilland will probably always be best known for playing Melanie in “Gone With The Wind” in 1939. Ten years later she campaigned to play the role of Catherine Sloper in “The Heiress” based on the 1880 novel “Washington Square, “after seeing the play on Broadway. The play was about a naïve young woman who falls in love and is jilted by a fortune hunting young man. The movie was a great success and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, 1949.

Edith Head considered “The Heiress the “most perfect picture” she had ever worked on. One of the reasons was that director William Wyler had a very clear picture of what he wanted for the costumes and for them to be as accurately authentic as possible. In the film, which scanned the Victorian period to the Edwardian period, he wanted deHavilland’s character to go from an innocent, uncomfortable, insecure and awkward young girl whose clothes were slightly wrong with too many ruffles and ribbons to the embittered and severely tailored woman she becomes at the end of the film.

After having been passed over the previous year for a Best Costume Oscar, she was totally unprepared for her first of eight Oscar wins for her work on this film in 1949.