"Rebecca": Casting Maxim de Winter

In 1938, with Gone with the Wind (1939) in pre-production, producer David O. Selznick was preparing his new cinematic endeavour— the adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca. Selznick bought the rights to Rebecca in July 1938 —the novel itself was not published until August— and officially hired Alfred Hitchcock as director a few months later. Casting Rebecca (1940) was not a smooth affair, in particular the casting of the second Mrs de Winter, eventually played by Joan Fontaine. While finding a suitable Maxim de Winter was less complicated, it was not settled immediately either.

As early as January 1938— about six months before the rights to the novel were formally secured— Selznick was already discussing casting options for Maxim de Winter with Hitchcock. The following telegram shows that his preferred choice was Ronald Colman, though Colman himself had misgivings about the role. Selznick had turned down William Powell, still hoping he could get Colman. As the telegram shows, Leslie Howard was considered too.

January 9, 1938

Alfred Hitchcock

153 Cromwell Road

SW 5

London (England)

Dear Hitch: Thanks for your kind mention of me on radio. Saw "Lady Vanishes" last night and I love you. Regret have to inform you Colman so fearful about murder angle* and also about possibility of picture emerging as woman-starring vehicle that he will not do it unless he sees treatment, and we might find ourselves in jam by waiting. If move within next few hours can sign Leslie Howard for it; otherwise will lose him too. Bill Powell has been absolutely wild about role and anxious to do it, but I turned him down on expectation of getting Colman.... Wish you would dictate reply immediately upon receipt of this, giving me your reactions.

David

 

*Spoiler: One of Colman's objections was that in Du Maurier's novel Maxim murders his first wife, Rebecca. Obviously, Colman didn't know then that the censors wouldn't allow Rebecca to be murdered and for Maxim to get away with it. Much to Selznick's dismay, the murder eventually became an accident in the film.

Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter

(l-r) Ronald Colman, William Powell and Leslie Howard

In June 1939, more than a year later, Selznick sent this telegram to his business associate Lowell Calvert. While about to sign Laurence Olivier, Selznick wanted to have a meeting with Calvert, as William Powell was still very eager to play the role. To Selznick, both Olivier and Powell were second choices. He still believed that Ronald Colman, who had declined the part, was "the only perfect man". 

Incidentally, other stars who were reportedly considered for the Maxim role include Walter Pidgeon and Melvyn Douglas, though they don't seem to have been serious contenders.

June 15, 1939

To: Mr. Lowell V. Calvert

We are about to close for Laurence Olivier for "Rebecca", but before doing so, anxious to have immediate check on the following. Since I cannot delay Olivier negotations, would like to have some word early in the morning. William Powell is still extremely anxious to play the part; he would cost $100,000 more than Olivier, which means we would have to gross $150,000 additional to break even on the expenditure. Even if we want him there is still no certainty we can get him, since it would require MGM's consent. However, Powell is hopeful this might be obtained. Obviously I do not want to make the attempt until and unless we are sure we want him. This is not a question of casting, as we can make this decision ourselves, and on this point there is much to be said on both sides. For instance, Powell is much more right as to age, whereas Olivier is better perhaps for the moody scenes, also his English, and perhaps he has the more obvious edge romantically. The decision should probably rest not at all upon which one is better for the role, since Colman is the only perfect man and we cannot get him and therefore we are possibly equally well off with either of these second choices from standpoint of accurate casting. The decision instead should be based solely on whether William Powell is likely to add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the gross. He will have his next "Thin Man" picture immediately before....

David O. Selznick

Olivier was signed that same month, his lower salary likely clinching the deal. (According to biographer Donald Spoto, Olivier was hired for $30,000.) It's probably a good thing that Powell's asking price was too high, as he would have been totally wrong for the part (not the type!). However, I can easily understand Selznick's first choice, Ronald Colman, who I think was very much the type and would have made a good Maxim. Colman would later portray Maxim in a 1941 Lux Radio Theatre version, playing opposite Ida Lupino (odd choice!) as the second Mrs de Winter. (If you're interested, you can listen to Colman and Lupino here.) After rereading the novel and rewatching the film, I still think Olivier was very well cast, despite being ten years younger than the novel's Maxim. He was perfect in type —I think even more so than Colman— and gave a compelling performance as the tormented hero. As a seasoned Shakespearean stage actor, Olivier himself later said about his performance: "I literally walked through the part — it had nothing to do with the real work of acting. Most people thought I was excellent... That, of course, was the bloody exasperating thing about film acting. The less acting one did the better one came across." 

During the filming of Rebecca, Olivier was not a happy man. Apart from being very worried about the outbreak of the war, Olivier reportedly found working with Hitchcock difficult, feeling he wasn't given enough direction. The actor had just finished Wuthering Heights (1939) under William Wyler, and Hitch's direction stood in sharp contrast to Wyler's, who was an actor's director. But perhaps more than this, Olivier's sullen mood on the set was caused by the fact that Vivien Leigh, his lover and later wife, was not cast as the second Mrs de Winter. After Leigh heard about Olivier being cast as Maxim, she immediately wanted to play the female lead, despite not having been interested in the role before. Selznick thought she was totally wrong for it and refused to cast her. Olivier's hostile attitude towards Fontaine during Rebecca's shooting was, at least in part, due to his not playing opposite Leigh. (In 1950, Olivier and Leigh did star in Rebecca together in another Lux radio adaptation, which you can listen to here.)

Behind the scenes of Rebecca: Director Alfred Hitchcock with his two stars, Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier.

While Olivier and Fontaine didn't get along during filming, here they seem to be engaged in a friendly talk.

Thanks to Rebecca, Olivier became an international star and his performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. While there seems to be no record of what Daphne du Maurier thought of Olivier's portrayal of Maxim, she was satisfied with the picture as a whole and later said: "I was surprised with the treatment of Rebecca. I had worried that the film would turn out like Jamaica Inn [Hitchcock's 1939 adaptation of her novel], but I was proved wrong. The film was perfect, and I wrote to Selznick and Hitchcock and told them so!". Rebecca was nominated for a further ten Oscars (including nominations for Hitchcock and Fontaine), winning two, i.e. David Selznick for Best Picture and George Barnes for Best Cinematography.

Concluding this post, I will leave you with a memo from Selznick to Hitchcock. In the early stages of filming, the producer was critical of Olivier, in particular of his timing and his screen acting. In his memo, Selznick asked Hitch to deal with these problems.

October 13, 1939

To: Mr. Alfred Hitchcock

Dear Hitch,

Today's rushes were, I thought, all right, but frightened me from the standpoint of tempo more than any we have had so far....

Larry's silent action and reactions become slower as his dialogue becomes faster, each day. His pauses and spacing on the scene with the girl in which she tells him about the ball are the most ungodly slow and deliberate reactions I have ever seen. It is played as though he were deciding whether or not to run for President instead of whether or not to give a ball. I realize that he is not anxious to give the ball, and the reasons therefor, but even if the decision were a much more important one, for screen purposes the timing is impossible. For this reason I think you had better plan on picking up close-ups, as you discussed.... And for God's sake, speed up Larry not merely in these close-ups, but in the rest of the picture on his reactions, which are apparently the way he plays on the stage, where it could be satisfactory. But while you are at it, you will have to keep your ears open to make sure that we know what the hell he's talking about, because he still has the tendency to speed up his words and to read them in such a way that an American audience can't understand them....

DOS 

 

Source of all correspondence: Memo from David O. Selznick (1972); selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer. 

Selznick and Hitchcock

This post is my contribution to THE 2026 CLASSIC LITERATURE ON FILM BLOGATHON, hosted by SILVER SCREEN CLASSICS. To read the other entries, go here. 

For the 2020 edition of this blogathon, I wrote about the casting of the second Mrs de Winter, which you can read about here.