Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland on Wait Wait. . . Don’t Tell Me!

This past weekend, Olivia and Joan were featured in a question on the National Public Radio quiz show Wait Wait. . . Don’t Tell Me!

It was a part of the Not My Job segment, where a celebrity guest star answers questions on behalf of a listener. (If the guest answers two questions correctly, the listener wins a personalized answering machine message by the vocally-blessed Wait, Wait judge/scorekeeper and NPR newscaster Carl Kasell). This week’s guest was Lisa Kudrow and she’s a pretty smart cookie. She answered two out of three questions correctly, but did she get this one?

Here’s the question as asked by host Peter Sagal:

1930s movie stars Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine are sisters. They have had a legendary feud going back more than sixty years which began when what happened?

A. They both were nominated for the same Academy Award.

B. They had an argument over who got out first of the same limo.

C. A billboard with Joan’s face went up on Sunset Drive, blocking one of Olivia’s.

Lisa Kudrow guessed C. I’m guessing that many of the readers of this blog know the correct answer! Here’s a clip of the segment. The Olivia/Joan portion is about 7:25 in:



Yes—Peter Sagal called Olivia and Joan “1930s movie stars”—but we all know better, right?

Thanks to Tom for inviting me to contribute to the blog. I plan to do so more in the future!