“It came a lot down to one woman, who took the studios to court about the contracts — and that was Olivia de Havilland. That happened in 1943. She took Warner Bros. to court, and she found a loophole in the system. Bette Davis had tried to take the studio to court in the past to try to get out of her contract. They had these seven-year contracts, so they were supposed to be only for seven years you’re with a studio. But then the studios would extend the contract as they wanted. So if a star didn’t want to do a certain movie, but the studio told them they had to do [it], they would be punished by having their contracts extended. They could have a star under contract for as many years as they wanted. So, Bette Davis tried to take them to court, but she lost. Olivia de Havilland found a loophole in the California law which said that contracts for any kind of work could only be seven years in length and couldn’t be extended any further. She won that, and the contracts dissolved."