Nativity Place

London, England, GB

Born

February 04, 1918

Died

August 03, 1995

Cause of Expiry

Complications From A Stroke And Colon Cancer

Though Paramount had imported her from England as an ingénue, Ida Lupino proved more than simply wise beyond her years when she landed in Hollywood in 1934. The sixteen-year-old scion of a British interim dynasty, Lupino evinced a husky sensuality that had won her a reputation in her homeland as the British Jean Harlow. Plugged into programmers, the progressive Lupino swiftly grew dissatisfied...

Family unit & Companions

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Louis Hayward

Husband

Actor. Born on March 19, 1909; married in 1938; divorced in 1945; acted opposite Lupino in "Ladies in Retirement" (1941); died on February 21, 1985.

Collier Young

Husband

Executive, producer. Married in 1948; divorced in 1950; met Lupino while working equally Harry Cohn's executive banana at Columbia; formed Filmakers, Inc. production company together; co-owned company with Lupino until 1980.

Howard Duff

Husband

Actor. Built-in on August 24, 1913; married in October 1951; divorced in 1983; had been living apart for the last 11 years of their marriage; acted together in such films equally "Adult female in Hiding" (1950), "Jennifer" (1953), "Individual Hell 36" (1954) and "While the City Sleeps" (1956), equally well as the Television set series, "Mr. Adams and Eve" (1957-58); father of Lupino's daughter Bridgett; died on July viii, 1990.

"Ida Lupino: A Biography"

William Donati, Academy of Kentucky Press (1996)

"Queen of the B's: Ida Lupino Behind the Photographic camera"

Annette Kuhn (1995)

"Ida Lupino"

Jerry Vermilye

Lupino's birth year is open to question: other dates given are 1914, 1916 and 1919.

"'My father once said to me, 'You lot're born to exist bad,' she recalled. 'And it was true. I made eight films in England before I came to America, and I played a tramp or a slut in all of them.'" --From TThe Hollywood Reporter, August 7, 1995.

Biography

Though Paramount had imported her from England every bit an ingénue, Ida Lupino proved more than simply wise beyond her years when she landed in Hollywood in 1934. The xvi-yr-old scion of a British interim dynasty, Lupino evinced a husky sensuality that had won her a reputation in her homeland equally the British Jean Harlow. Plugged into programmers, the progressive Lupino swiftly grew dissatisfied and shifted to Warner Brothers, landing edgier roles in Raoul Walsh's "They Bulldoze by Dark" (1940) and "Loftier Sierra" (1941) with Humphrey Bogart. A pb office equally a steely murderess in Charles Vidor'due south "Ladies in Retirement" (1941) proved an apt showcase for Lupino'southward acting abilities, but she always had her sights set college. With second husband Collier Young, Lupino crafted a cord of by and large independent dramas with an emphasis on social issues, among them the unwed mother meller "Not Wanted" (1949) and "Outrage" (1950), which concerned the aftermath of a barbarous rape. Lupino's "The Hitch-Hiker" (1952) was at once a skewering of the fragile male person psyche and an important entry in the suspense subgenre of film noir. Diverting her efforts as a director-for-hire to television following her union to actor Howard Duff, Lupino made occasional flick appearances, albeit often in such drive-in fodder as "The Devil'southward Rain" (1976) and "Nutrient of the Gods" (1976). At the time of her death in 1995, Lupino was simply beginning to be reevaluated equally a pioneering female managing director, as well every bit a guiding manus in the gestation of American contained movie house.

Ida Lupino was born in London on February. iv, 1918. In the weeks leading up to her birth during the First World State of war, German language triplanes had rained bombs downwardly on the metropolis, killing 68. The terror from to a higher place had yielded to dumbo fog, punctured by a thunderstorm - a dramatic offset for a hereafter globe form actress. Born into a theatrical dynasty, Lupino'southward father Stanley was a music hall sensation and her ancestry was rich in actors, dancers, singers, puppeteers and tightrope walkers. The success of Lupino'southward father, granddad and uncles had resulted in family friendship with such literary figures equally Charles Dickens and "Peter Pan" creator J. M. Barrie, while Edward 7, son of U.k.'due south long-seated Queen Victoria, had dubbed the Lupino clan "The Royal Family unit of Blackface." With Stanley Lupino's increasing fortunes equally a pop entertainer, the family was able to relocate from a small-scale home in Dulwich to a Tudor mansion in Streatham. Ida Lupino grew upward in a home full of theatrical memorabilia, and sang her first songs with her younger sister and parents around the family piano.

When Lupino was eight years sometime, her parents departed for a tour of the Us and engagements on Broadway. While she and her sister were deposited at the Clarence House, a boarding schoolhouse for girls in West Brighton, Lupino wrote plays in which she also played the lead roles. Over the next few years, Lupino matured into a young woman of remarkable beauty, particularized by alabaster pare and piercing blue eyes. She fabricated her moving picture debut as an extra in "The Love Race" (1931), starring her father and directed by her cousin, Lupino Lane. A German director visiting the set had taken note of her attractiveness and offered her a role in his upcoming production - after cut her i scene considering Lupino was prettier than his leading lady. Choosing education over furthering her career at this young age, Lupino enrolled in London'southward Majestic Academy of Dramatic Fine art. In her second term, she was cast in a production of "Heartbreak House" past playwright George Bernard Shaw himself. When not performing or studying technique, Lupino often accompanied her father to jobs at Elstree Studio, where she observed Stanley Lupino perfecting his craft earlier the camera.

Lupino returned to cinema with a lead role in Allan Dwan's "Her Beginning Affaire" (1932). The office of a Lolita-type homewrecker had been pitched initially to her mother, Connie Emerald, then in her mid-thirties; accompanying Emerald to the effort-out, the 14-twelvemonth-erstwhile Lupino caught the centre of Dwan, who cast her instead. With her hair bleached for her star turn in the Sterling Films release, Lupino was promoted equally the English Jean Harlow, yet she made relatively few films in Uk. She played the resourceful sister of defendant murderer John Mills in the quota quickie "The Ghost Camera" (1933), edited by David Lean, and a princess in the musical "Prince of Arcadia" (1933). Tapped by Paramount Pictures in America to star in their upcoming production of "Alice in Wonderland" (1933), Lupino proved too mature for the part (which went instead to Charlotte Henry) and was slotted into Erle C. Kenton's "Search for Beauty" (1934), in which she starred with Olympic gold medalist Buster Crabbe equally a pair of professional person swimmers navigating the uncertain waters of the publishing manufacture.

At Paramount, Lupino's initial assignments were largely decorous. She played 2d female leads in Henry Hathaway'due south "Peter Ibbetson" (1935), as a potential beloved interest to star Gary Cooper, and Lewis Milestone's "Anything Goes" (1936), as Bing Crosby's shipboard chippy. It was not until she outmaneuvered Vivien Leigh for the function of a hot-tempered Cockney model in William Wellman's "The Light that Failed" (1936), opposite Ronald Colman, that Lupino began to attract attention every bit an extra of gravitas and dramatic merit. Signing a contract with Warner Brothers, Lupino scored in a string of well-received programmers. In Raoul Walsh'south "They Drive by Night" (1940), she upstaged both George Raft and soon-to-be A-listing star Humphrey Bogart as the scheming wife of a trucking magnate who is driven by lust to murder. She reteamed with Bogart for Walsh's "High Sierra" (1941), every bit a rootless gamine in love with Bogart's hardened recidivist Mad Domestic dog Earle. In Michael Curtiz' accommodation of Jack London's "The Sea Wolf" (1941), Lupino kept the peace between autocratic skipper Edward G. Robinson and hunky landlubber John Garfield.

For Columbia Pictures, Lupino defaulted to her natural British emphasis to play a guilt-wracked murderess in Charles Vidor'due south psychological thriller "Ladies in Retirement" (1941), in which she co-starred with Louis Hayward, her husband since 1938. Back at Warners, Lupino enjoyed a salary boost but grew dissatisfied with roles she considered insignificant. She tangled oftentimes with studio head Jack Warner, refusing parts in "King'south Row" (1942) and "Castle in the Clouds" (1942), therefore winding up on intermission more one time. In 1943, she was named Best Actress by the New York Film Critics for her poignant turn every bit a dying adult female who recounts the bullet points of her tragic autumn from grace in Vincent Sherman'due south "The Hard Way" (1943). Despite the laurels, Lupino connected to despair over the dearth of practiced roles in Hollywood and often referred to herself every bit "a poor man'southward Bette Davis." Over the next few years, she found a niche in shadowy dramas that anticipated the postwar film noir thrillers, including Archie Mayo's "Moontide" (1942) with Jean Gabin and Jean Negulesco's "Deep Valley" (1947) with Dane Clark.

Lupino left Warners in 1947. Later starring in Negulesco'southward scorching noir entry "Road House" (1948), she sought to improve her manufacture cachet past branching off into producing. With second married man, Columbia production executive Collier Young, she put money into the independent crime drama "The Judge" (1949), directed by Elmer Clifton. The feature was made under the banner of Emerald Pictures, which Lupino named for her mother, in partnership with Anson Bond, heir to America's first national concatenation of vesture stores. The movie turned a profit, encouraging Lupino and Young to develop a Paul Jarrico script near an unwed female parent that had been pressed upon them past Warners producer Jerry Wald and his brother Marvin. When Columbia caput Harry Cohn refused to back "Not Wanted" (1949), Lupino stamped information technology as an Emerald Pictures film, overseeing all aspects of production, from script rewrites and budgeting to selecting the wardrobe. When director Elmer Clifton suffered a heart assault in preproduction, Lupino stepped in to take his identify, calling the shots on set from the first day of shooting in Feb 1949.

Because the then 31-year-old Lupino was not a member of the Director'due south Lodge of America, she downplayed her ain significance behind the camera of "Not Wanted," deferring for the tape to the bilious Clifton, who retained official credit. Working quickly, Lupino shot the film guerilla way on the streets of Los Angeles to reduce the necessity for and the cost of building sets. Despite the freedom of working exterior of the restrictive prevue of the studio system, the first-timer remained dependent on her investors, some of whom evinced conservative inclinations. When one capitalist objected to a scene in which heroine Sally Forrest shares a boarding house room with an African-American woman, Lupino grudgingly cut the offending footage - but so included business featuring an Asian actress to spite her bigoted benefactor. Though she was not Hollywood's first female director information technology was still novel for a woman to be calling the shots on a characteristic film. Lupino'southward reputation spread speedily through the studios, with many A-listing actresses demanding individual screenings of "Non Wanted." Budgeted at just over $150,000, the film grossed over a million.

Retooling Emerald Pictures as The Filmmakers, Lupino and Young got back to concern with "Never Fearfulness" (1949), a drama concerned with a young dancer ankled by. Their adjacent film, "Outrage" (1950), about the aftermath of a rape, was distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. Overseeing publicity and distribution, RKO caput Howard Hughes gave the moving picture an expensive push, complete with press junket and a splashy premiere preceded past a live phase show. Though Hughes' mishandling of RKO would soon bankrupt the studio, "Outrage" was one of its few moneymakers. Profits from The Filmmaker'south next outing, the sports drama "Hard, Fast and Beautiful" (1951), disappeared due to RKO's creative bookkeeping. To go along her debts under control, Lupino continued to deed, playing the blind sister of killer Robert Ryan in Nicholas Ray's "On Unsafe Footing" (1952).

Arguably Lupino'south best-regarded film exterior of "Loftier Sierra," "The Hitch-Hiker" (1953) pitted fishing buddies Edmund O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy against escaped killer William Tallman, who browbeats the married men for existence soft while forcing them to bulldoze deeper into Mexico. If her previous movies had allowed Lupino the opportunity to shore up the lopsided racial politics of Hollywood, "The Hitch-Hiker" gave her the hazard to probe the fragile male psyche. She followed arrange with the self-financed "The Bigamist" (1953), with O'Brien as a businessman juggling wives in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Lupino appeared in the supporting office of O'Brien's Fifty.A. missus, while distribution was handled by The Filmmakers nether their own aegis. Despite the apparent solidarity of forming their ain distribution arm, Lupino and Collier Young had divorced in 1951. While Young had taken upwards with "Bigamist" co-star Joan Fontaine, Lupino sought solace in the arms of actor Howard Duff, to whom she would remain married for the next 30 years.

Over the course of the next two decades, Lupino continued to human activity sporadically in such films as "Women'due south Prison" (1955), "The Big Knife" (1955) and "While the City Sleeps" (1956). For "Private Hell 36" (1954), directed by Don Siegel for The Filmmakers, she shared a writing credit with ex-husband Young and co-starred with Duff. She also began directing episodic television receiver for the networks. Helming multiple segments of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (CBS, 1955-1962), "Have Gun, Will Travel" (CBS, 1957-1963), the anthology series "Thriller" (NBC, 1960-62) and Desilu Productions' "The Untouchables" (ABC, 1959-1963), she adult a reputation for understanding and anticipating the needs of actors. Lupino was famous for a punchy, unflinching directing style that was branded as masculine despite the fact that her aesthetic was in many ways a refutation of the patriarchal perspective. Paradoxically, Lupino's next opportunity to straight a feature came with the girls school one-act "The Trouble with Angels" (1966), starring Hayley Mills as a convent cutting-up and Rosalind Russell every bit her autocratic Female parent Superior.

Though she was finished in features by the end of the decade, the aging Lupino connected to work exhaustively in moving-picture show and television. She had fun teaming with Duff every bit super-villain Dr. Cassandra in a 1968 episode of "Batman" (ABC, 1966-68) and played a vicious jailhouse screw in the Goggle box movie "Women in Chains" (ABC, 1972). As her looks coarsened with age, she was cast in earthier roles than those suggesting refinement. She played the dame of an Arizona rodeo dynasty in Sam Peckinpah's "Junior Bonner" (1972), contrary Steve McQueen, and headed another Western clan that is literally bedeviled in Robert Fuest'southward "The Devil's Rain" (1976), which featured a young John Travolta in a fleck part. In Bert Gordon'due south ignoble "Nutrient of the Gods" (1976), Lupino played an ill-starred farmer's wife whose use of goopy space stuff as chicken feed dooms her to a messy demise in the jaws of a giant rat. Her final film role was as some other villain, the mastermind of an armored machine heist carried out by teenagers, in "My Boys are Adept Boys" (1978), executive produced past co-star Ralph Meeker.

Divorced from Duff in 1984, Lupino moved from fashionable Brentwood to the more than affordable San Fernando Valley on the far side of the Hollywood Hills. Struggling with long-term alcoholism, she grew reclusive in retirement, estranging herself even from her developed daughter. Duff'due south death in July 1990 hit the former actress hard and her final years were marked by bouts of depression and assorted illnesses, among them a mental deterioration that had commencement manifested itself as a difficulty remembering her lines on the sets of television shows. Diagnosed with cancer, she suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995 and died in her Burbank home on August 3rd of that twelvemonth, at the age of 77. Cruelly coincident with Lupino's passing was a burgeoning renewal of public interest in her feature flick work and her championing among moving picture historians as an important figure in the development of American movie theatre in the second half of the 20th Century.

By Richard Harland Smith

Life Events

1918

Born in London during a High german zeppelin bombing

1932

Official picture acting debut at age 14 in "Her Commencement Affaire", promoted as "the English language Jean Harlow"

1932

Starting time film appearance (a bit) in "The Love Race", directed by her uncle, Lupino Lane

1933

Went to US under contract to Paramount; tested (unsuccessfully) for "Alice in Wonderland"

1934

US movie debut in "Search for Beauty"

1937

Left film interim for well-nigh a year later on the failure of "Fight for Your Lady"; spent time writing and composing music, including the score for one of her male parent's shows and a piece, "Aladdin Suite", performed past the Los Angeles Combo

1939

Achieved star status with "The Low-cal That Failed"

1940

Signed contract with Warner Bros.

1941

Reported in "Picturegoer" magazine that "she gave upwards a contract at $1700 a week rather than play in unsuitable stories"

1946

First film as producer (uncredited co-producer), "Young Widow"

1947

Formed Arcadia Productions with Bridegroom Bogeaus; no films produced

1948

Performed her own songs, including "1 for My Infant (and Ane More for the Road)", for her office as a nightclub singer in the film noir, "Route House"

1948

Commencement picture show credited as producer (also commencement picture for own company, Emerald Productions, Inc. which she co-founded with Collier Young and Anson Bail and named afterward her mother), "The Gauge"

1949

Took over directing "Not Wanted" for an bilious Elmer Clifton; uncredited

1949

Credited feature film directing and co-writing debut, "Never Fear"

1950

Inverse proper noun of product visitor to The Filmakers; took on writer Marvin Wald as another partner

1951

Joined with David Niven, Dick Powell and Charles Boyer to class Four Star Productions

1951

Reportedly helmed portions of the feature "On Unsafe Ground" while managing director Nicholas Ray was ill

1956

Acted in last feature films for 13 years, "While the Urban center Sleeps" and "Strange Intruder"

1966

Directed last feature flick, "The Trouble with Angels"

1969

Returned to interim in feature films in "Backtrack"

1982

Appeared in cameo role in only moving-picture show of the 1980s, "Deadhead Miles"

1987

Featured in footage used in "American Lifestyles", a vi-part compilation film using material from the "March of Time" newsreels from 1939 to 1950

Family

George Lupino

Grandfather

Actor, dancer.

Stanley Lupino

Father

Comedian, actor. Born in London on May 15, 1893; died in 1942.

Connie Emerald

Mother

Player.

Ivor Novello

Godfather

Player, playwright, composer. Born on January fifteen, 1893; died in 1951.

Lupino Lane

Uncle

Comedian, actor, manager. Built-in on June 6, 1892; died in 1959; starred in many popular comedy shorts in Hollywood in the 1920s and in such feature films as "The Honey Parade" (1929).

Wallace Lupino

Uncle

Actor.

Barry Lupino

Uncle

Actor.

Rita Lupino

Sis

Actor. Appeared in several films directed past Lupino.

Bridgett Mirella Duff

Daughter

Born on April 23, 1952; father, Howard Duff; nominal inspiration for Idiot box production company for series "Mr. Adams and Eve" (1957-58), starring Lupino and Howard Duff.

Companions

Louis Hayward

Hubby

Actor. Born on March 19, 1909; married in 1938; divorced in 1945; acted opposite Lupino in "Ladies in Retirement" (1941); died on Feb 21, 1985.

Collier Young

Husband

Executive, producer. Married in 1948; divorced in 1950; met Lupino while working every bit Harry Cohn's executive assistant at Columbia; formed Filmakers, Inc. product visitor together; co-owned company with Lupino until 1980.

Howard Duff

Husband

Thespian. Born on August 24, 1913; married in October 1951; divorced in 1983; had been living apart for the terminal 11 years of their marriage; acted together in such films as "Adult female in Hiding" (1950), "Jennifer" (1953), "Private Hell 36" (1954) and "While the Urban center Sleeps" (1956), besides equally the Tv set serial, "Mr. Adams and Eve" (1957-58); begetter of Lupino's daughter Bridgett; died on July viii, 1990.

Bibliography

"Ida Lupino: A Biography"

William Donati, Academy of Kentucky Press (1996)

"Queen of the B's: Ida Lupino Behind the Camera"

Annette Kuhn (1995)

"Ida Lupino"

Jerry Vermilye

Notes

Lupino's nascency yr is open to question: other dates given are 1914, 1916 and 1919.

"'My father one time said to me, 'Yous're born to exist bad,' she recalled. 'And it was true. I made eight films in England before I came to America, and I played a tramp or a slut in all of them.'" --From TThe Hollywood Reporter, August 7, 1995.

"Although she won a best actress laurels from the New York Film Critics in 1943 for her part as a domineering sister in The Hard Mode", she came to view her Hollywood acting career a failure and one time referred to herself as 'the poor man's Bette Davis.'" --From The Hollywood Reporter, Baronial vii, 1995.

"Her films [as a manager] display the obsessions and consistencies of a true auteur. ... What is most interesting about her films are non her stories of unwed motherhood or the tribulation of career women, but the style in which she uses male person actors: particulary in "The Bigamist" and "The Hitchhiker" (both 1953), Lupino was able to reduce the male person to the aforementioned sort of unsafe, irrational force that women represented in most male-directed examples of Hollywood film noir." --Richard Koszarski in "Hollywood Directors 1914-xl" (Oxford Academy Printing, 1976)

"She regarded her own directorial career as an anarchistic choice for a woman, and had remarked in an interview that she'd rather be cooking her homo'southward dinner. Nevertheless, the content and technical virtuosity of her work belie this statement and betoken to a very wily director who knows the uses of conventionality every bit a tool." --Barbara Scharres in The Moving picture Middle Gazette (The Schoolhouse of the Fine art Constitute of Chicago, February 1987).