News about Olivia de Havilland

The Empress, Rasputin And The Empress opened at the Astor Theatre in New York. It starred three leading Hollywood celebrities, including Ethel, John and Lionel Barrymore, who ostensibly tell the tale of Rasputin's assassination. Critics gave the film a mixed reception, though a New York Times writer made a remark about Prince Chegodieff's "war against Prince Chegodieff, as Prince Youssoupoff is known here, and the Mad Monk." He believed that the character of Chegodief was supposed to be the real-life Prince Felix Youssoupoff, and that everybody knew that Felix was married to the tsar's beautiful niece Princess Irina. Irina had never met Rasputin and protested the film's content and defamation of her character. Lawyers immediately spotted reasons for libel, and, as the film was on view in London, the Youssoupoffs took action.