Ida Lupino
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| Ida Lupino | |
 in The Hard Way (1943) |
|
| Born | 4 February 1918 Camberwell, London, UK |
|---|---|
| Died | 3 August 1995 (aged 77) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Louis Hayward (1938–1945) Collier Young (1948–1951) Howard Duff (1951–1984) |
Ida Lupino (4 February 1918[1] – 3 August 1995) was an Anglo-American film actress, director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her forty-eight year career, she appeared in fifty-nine films, and directed nine others. She also appeared in episodic television fifty-eight times and directed fifty other episodes. In addition, she contributed as a writer to five films and four TV episodes.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Acting career
Born into a family of performers,[3] (father, Stanley Lupino, was a music-hall comedian; mother, Connie Emerald, an actress)[4] Lupino was encouraged to enter show-business by both her parents and her uncle, Lupino Lane, Lupino made her first film appearance in 1931, in The Love Race, and worked for several years playing minor roles.
It was after her appearance in The Light That Failed in 1939 that Lupino was taken seriously as a dramatic actress. As a result, her parts improved during the 1940s and she began to describe herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis."[5]
During this period, Lupino became known for her hard-boiled roles,[6] and appeared in such films as They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941), both opposite Humphrey Bogart. She acted regularly and was in high demand throughout the 1940s without becoming a major star. In 1947, Lupino left Warner Brothers to become a freelance actress. Notable films she appeared in around that time include Road House and On Dangerous Ground.
[edit] Directing career
In the mid-40s, while on suspension for turning down a role,[7] Lupino became interested in directing. She described herself as being bored on set while "someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work."[8] She and her husband Collier Young formed an independent company, The Filmmakers, and Lupino became a producer, director and screenplay-writer of low-budget, issue-oriented movies.[9]
Her first directing job came unexpectedly in 1949 when Elmer Clifton suffered a mild heart attack and couldn't finish Not Wanted, the film he was directing for Filmmakers. Lupino stepped in to finish the film, and went on to direct her own projects, becoming Hollywood's only female film director of the time.[10]
In an article for the Village Voice, Carrie Rickey wrote that Lupino was an model of modern feminist moviemaking, stating:
Not only did Lupino take control of production, direction and screenplay, but each of her movies addresses the brutal repercussions of sexuality, independence, and dependence.[11]
After four "woman's" films about social issue – including Outrage (1950), a film about rape – Lupino directed her first hard-paced, fast-moving picture, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), making her the first woman to direct a film noir. Writer Richard Koszarski noted that:
Her films display the obsessions and consistencies of a true auteur ... [In her films The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker] Lupino was able to reduce the male to the same sort of dangerous, irrational force that women represented in most male-directed examples of Hollywood film noir.[12]
Lupino often joked that if she had been the "poor man's Bette Davis" as an actress, then she had become the "poor man's Don Siegel" as a director.[13] In 1952, Lupino was invited to become the "fourth star" in Four Star Productions by Dick Powell, David Niven and Charles Boyer, after Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell dropped out.
[edit] Television work
Lupino continued acting throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Have Gun Will Travel, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Investigators, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Rifleman, Batman, Sam Benedict, Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, and Bewitched.
From January 1957 through September 1958, Lupino starred with her then husband, Howard Duff, in the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, in which the duo played husband and wife film stars named Howard Adams and Eve Drake, living in Beverly Hills, California. Olive Carey played their housekeeper, Elsie, in the 66-episode series, and Alan Reed played J.B. Hafter, their studio boss. Duff and Lupino also co-starred as themselves in 1959 in one of the 13 one-hour installments of the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. Later in her career, Lupino guest starred on numerous television programs, before retiring at the age of sixty, after having made her final film appearance in 1978.
[edit] Awards
Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the fields of television and motion pictures. They are located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Agnes Moorehead for The Magnificent Ambersons |
NYFCC Award for Best Actress 1943 for The Hard Way |
Succeeded by Tallulah Bankhead for Lifeboat |
[edit] Personal life
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Lupino was born in Camberwell, London (allegedly[who?] under a table during a World War I zeppelin raid), the daughter of actress Connie O'Shea (a.k.a. Connie Emerald) and music hall entertainer, Stanley Lupino, one of the theatrical Lupino family. She was born in 1918 and not 1914 as other biographies have it.[1]
She married and divorced three times:
- Louis Hayward, actor (November 1938 - May 11, 1945)
- Collier Young, producer (1948 - 1951)
- Howard Duff, actor (October 1951 - 1984), with whom she had a daughter, Bridget Duff (b. April 23, 1952)
Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles, California, in August 1995, aged 77.[citation needed] She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.[14]
[edit] Miscellany
Lupino was the titular subject of a jazz homage composed by Carla Bley.
[edit] Filmography
| Year | Title | Credited as | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Actress | Role | ||
| 1931 | The Love Race | Yes | Minor Supporting Role | |
| 1932 | Her First Affaire | Yes | Anne | |
| 1933 | The Ghost Camera | Yes | Mary Elton | |
| High Finance | Yes | Jill | ||
| Money for Speed | Yes | Jane | ||
| I Lived with You | Yes | Ada Wallis | ||
| Prince of Arcadia | Yes | The Princess | ||
| 1934 | Search for Beauty | Yes | Barbara Hilton | |
| Come on Marines | Yes | Esther Smith-Hamilton | ||
| Ready for Love | Yes | Marigold Tate | ||
| 1935 | Paris in Spring | Yes | Mignon de Charelle | |
| Smart Girl | Yes | Pat Reynolds | ||
| Peter Ibbetson | Yes | Agnes | ||
| La Fiesta de Santa Barbara | Yes | Herself | ||
| 1936 | Anything Goes | Yes | Hope Harcourt | |
| One Rainy Afternoon | Yes | Monique Pelerin | ||
| Yours for the Asking | Yes | Gert Malloy | ||
| The Gay Desperado | Yes | Jane | ||
| 1937 | Sea Devils | Yes | Doris Malone | |
| Let's Get Married | Yes | Paula Quinn | ||
| Artists & Models | Yes | Paula Sewell aka Paula Monterey | ||
| Fight for Your Lady | Yes | Marietta | ||
| 1939 | The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt | Yes | Val Carson | |
| The Lady and the Mob | Yes | Lila Thorne | ||
| The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Yes | Ann Brandon | ||
| The Light That Failed | Yes | Bessie Broke | ||
| Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 6 | Yes | Herself | ||
| 1940 | They Drive by Night | Yes | Lana Carlsen | |
| 1941 | High Sierra | Yes | Marie | |
| The Sea Wolf | Yes | Ruth Webster | ||
| Out of the Fog | Yes | Stella Goodwin | ||
| Ladies in Retirement | Yes | Ellen Creed | ||
| 1942 | Moontide | Yes | Anna | |
| Life Begins at Eight-Thirty | Yes | Kathy Thomas | ||
| 1943 | Forever and a Day | Yes | Jenny | |
| The Hard Way | Yes | Mrs. Helen Chernen | ||
| Thank Your Lucky Stars | Yes | Herself | ||
| 1944 | In Our Time | Yes | Jennifer Whittredge | |
| Hollywood Canteen | Yes | Herself | ||
| 1945 | Pillow to Post | Yes | Jean Howard | |
| 1946 | Devotion | Yes | Emily Bronte | |
| 1947 | The Man I Love | Yes | Petey Brown | |
| Deep Valley | Yes | Libby Saul | ||
| Escape Me Never | Yes | Gemma Smith | ||
| 1948 | Road House | Yes | Lily Stevens | |
| 1949 | Lust for Gold | Yes | Julia Thomas | |
| Not Wanted | Yes | |||
| Never Fear | Yes | |||
| 1950 | Woman in Hiding | Yes | Deborah Chandler Clark | |
| Outrage | Yes | Yes | Country Dance Attendee | |
| 1951 | From Dangerous Depths | Yes | ||
| Hard, Fast and Beautiful | Yes | Yes | Seabright Tennis Match Spectator | |
| 1951 | On the Loose | Yes | Narrator | |
| 1952 | On Dangerous Ground | Yes | Yes | Mary Malden |
| Beware, My Lovely | Yes | Mrs. Helen Gordon | ||
| 1953 | The Hitch-Hiker | Yes | ||
| Jennifer | Yes | Agnes Langley | ||
| The Bigamist | Yes | Yes | Phyllis Martin | |
| 1954 | Private Hell 36 | Yes | Lilli Marlowe | |
| 1955 | Women's Prison | Yes | Amelia van Zandt | |
| The Big Knife | Yes | Marion Castle | ||
| 1956 | While the City Sleeps | Yes | Mildred Donner | |
| Strange Intruder | Yes | Alice Carmichael | ||
| 1966 | The Trouble with Angels | Yes | ||
| 1972 | Junior Bonner | Yes | Elvira Bonner | |
| 1975 | The Devil's Rain | Yes | Mrs. Preston | |
| 1976 | The Food of the Gods | Yes | Mrs. Skinner | |
| 1978 | My Boys Are Good Boys | Yes | Mrs. Morton | |
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Recorded in Births Mar 1918 Camberwell Vol.1d page 1019 (Free BMD). Transcribed as "Lupine" in the official births index
- ^ Ida Lupino at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Allmovie Biography
- ^ Acker, Alley, Reel Women - Pioneers of the Cinema, The Continuum Publishing Company, 1991, p. 75, ISBN 0826404995
- ^ Katz, Ephraim; Fred Klein, Ronald Dean Nolan (1998) (in English). The Film Encyclopedia (3rd Edition ed.). New York: HarperPerennial. pp. 858. ISBN 0-06-273492-X.
- ^ Acker, p. 76
- ^ Rickey, Carrie, "Lupino Noir," Village Voice, October 29-November 4, 1980, p. 43
- ^ Acker, p. 76
- ^ Acker, pp. 74, 76,
- ^ Acker, pp. 75
- ^ Rickey, VV, p. 43, as quoted in Reel Women by Acker, p. 76
- ^ Koszarski, Richard, Hollywood Directors, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976 ISBN 0195020855 (0-19-502085-5)
- ^ Wood, Bret. "Outrage (1950)". Turner Classic Movies Online. http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=102732&mainArticleId=159651. Retrieved on 2008-08-10.
- ^ Ida Lupino at Find A Grave
[edit] External links
- Ida Lupino at the Internet Movie Database
- Ida Lupino at Allmovie
- Ida Lupino at the TCM Movie Database
