Let Yourself Go ... To Old Hollywood

Hotel for Women, Linda Darnell's launch to stardom

The Linda Darnell centennial blogathon presented an opportunity for me to learn more about this classic Hollywood star that I barely knew. At the time the blogathon was announced, I had only seen six of her movies. My favorites were Hangover Square (1945) and Unfaithfully Yours (1948). The others were A Letter to Three Wives (1949), It Happened Tomorrow (1944), Fallen Angel (1945) and The Mark of Zorro (1940).

To expand my knowledge, I chose to write about a movie I had not seen yet. I initially leaned toward City Without Men (1942). Unfortunately, the copy that I viewed was barely intelligible. So I eagerly switched to Hotel for Women (1939). While that film is also only available in rough copies, the sound quality is good enough to understand the dialogue.

Hotel for Women is the story of a group of young models who reside at a hotel in Manhattan adjacent to Central Park. This was Darnell's very first Hollywood film, yet she has the lead role. She plays a new arrival who quickly becomes a top cigarette ad model, and just as quickly is dropped. Other top roles are played by Ann Sothern as Darnell's mentor, Lynn Bari as Darnell's romantic rival, James Ellison as her status-seeking ex-boyfriend, and John Halliday as a rich womanizer and suitor to Darnell. Elsa Maxwell serves as a one woman Greek chorus and offers this concluding summary:

Men create the world. Women go around competing in it. All I can say is, it’s a wonder more men aren’t shot!

Monetta becomes Linda

Monetta Darnell was born in Dallas, Texas, on October 16, 1923 to a family of modest means. Her mother had long-held ambitions to be a performer, and she transferred those ambitions to her daughter. Monetta attempted a Hollywood audition in early 1938, and even won a screen test at 20th Century-Fox. But the studio talent scout who had discovered her then told her that she was too young and should return to Dallas. A year later, she tried again. This time she was signed by Fox and moved to Hollywood in early April, 1939. Within a couple weeks, despite her lack of film experience and age of merely 15 years, she was working in the lead role in Hotel for Women under the new name of Linda.

Prologue

Hotel for Women originated several months before Darnell's arrival in Hollywood as a project to exploit the trend of female-dominated shows—a trend accelerated by the success of The Women on Broadway over the previous two years. 20th Century-Fox chief Darryl Zanuck sent screenwriter Kathryn Scola to New York to gain first-hand experience of a "swank hostelry catering exclusively to the ladies," as Louella Parsons put it in a Feb. 2, 1939 column. "Among the guests are highly paid models, career women and others who live by themselves in the big town."

Zanuck signed Elsa Maxwell as a technical advisor in early February, and the film project was officially titled Elsa Maxwell's Hotel for Women to cash in on her notoriety. Maxwell, 56 years old in 1939, was an example of a celebrity who was famous for being famous. Her skill, other than self-promotion, lay at staging notable parties for the rich and famous, including popularizing of party gimmicks such as scavenger hunts. She parlayed this talent into a prominent media career in newspaper and radio. Hotel for Women would be her first foray into feature films. Maxwell not only advised on the film, but contributed to the screenplay and planned to perform a role in the movie. Louella Parsons wrote that Maxwell "will play herself in Hotel for Women and be hostess at an original party such as she herself might give. ... Darryl [Zanuck], who has great appreciation of Miss Maxwell's ability, told me he would give her carte blanche to let the whole world see her idea of the way society entertains."

Fox director Gregory Ratoff was soon assigned to direct the Elsa Maxwell project and Claudette Colbert was mentioned as a likely lead. Louella wrote in February, "The Colbert contract hasn't been signed, but rumor is strong that Claudette will arrange her schedules so she can make the picture." Colbert's possible role was not brought up again. Loretta Young also may have turned down the lead role, according to later reports.

With little success at finding an established star for the lead, Darryl Zanuck set his sights on casting a fresh—and cheaper—face. Wendy Barrie and Nancy Kelly were mentioned at times in February and March. But Zanuck had his eye on young Monetta Darnell as early as March, even though she was not in Hollywood or even signed by 20th Century-Fox yet.

Darnell's biographer Ronald Davis wrote that Zanuck "liked her photographs, ran her test footage, and thought she might have enough star quality to play the lead in Hotel for Women. But Darnell had entered a radio contest sponsored by RKO in February, so that studio held an option on her, preventing Fox from signing Darnell. The Fox reps kept quiet and waited for RKO's option to expire in early April. The starting date of Hotel for Women was pushed back from late March to late April.

In the first week of April, Darnell moved to Hollywood and went on salary at Fox at $75 a week. Studio drama coach Florence Enright began coaching her on her walking and confidence. Darnell and her family were cautioned to say little to the press, as Fox was planning a big publicity roll out in the near future--under her new name. Zanuck chose the name Linda because he felt it would "advertise her beauty and suggest a Latin quality that matched her coloring." [Davis]

Two weeks later, announcements hit the trade columns that a "newcomer" was on the rise. Columnist Jimmy Fidler wrote on April 20: "And now a girl named Linda Darnell, entirely innocent of dramatic experience, is to be spotted in the lead of Hotel for Women as a first role. ... The old-line stars are on the way out; new faces are in demand."

Darnell was 15 years old, but her age was often quoted in the press as 17, or even 19.

Production

The day after Darnell's announcement, and just a few days before filming was to begin, Fox announced a more established actress for another of the lead roles in Hotel for Women. Louella Parsons' April 21 column included a subhead, "Ann Sothern Gets Lead in Hotel for Women". This is Ann Sothern in the brief period after which her breakout film of Maisie had been filmed, but before it had been released to far greater than expected success. Sothern had been playing substantial roles in Hollywood films for six years and was coming off a career revival after her supporting role in the previous years' Trade Winds. Parsons wrote that "Darryl Zanuck has made [Sothern] the femme lead, which I consider smart casting, for Ann is a capable trouper and always gives a good account of herself."

The Fox studio publicity people attempted to play up a rivalry between the MGM current production that was adapting the stage play The Women and Fox's Hotel for Women. A couple days after Sothern was announced for the cast, Parsons wrote that director Gregory Ratoff had told her: "This is Ratoff's answer to The Women. You, my dear, will have a bathtub scene that will make the play look like a bird bath." Later, a columnist quoted Elsa Maxwell as saying to Norma Shearer, star of MGM's film, "'My dear,' hissed Elsa Maxwell, 'I understand The Women will be released as a trailer for Hotel for Women.'"

Other publicity during production mostly centered around Elsa Maxwell's adjustment to being in front of the cameras, and director Ratoff's exuberance and broken English. An example item from Erskine Johnson: "When Elsa Maxwell pronounced Syracuse as 'Sarahcuse' for a scene in Hotel for Women, Director Gregory Ratoff stopped the camera and said: 'You are working with me only one week and already you can't speak Ainglish.'"

Later publicity claimed:

A momentary setback for Elsa was when she found that she had to stage a cocktail party for the picture. This was contrary to her principles as she has never given one in her life and considers them a commonplace form of entertainment. "Cocktail parties," said Elsa, "are given for people you do not care to invite to lunch or dinner." She solved the problem by staging a lavish party that outdid all other cocktail parties, and then wrote into the script her dialogue which kids this whole institution.

Aftermath

In late May, as filming neared completion, director Ratoff said of Darnell, "Linda is going to be a star overnight in her first picture." The studio was also looking for Elsa Maxwell's next vehicle. Sheilah Graham wrote that "After her current Hotel for Women, the roly-poly party giver gets a role in 'Public Debutante Number One'. Surely they don't mean Elsa?"

Filming wrapped in early June, and Ratoff was immediately sent to work for David O. Selznick on Intermezzo, starring Leslie Howard and Ingrid Bergman, in her first Hollywood film.

As 20th Century-Fox planned a release of Hotel for Women for late summer, they also gave Linda Darnell her next assignment—in a supporting role in the big budget John Ford western Drums Along the Mohawk, starring Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda, which was going to Utah for extensive location shooting starting July 1.

Hotel for Women was first shown to the public at a preview in Los Angles on July 27. Los Angeles Times columnist Edwin Schallert wrote that it was a "very efficiently made contrivance featuring young feminine players especially and giving a play to romance," with a tired plot line in the final act. He calls Darnell, "Miss Barnell" twice and describes her performance as "pleasing, though as yet perhaps somewhat undefined as a screen personality." He also wrote, "Ann Sothern is very good in her semi-stellar part," and "Miss Maxwell is no Marie Dressler. That might as well be settled now. She is good because she is natural in the few scenes allotted to her, but the role she plays is pretty incidental."

The reviewer for the Hollywood Citizen-News described the film as "unmitigatedly tedious, vacuous and old-fashioned, ... the doings of the Elsa Maxwell smart set, as chronicled on screen, were almost as boring as the doings of the Elsa Maxwell smart set in real life. ... Linda Darnell is still mainly decorative, but she has a fresh and vivid physical appeal and won considerable favor with last night's preview goers. She ought to be in pictures. ... Miss Sothern, like the cavalry, comes on screen now and again to rescue the picture, but eventually gives it back to the Indians."

The most influential Hollywood columnists mostly praised Linda Darnell. Louella Parsons did so repeatedly over the next few days, getting more emphatic each day. July 30: "She is really a promising newcomer." July 31: "Producers yell 'wolf' so often about their discoveries that it's nothing short of a nine days' wonder when a girl like Linda Darnell really lives up to advance adjectives." Aug 1: "If a star can be born over-night, that's what happened to Linda Darnell after the preview of Hotel for Women." Mark Hellinger wrote on Aug. 3: "The Darnell lassie needs a bit of polish, but she's definitely on her way. Watch her go." Hedda Hopper wrote the same day about Darnell: "There's a real bet if I ever saw one."

The favorable reaction to Darnell after the preview appears to have served like a bat signal to Darryl Zanuck, who shifted Darnell into immediate star-building mode. He pulled her out of Drums Along the Mohawk—scrapping all her scenes already filmed in Utah, and recasting other scenes with Dorris Bowden—because he did not want Darnell to follow up her initial success in a secondary role. She was also nixed as the leading lady opposite the studio's top male star Tyrone Power in Johnny Apollo. Briefly, she was announced for the lead in the upcoming 'Public Deb No. 1' before Zanuck finally settled on costarring her with Power in Day-Time Wife, which would begin shooting in September.

Meanwhile, Hotel for Women had begun its gradual rollout across the country, opening in some mid-size cities in early August, and more throughout the month until its scheduled openings in Los Angeles on Aug. 23 and New York City on the 25th. Darnell was sent to her hometown of Dallas for the opening of Hotel for Women there on Aug. 17, which became a major local event, with 2500 people greeting her arrival at the train station and another large crowd gathered outside the theater where she gave a short speech before the screening: "Words fail me when I try to express my appreciation for the marvelous reception given me by the people of Dallas. Everything was perfect and my only regret was that I can't stay longer." (Davis)

A week later, Hotel for Women hit New York City, where the reception was less than glowing. Kate Cameron wrote in the New York Daily News: "Darryl Zanuck might better have remained silent about Linda Darnell, his latest candidate for stardom, until he had been able to offer her a vehicle geared to take her to the heights of cinema fame. Hotel for Women, which opened at the Roxy Theatre yesterday, is made of brittle, unsubstantial material that is far more apt to throw the pretty tyro for a loss than to carry her safely to the high spot where 20th Century-Fox exploiters believe she belongs. Linda is a beauty with a sweet, fresh look that is enormously appealing. But the part she plays gives her little, if any, opportunity to show that she can act." Frank Nugent wrote in the New York Times: "Beyond this nothing really need be said about the picture except that it introduces a newcomer, one Linda Darnell, who is as pretty as a model should be and probably will not be challenging Miss Bette Davis's academy title for quite a few years."

Much of what few positive notices the movie received continued to go to Ann Sothern—who, since filming of Hotel for Women concluded, had hit it big as the title character in MGM's sleeper hit, Maisie. Cameron of the Daily News claimed that Sothern was the "one really bright spot of the film," while Nugent of the Times added, "Ann Sothern... handles her too-few comedy lines with an ease that demonstrates again that she is Hollywood's best least-recognized comedienne. Some day a script, a director and Miss Sothern are going to meet and bring the house down. Hotel for Women is, naturally, not the place for such a rendezvous."

Elsa Maxwell's feature film career did not last much longer, dying after another role as herself in 20th Century-Fox's Elsa Maxwell's Public Deb No. 1 (1940). She continued her celebrity status in newspapers, magazines and radio as "America's foremost authority on how to be popular and how to have fun in life".

Zanuck's Linda Darnell publicity train had such momentum that the tepid reaction that her debut picture received from the New York critics could do little to derail it. Darnell would go on to near equal, above-the-title, billing with Tyrone Power in her second film, Day-Time Wife (1939), and then star in a role very similar to herself in a pseudo-autobiographical film, depicting some of the events of her rise to Hollywood: Star Dust (1940). Less than a year after her arrival in Hollywood, 16 years old, Linda Darnell placed her hand and footprints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater alongside long time Hollywood legends.

Sources

• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
• Hollywood Beauty: Linda Darnell and the American Dream by Ronald L. Davis, University of Oklahoma Press
  • Media History Digital Library archives of Hollywood fan magazines and trade papers

Specific sources not otherwise specified in the article

• "swank hostelry..." — Louella Parsons syndicated column, Feb. 2, 1939
• "will play herself..." — Parsons, Feb. 12, 1939
• "The Colbert contract..." — Parsons, Feb. 2, 1939
• Loretta Young also may have turned down... — Harold W. Cohen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Aug. 26, 1939
• "And now a girl..." — Jimmie Fidler syndicated column, Apr. 20, 1939
• "Ann Sothern gets lead..." — Parsons, Apr. 21, 1939
• "This is Ratoff's answer..." — Parsons, Apr. 23, 1939
• "When Elsa Maxwell pronounced..." — Erskine Johnson syndicated column, May 22, 1939
• "A momentary setback..." — Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, July 23, 1939
• "Linda is going to be..." — Wichita Falls-Times, May 28, 1939
• "After her current..." — Sheilah Graham syndicated column, May 25, 1939
• "very efficiently made contrivance..." — Edwin Schallert, Los Angeles Times, Jul. 28, 1939
• "unmitigatedly tedious..." — James Francis Crow, Hollywood Citizen-News, Jul. 28, 1939
• "Darryl Zanuck might better..." — Kate Cameron, New York Daily News, Aug. 26, 1939
• "Beyond this nothing..." — Frank Nugent, New York Times, Aug. 26, 1939
• "America's foremost authority…" — How to Have Fun Without Beauty, Photoplay, Sep. 1941

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This post is a contribution to the Linda Darnell Centennial blogathon. See the blog Musings of a Classic Film Addict for the other entries.

The #LupinoFilms Project Archive - Phase 1

Three and a half years ago, I started a series of posts on Twitter going through each of the films that Ida Lupino made as an actress and director. My idea was to use this project as a distraction from the stress of the early days of the Covid pandemic, when so little was known about what would happen. Now that Twitter/X is in its death throes and I may not have an account there much longer, I feel like this I should archive on my own site what I wrote in this undertaking.

Project #LupinoFilms started with this post on April 4, 2020, illustrated with the covers of Mary Ann Anderson's book, "Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera", and William Donati's, "Ida Lupino: A Biography".

I’m thinking of starting a mini-project to post about Ida Lupino’s films in roughly chronological order — one film a day (or so). Both as actor and director, so roughly 70 of them. Meanwhile, here are the covers of the best biographies about her. #LupinoFilms

Receiving some encouraging comments, I posted the first actual #LupinoFilms entry that same day. (Note that the videos included in the original posts are linked at the bottom of this post when available.)

Ida Lupino started her film career in her native England at the age of 13. She was an extra in a musical scene of "The Love Race" (1931), starring father Stanley Lupino, directed by cousin Lupino Lane. See if you can spot her (it's not easy!) #LupinoFilms

Next came the British phase of Lupino's career, where she had leads or top supporting roles in 6 films from late 1932 to mid 1933. The posts from future phases of her career will be in later entries on this blog, so stay tuned for more.

(5-Apr-2020) Ida Lupino’s first credited role was in the British film “Her First Affaire“ (1932) — “discovered” and cast in the lead role by American director Alan Dwan. She was 14 playing an 18-year-old interested in “modern” (i.e. open) marriage. #LupinoFilms

(6-Apr-2020) “Money for Speed” (1933) was the next film Ida Lupino did in England. Her performance helped bring her to the attention of Paramount. “I was a very bad little girl,” Ida said.

Lost for years, it was eventually found—but I have no clue how it can be seen. #LupinoFilms

(7-Apr-2020) “High Finance” (1933), another of the 6 films Ida Lupino made as a leading actress in England, is classified as a lost film. No stills appear to easily available either. Fortunately this is Ida’s only lost film.

Here’s a mention in The Guardian, Jan 27, 1934

#LupinoFilms (4)

(8-Apr-2020) “The Ghost Camera” (1933) is perhaps the best known of Ida Lupino’s British films. Co-starring with Ida is Henry Kendall; John Mills plays her brother; future legendary director David Lean is editor. It’s an entertaining mystery.

#LupinoFilms (5)

(9-Apr-2020) In Ivor Novello’s comedy, “I Lived With You” (1933), Ida Lupino played a supporting role. Novello was writer and star, plus Ida’s godfather. He reportedly said: “I can't stand this…it's ridiculous, what with my godchild lying on top of me trying to rape me.”

#LupinoFilms (6)

(10-Apr-2020) Another of Ida Lupino’s British films, “Prince of Arcadia” (1933), was a musical comedy starring Carl Brisson—father of the future husband of Rosalind Russell. It’s hard to find any details on this film. It’s not listed as lost as far as I know, but where is it?

#LupinoFilms

Here are videos of the four movie clips posted with the original tweets:

Joel Newton unmasked — mystery director of the thriller Jennifer (1953)

Earlier this year, the noirish gothic thriller, Jennifer (1953), starring Ida Lupino and Howard Duff, was given its first-ever home video release by Imprint Films. This release is a pristine blu-ray—a vast improvement over the rough copies circulating in recent years. Finally we have a version in which the stunning cinematography of James Wong Howe and the locations in and around an elaborate 1920s mansion in Santa Barbara, California, can be seen to full advantage. The movie is greatly elevated as a result.

One curious aspect of this overlooked film is that its director, Joel Newton, has no other credits in the film industry and does not appear to exist. "Joel Newton" is clearly a pseudonym.

Various writers have pieced together evidence that the film was actually directed by Bernard Girard, early in his career as a writer, director and producer that extended into the 1970s. In 2013, Jennifer Berzin talked to one of the last surviving cast members to get first-hand confirmation.

In an interview for this article, Lupino’s co-star Robert Nichols said, “It was directed and written by Barney Gerard. I thought he was very gifted. Ida had final cutting rights and she was not happy with it. She re-cut the film and Barney took his name off as writer and director.” Nichols thought this was possibly because in the final version “she came across as being very neurotic and she didn’t like that and she changed a few scenes so she was less neurotic.”

We do not have to rely only on decades-after-the-fact recollections. We have newspapers from the time of filming, which took place in February, 1953.

One item by columnist Sidney Skolsky notes that Lupino and Duff, who had married slightly over year earlier, "were rehearsing a torrid love scene for Jennifer. They got a little carried away and Director Bernard Girard said: 'That's not the scene'. 'Yes,' said Ida, 'but that's my life.'"

And now we have photographic evidence of Girard's direction from the Santa Barbara News-Press, February 15, 1953.

Only stars Ida Lupino and Howard Duff will appear on the screen in this scene from the film "Jennifer" being made at the fabulous Dieterich mansion in Montecito. This candid shot by News-Press photographer Ray Borgen gives an idea how many people are involved in the preparation for each "take" for this suspense film directed by Bernard Girard (far right with script). The picture is being filmed at this location in its entirety.

So while, for those willing to do a bit of research, the identity of Joel Newton may not have been a real mystery, his identity is now truly unmasked.

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Sources

• Ida Lupino and the Making of Jennifer, Jennifer Berzin, Oct. 16, 2013
• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers

Further viewing

• Purchase the restored blu-ray edition of Jennifer via Imprint Films at their website

The Fourth Star — Ida Lupino Takes On Television

I was the guest who never left and became the fourth star of Four Star Playhouse and loved every minute of it—and never missed directing.

— Ida Lupino

In late 1953, Ida Lupino approached a major transition in her career as Hollywood movie star-turned-independent producer and director. Lupino, at age 35, had been creating low budget feature films with high production and creative values for the last five years. With The Filmakers, the production company she founded with former husband Collier Young, she served as producer, writer, businesswoman and director, as well as occasionally returning to acting. But now her industry was being upended by the explosion of the audience for broadcast television.

In Lupino's accommodation to the small-screen revolution, the acclaimed anthology series Four Star Playhouse would play a dominant role. When she first starred in an episode of the show at the end of 1953, she viewed television with apprehension and hesitation. At the conclusion of her run of nineteen episodes in mid-1956, she had fully embraced TV as her creative medium of choice—the medium in which she focused her career for the next twenty-plus years.

Prologue

After giving birth to her only daughter in April 1952, Lupino resumed her work at The Filmakers with her characteristic drive and energy, directing The Hitch-Hiker and The Bigamist over the succeeding year, plus planning and writing a film to star her husband, Howard Duff. Amidst the industry turmoil of 1953, she sought options to diversify her creative opportunities in Hollywood.

Meanwhile in 1952, the CBS anthology program Four Star Playhouse was created by agent Don Sharpe and three veteran movie stars: Dick Powell, Charles Boyer, and David Niven. The show consisted of 30-minute episodes, each of which was an independent story. The three actors would rotate starring appearances to ensure their workloads remained manageable.

The "four stars" in the show's name was a relic from a short-lived radio version in 1949 that had featured Fred MacMurray, Loretta Young, Robert Cummings and Rosalind Russell. The initial prospects for TV's "fourth star", Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell, backed out before the show began, so the fourth position in the televised version would be filled by guest stars. Ronald Colman, Merle Oberon and Joan Fontaine were notable repeat guest stars early on. Premiering on Sep. 25, 1952, the program soon attracted substantial audiences and critical raves, so in its second season CBS expanded it from alternate-week showings into a weekly series.

Lupino's first season: 1953-'54

In the fall of 1953, as Four Star began its second season, Lupino was completing work on her latest feature film production for The Filmakers, The Bigamist. Her cinematographer on that film, George Diskant, encouraged her to join him on his latest project—Four Star Playhouse. Lupino's response: "Really George, you're out of your mind."

David Niven soon called up Lupino. As she related the story later, he said, "Lupy, Kupy, I know you're against television, but come on over and do a guest spot on our show anyway." She replied, "Oh, Niv, I can't. The whole thing scares me." Niven then said, "Come and do just one." And so Lupino did, filming her first episode in December.

Interestingly, Lupino signed to do a guest spot on a different anthology series, Ford Theater, shortly prior to signing for her Four Star appearance. It is likely the two episodes were filmed on back-to-back weeks, with the Ford Theater episode first. These were filmed just a few days after she attended the San Francisco world premiere of The Bigamist—which she had co-produced, directed and also starred in.

The Ford Theater episode was titled Marriageable Male and paired her with rising star Jack Lemmon in a comedy. Since the Ford show did not air until February, 1954, the Four Star episode House for Sale marked Lupino's television debut as an actress—on the last day of the year 1953.

House for Sale is a well-done thriller, where Lupino's character meets up with a man she thinks is a real estate agent for an open house—but the man is actually a psychopathic murderer. Such "woman in peril" roles were not Lupino's favorites, but came up repeatedly in her acting jobs in the first half of the 1950s, both in films and in her work on Four Star Playhouse.

For the remainder of the 1953-'54 season, Lupino did one more episode of Ford Theater, co-starring her husband Howard Duff, and two more episodes of Four Star Playhouse. Her primary focus continued to be on producing, writing and acting in feature films. The Filmakers production, Private Hell 36, occupied much of her energies for the first part of 1954.

Her company was struggling for existence by late 1954, however, and Lupino ramped up her television work in response. She also took the first of a handful of modest roles in feature films over the next few years—Women's Prison.

Lupino's second season: 1954-'55

Lupino focused her increased television work on Four Star Playhouse to the exclusion of other dramatic shows, heading six episodes. During this period, she officially left The Filmakers—promptly starting a new production company with husband Duff and ex-husband Young. The initial focus of this effort was on developing a sitcom to star her and Duff, satirizing their real-life roles as married movie stars with a stormy relationship. She dabbled in acting in feature films, taking top supporting roles in two major productions, The Big Knife and While the City Sleeps.

Her first Four Star episode of the season was The Adolescent, where she played a school teacher and disciplinarian called on to investigate misconduct involving her nephew. Columnist Eve Starr wrote: "Ida Lupino did it again on Four Star Playhouse's 'The Adolescent,' who was very well handled by young Robert Arthur. But we liked best of all Ida's few added pounds—and that's strictly a pure and sweet compliment. Her pretty face is prettier."

The next episode was another drama involving a youngster, Marked Down—though here, Lupino played a gold-digging woman. TV host Faye Emerson wrote that Lupino "sashayed stylishly through a script that had both tenderness and wit."

Later in the season, she played opposite William Talman in Eddie's Place. Talman had portrayed the title character in the earlier Lupino-directed feature film, The Hitch-Hiker. In a clever allusion to their previous association, the teleplay opens with Talman, driving a truck, picking up a stranded Lupino on a deserted road.

With All My Heart, aired on April 21, 1955, was one of the most notable episodes for Lupino and the press. She donned a false body to portray an overweight teacher in love with a man who viewed her as his best friend. She told columnist Aline Mosby that she wasn't concerned about losing her figure for art "because I've never gone through that frightening period of having been a glamour girl." She added, "Ever since I remember, I've played offbeat characters. When I read this script I wanted to do it. It's a wonderful love story. It doesn't make fun of fat people. It shows that it isn't what you look like, but what you are inside that people love." A year later, Lupino said that the most fan mail she had gotten during her Four Star tenure had been for this role.

She finished the season with Award, aired June 30. Lupino portrayed an Oscar-winning movie star who has just suffered horrendous reviews of her performance in her first Broadway show. Fellow Hollywood veteran Franchot Tone played a Broadway director that she approaches to help her improve. The show takes place on a single set with only the two actors and is quite lively. After Award was broadcast, Lupino told a columnist that the episode was based on true events: "'How we got away with it I'll never know,' [Lupino] grinned. 'But I'm not saying who the actress really is. Let people guess.'"

Lupino's third and final season: 1955-'56

By the second half of 1955, Lupino's focus had shifted almost completely to television. Her work on the pilot for her sitcom had come to fruition and it was slotted as an episode of Four Star Playhouse for the upcoming season. (It was filmed in the fall of 1955, but its airing was held back until the official sitcom run in early 1957.) She also signed on as the permanent "fourth star" and led a full complement of ten episodes that season.

TV Guide published a feature about her Four Star work in December, titled "A Fourth for TV: Ida Lupino joins trio of stars in film series".

At her admitted 35, Miss Lupino retains a remarkably trim "figgah", as her British relatives like to call it. ... The "figgah" is topped by an equally trim mind that, at least in the ways of business, works like a man's. ...

"A dame," says outspoken Dick Powell, "can stop to powder her nose at the wrong time and $3000 goes dow the drain. 'Lupey' knows when to powder and when not to powder."

Lupey, in fact, knows just about everything there is to know, as far as the making of pictures is concerned, and this includes an acute understanding of the budget.

Director Roy Kellino then extolled Lupino's virtues: "Miss Lupino is a professional. She is a trouper. She is never late. She always knows her lines. She knows how to improvise. And she will stand all day on a recently broken ankle because she knows that if the picture goes into another day of shooting, it will cost more money. I admire Miss Lupino tremendously."

Conforming to past patterns, she was not content with only acting—she also wrote the stories for two of her episodes this season. And, outside of Four Star, she resumed directing work—helming an episode of Screen Directors Playhouse for which she also had written the story. Lupino never directed any of her own Four Star episodes, saying of her acting, "I need a director."

Some of her notable episodes this season were Face of Danger, a western in which she played the same person in her 20s and at 100; One Way Out, another woman-in-peril story, but a particularly well-executed one that Lupino and Four Star considered turning into a feature film; and The Listener, where Lupino co-starred opposite her younger cousin, Richard Lupino, and played one of the most amoral characters of her career. For The Story of Emily Cameron, she wrote the original story, described in a contemporary summary as "about a woman who concocts a diabolical scene of wreaking vengeance upon her husband".

Lupino's work on Four Star Playhouse concluded with the airing on July 19, 1956 of one the best episodes—The Stand-In. Newspapers summarized her role as a woman "whose twenty bitter years in Hollywood as 'The Stand-In' for a star turn ambition to despair and her affection to secret hate." This episode was another that was adapted from an original story written by Lupino.

Show's End

In early 1956, Charles Boyer described the program to the press: "We, and I mean partners in 'Four Star Playhouse', Dick Powell, David Niven and Ida Lupino, have worked out a wonderful method of doing TV. But even doing a show once every four weeks becomes a chore after a while. It's like having a wildcat by the tail. You have to keep swinging."

Four Star Playhouse ceased production after the 1955-'56 season. While the show remained a hit with audiences and the sponsor wanted to continue, the CBS network gave the Thursday time slot to a new prestige dramatic show, Playhouse 90. Dick Powell, who had become the primary business force behind Four Star, was mollified by CBS picking up his new anthology show, Zane Grey Theater.

If somehow Four Star had continued into 1956-'57, Ida Lupino would not have been a part of it. CBS had picked up her sitcom with Howard Duff, Mr. Adams and Eve, and she was busy producing dozens of episodes to begin airing just after the new year.

A May 1956 article in the Pittsburgh Press described Lupino's experience over her three seasons on Four Star Playhouse:

"I never thought I could like TV," said Ida Lupino recently. That this attitude has undergone a radical change goes without saying, for she is now intimately identified with television as actress, director, writer and a shrewd investor.

“It’s a man’s world,” she says, ”and I’m glad I’m in it.” ... “I’ve known each one of them 20 years or more,” she says of her colleagues. “I’ve known David [Niven] 23 years. Boyer, I’ve known at least 20 years. I met Dick Powell the first weeks he was in Hollywood—that must be 24 years ago. I’m terribly fond of them all.”

A decade later, she wrote about Four Star, "I was the guest who never left... and loved every minute of it—and never missed directing."

The final word on Lupino's Four Star run came a few months after the final episode aired at the end of July, 1956. During the early weeks of the airing of her new sitcom, in February 1957, Lupino received an Emmy nomination for Best Continuing Performance in a Dramatic Series for her prior year's work on Four Star Playhouse.

Reruns of Four Star Playhouse continued for many years, released under different names. At times, the episodes for each of the stars were packaged separately, and so in the late 1950s and early '60s there was an "Ida Lupino Show" on many TV listings. As of this writing, nearly seventy years after their creation, sixteen of Lupino's nineteen episodes are available to view online.

Ida Lupino's episodes of Four Star Playhouse

Included in this list of the nineteen episodes that Ida Lupino filmed for Four Star Playhouse are the original air dates, as well as links to active online versions. Three episodes are not available anywhere I have been able to find, either online or physical media.

1953-'54, 3 episodes:

• 1953 Dec 31: House for Sale
• 1954 Jan 28: Indian Taker
• 1954 Apr 15: Masquerade

1954-'55, 6 episodes:

• 1954 Oct 28: The Adolescent
• 1954 Nov 25: Marked Down
• 1955 Jan 06: A Bag of Oranges
• 1955 May 10: Eddie's Place
• 1955 Apr 21: With All My Heart
• 1955 Jun 30: Award

1955-'56, 10 episodes:

• 1955 Oct 13: Face of Danger
• 1955 Nov 14: Looking Glass House
• 1955 Dec 15: One Way Out
• 1956 Jan 05: Dark Meeting
• 1956 Feb 02: The Listener
• 1956 Mar 29: The Story of Emily Cameron
• 1956 May 10: That Woman
• 1956 May 31: Beneath the Surface
• 1956 Jun 21: Woman Afraid
• 1956 Jul 19: The Stand-In

--

Sources

• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
• Ida Lupino, Director: Her Art and Resilience in Times of Transition by Therese Grisham and Julie Grossman, Rutgers University Press
• Four Star Television Productions: A History of the Business, Series, and Pilots of the Iconic Television Production Company: 1952-1989 by Richard Irvin, BearManor Media
• Media History Digital Library archives of Hollywood fan magazines and trade papers

Quotes

• "I was the guest who never left..." — Me, Mother Directress by Ida Lupino, Action!, May-June 1967, as quoted by the Grisham-Grossman book
• "Really George, you're out of your mind..." — Ibid.
• "Lupy, Kupy, ..." — Ibid.
• "Ida Lupino did it again..." — Eve Starr syndicated column, Nov. 8, 1954
• "sashayed stylishly..." — Faye Emerson syndicated column, Dec. 1, 1954
• "because I've never gone through..." — Aline Mosby syndicated article, Mar. 17, 1955
• "How we got away with it..." — Erskine Johnson syndicated column, Jul. 30, 1955
• "At her admitted 35..." — TV Guide, A Fourth for TV, Dec. 3, 1955
• "I need a director." — Pittsburgh Press, Ida Lupino Acts, Writes, Directs, May 20, 1956
• "about a woman who concocts..." — Central New Jersey Home News, Mar. 18, 1956
• "whose twenty bitter years..." — Bedford Daily Times Mail, Jul. 14, 1956
• "We, and I mean partners..." — Walter Ames column, Los Angeles Times, Mar. 30, 1956
• "I never thought I could like TV..." — Pittsburgh Press, Ida Lupino Acts, Writes, Directs, May 20, 1956

--

This post is a contribution to the Classic Movie Blog Association's blogathon, Big Stars on the Small Screen. See the CMBA blog for the full list of contributions.

Double Door — Ida Lupino and Phyllis Loughton

The paths of two fascinating women from the Golden Age of Hollywood intersected very early in their careers—an intersection illustrated by this photo of three teenagers made up to portray much older women. Only one of these two women is in this picture. At center is Ida Lupino, future movie star, producer and director—in make-up as the lead character in a stage production for Paramount studios. Off-camera is the director of the production, Phyllis Loughton.

At the time of the photo, Lupino was brand new to Hollywood and barely a year into her storied career in the public eye, while Loughton—“one-time child prodigy of the stage”—was also brand new to Hollywood, beginning her behind-the scenes career.

In December 1933, just a few weeks before this photo was taken, Phyllis Loughton had founded a stock company at Paramount to facilitate the training of the studio’s young actors and actresses. Today, the most famous of the classic Hollywood studio stock companies was the one run by Lela Rogers, Ginger Rogers' mother, at RKO—where legendary comedienne Lucille Ball received her early training. But Rogers’ school was over a year in the future when Loughton convinced Paramount to start their stock company. When Rogers was launching RKO's Little Theater in 1935, a Los Angeles reporter wrote, "It was Miss Loughton at Paramount who introduced the stage production idea to studios."

Ida Lupino and Phyllis Loughton arrived at Paramount nearly simultaneously, in late August 1933. At the time, Lupino was a 15-year-old movie actress from England and Loughton was a 26-year-old stage director from Detroit via Broadway. Lupino had played leading roles in six British films over the previous year when Paramount signed her and brought her to Hollywood as a top candidate for the role of Alice in their much-hyped production of Alice in Wonderland. More quietly, Paramount hired Loughton to take charge of training the studio's players in "diction, deportment and decorum".

Paramount soon decided not to cast Lupino as Alice, but rather give the role to Charlotte Henry. Lupino was destined for more adult features. "Miss Lupino... is a year younger in age [than Henry] and ten years older in experience and poise," wrote a columnist that November.

Lupino's first Hollywood movie, Search for Beauty, had her co-starring opposite Larry "Buster" Crabbe, an Olympic swimming champion making one of his earliest movies. Filmed in the late fall of 1933, this picture was the culmination of an international talent contest promoted by Paramount, where several dozen young men and women winners were brought to Hollywood to appear briefly in the movie. Six of these were signed to Paramount contracts. (Only one of the six had a Hollywood career of any length, an eighteen-year-old from Texas named Clara Lou Sheridan, who changed her name to Ann Sheridan the next year.)

At the same time, Phyllis Loughton convinced her new bosses to fund a stock company under her charge for the training of the studio's young talent. Under the headline "Young Picture Group to Do Stage Plays" on December 5, Los Angeles Times columnist Edwin Schallert wrote:

All for the sake of experience, a whole group of younger film players are going to do stage plays. The idea is being experimented with at the Paramount studio, and if it works out well, maybe the young stars will be seen in a public performance occasionally.

They include Larry (Buster) Crabbe, Ida Lupino, Kent Taylor, Barbara Fritchie, Toby Wing, Lona Andre, and the “Search for Beauty” group, including Eldred Tidbury, Colin Tapley, Alfred Delcambre, Julian Madison, Clara Lou Sheridan and Gwenllian Gill. There will probably be about sixty-five ready and willing to take part, and the plays will be presented in a theater set on one of the studio stages.

Phyllis Loughton, formerly with Jessie Bonstelle’s stock company in Detroit, and who has directed plays in the East, will have charge of the undertaking. At the start, the plays will be given just before the company’s own employees.

The first production of Loughton's company would be "Double Door"—a hit on Broadway a few months before and a story which Paramount was planning to film. "It is a grim melodrama of the inhumanities a rich woman practices upon her brother's bride to preserve intact the family fortune and the pearls," wrote Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times about the Broadway version.

Eleven players had parts in the Paramount stage version, with Ida Lupino in the leading role. While this production was not a public event, Paramount milked for publicity the old age make-up on Lupino and two other teenage actresses. Some press was also invited to witness the performance, which took place on January 12, 1934, barely a month after the first public announcement of Loughton's stock company.

The Detroit Free Press wrote up a brief item the next day:

Phyllis Loughton, Detroit actress and director, and now diction coach for Paramount, is in charge of the studio stock company, the purpose of which is to give screen aspirants acting experience.

The first production by the studio stock company was made Friday night, before an audience of newspaper critics, picture stars, directors and other studio workers.

"Double Door" was the offering, not the least important feature of which was the fact that youthful Ida Lupino portrayed the role of a fifty-five-year-old matron, with Gwenllian Gill, another starling, appearing as a fifty-year-old spinster."

George Shaffer wrote in the New York Daily News: "Ida Lupino did a highly creditable piece of dramatic acting in the studio's own stage presentation of "Double Door" by eleven members of the young talent at Paramount.... [T]he 18-year-old British lass played a woman in her sixties, stooped, over-bearing, with gray complexion and streaked brown hair."

Note that mistake in Lupino's age. She was in fact several weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday. But Paramount and Lupino both encouraged the press and public to believe she was older.

Syndicated columnist Robbin Coons wrote:

The other night Paramount's school, under the direction of Phyllis Loughton, presented a production of "Double Door," a play that will soon be made into a film. Executives, writers, and directors saw performances from mere cinematic youngsters that may make them think twice.

They saw Ida Lupino, a 17-year-old blonde, give a convincing portrayal of an aged, sour-on-life spinster, and Gwenllian Gill, a beauty contest winner, enact Ida's intimidated spinster sister. ... and Larry (Buster) Crabbe had one of his rare opportunities to emote with all his clothes on.

Lona Andre, Julian Madison, Clara Lou Sheridan, Eldred Tilbury, Colin Tapley, and Alfred Delcambre, all contest-winners, had their shining moments.

Aside from giving the youngsters something to do—and Miss Loughton avers that they all work like Trojans—and showing executives what they can do, the studio plays have the added value of giving the screen adapters hints regarding dramatic values.

Paramount extracted further publicity by proclaiming that Lupino's performance in "Double Door" had won her the leading feminine role in the film Come On Marines opposite Richard Arlen, which was to begin filming in late January. In fact, Lupino had been announced for this role several months earlier, albeit in a more tentative stage of production. (At that time, not-yet-superstar Cary Grant had been the prospective leading man.)

A few weeks after the stock company performance, Search for Beauty was released to theaters and Lupino sat for interviews. Robbin Coons described her as "a blue-eyed blonde of 17 who is dead-set against a screen career devoted to the portrayal of blue-eyed blondes of 17." She told him: "I'll not do it, I say! I'm not going to stay here [in Hollywood] to be an ingenue." Coons wrote:

Miss Lupino recently played an aged spinster in a studio play, the leading role in one of those productions staged by the junior players. It was a characterization far removed from her first screen role in "The Search for Beauty."

"I can do parts like that spinster for the screen. I want to do them, to play real characters. ... And I don't care what I look like on the screen. They can hollow my cheeks, gray my hair, dress me in rags and I'll be happy if I'm playing a real person. I don't care if I'm popular of not. That doesn't matter as long as I know I'm doing good work."

Ida Lupino and Phyllis Loughton worked together on at least one more stock company production. A few months later, the company's second production, "The Pursuit of Happiness", was staged with Lupino again in the lead role. This was another recent Broadway play that Paramount was planning to film. Los Angeles Times columnist Edwin Schallert wrote on May 29, 1934:

It looks as if it will be a very, very private affair, because royalties are involved if any outsiders see such a production. So the principals of the play, including Ida Lupino, Toby Wing, Randolph Scott, Eldred Tilbury, Alfred Delcambre, Clara Lou Sheridan, Julian Madison, Howard Wilson, Colin Tapley, Frank Losee and Douglas James, a number of them being 'Search for Beauty' contest winners, will do their emoting before an aggregation of their own studio folks.

The production is being given under the direction of Phyllis Laughton [sic].

The only photographic evidence I have found related to this play is from a pool party thrown afterwards to celebrate the young players' work. Lupino has her arm around Clara Lou (Ann) Sheridan, talking to actress Katherine De Mille and Paramount executive Melville Shauer, the host.

Just a couple weeks after this party, Lupino would be stricken with polio. Paramount delayed production of her next film, Ready for Love, until she was fit to participate. Fortunately, she recovered nearly completely within a few weeks. Later in 1934, Lupino and her mother travelled back to England to reunite with her father and sister for a vacation of several months, then returned to Hollywood and Paramount in January 1935.

Over the next few years, Lupino would not get the kind of dramatic screen roles she desired. Instead she was typed as an ingenue and light comedienne. She nonetheless persevered in Hollywood. It would take a prolonged career crisis in the late 1930s and a bold venture into the office of director William Wellman to land her the role in The Light That Failed (1939) that launched her celebrated dramatic career.

In the late 1940s, Lupino started her own production company, with one of the goals to train young actors and actresses—a venture that led to her becoming the only woman director in Hollywood in the post-war era. Could Lupino's desire to foster young talent have been inspired, at least in part, by the example of Phyllis Loughton?

After Double Door, Loughton continued as the dramatic coach at Paramount for several years, becoming a highly-respected member of the studio staff. Her work with young actors like Randolph Scott and Fred MacMurray was written up frequently in the press. In 1937, internal studio politics led to her being forced out of Paramount. Director Cecil B. DeMille, furious at how she had been treated, called her up to offer encouragement, saying, "Always remember, no one can fire you but yourself. Carry on."

Loughton continued her Hollywood career for over another decade, becoming an acting coach for big name stars such as Dorothy Lamour, Hedy Lamarr, Paulette Goddard and Ann Sothern. She worked closely with director Mitchell Leisen and almost became a director herself at various points in the 1940s.

As the 1950s began, Loughton left her Hollywood work behind and concentrated on raising her family. Soon, she became deeply involved in local politics under her married name, Phyllis Seaton. After a substantial political career, in 1973 she was elected by her fellow city council members as the first woman mayor of Beverly Hills—forty years after she had arrived in Southern California and founded the dramatic school for young players at Paramount studio.

Sources

• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers

These newspaper articles were not explicitly attributed in the text:

• "It was Miss Loughton..." — 1935 May 4, Los Angeles Evening Post-Record, "Hunt for Talent Begins at Home" by Virginia Wright
• "One-time child prodigy..." — 1935 Oct 13, Salt Lake Tribune, "Screen Demands Midwest Type, Says Film Scout"
• "Miss Lupino... is a year younger..." — 1933 Nov 26, Oakland Tribune, "Wonderland Film Girl Star-Gazes in Real Life" by Wood Soanes
• "Always remember..." - 1970 Dec 25, Los Angeles Times, "Times Woman of the Year: Beverly Hills Troubleshooter" by Art Seidenbaum

Explore further

• For more on Ida Lupino's career crisis in the late 1930s, see this earlier article: 1937: The year Ida Lupino's film career vaporized
• The film Search for Beauty has recently been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber.

Tyrone Power - Movie King Says Farewell to Radio

This is a story inspired by one press photo of Tyrone Power and Ida Lupino standing at an NBC radio microphone, taken in February, 1939.

The year 1939 is frequently mentioned as the best ever for Hollywood films, with legendary films such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, along with many other classics, released. That same year, Tyrone Power and Jeannette MacDonald were voted "King and Queen of the Movies" by readers of syndicated columnist Ed Sullivan's column. For Power, it had been a quick rise to movie superstardom over the previous three years at 20th Century-Fox.

At the same time, radio, despite being a relatively new entertainment medium, had become huge business with gigantic audiences. Hollywood jumped aboard by the second half to the 1930s and was eagerly exposing its stars over the airwaves to publicize their own productions. In that vein, Tyrone Power was given his own radio program in late 1937: Hollywood Playhouse. The show was a 30-minute dramatic anthology series, airing Sunday night at 9 P.M. Eastern time on NBC, and sponsored by Woodbury Soap.

In early 1939, though, Power abruptly left the program. The press caption on this Feb. 5 photo of Power with his last guest star, Ida Lupino, said:

"Movie King Says Farewell to Radio

"Hollywood, Calif. — Sacrificing approximately $5000 per week for his work on radio programs, movie king Tyrone Power yesterday said goodbye to the radio because theater managers complained that his programs on the air were drawing crowds from the moving pictures. Ty’s boss, Darryl Zanuck, vice president of 20th Century-Fox, complied with requests of the theater men by convincing the film king to confine his activities to the screen.

"Photo shows Tyrone Power and actress Ida Lupino at the Hollywood NBC studio yesterday when Power made his last appearance on the air for the Woodbury Co."

Power's departure was announced only four days before his final appearance. At that time, some press reports suggested it was the first sign that Hollywood was about to sever its relationship with the radio industry. A couple of the more sensational headlines: "Tyrone Off Air in Screen War Against Radio" (New York Daily News, Feb. 2, 1939) and "Finish War Looms Between Movie Industry and Radio Business" (Stockton Daily Evening Record, Feb. 2, 1939).

Zanuck's quotes in these and other articles at the time certainly fed the impression of a looming battle. He said:

"We have no quarrel with radio, but there is great validity in the insistence of theater exhibitors who contend they are being severely injured because the airlanes are so crowded with screen personalities.

"Not only the theaters but the stars themselves are endangered because it is so difficult to get adequate material for these air programs, especially when they must present something new every week. Film companies spend thousands of dollars and months of time preparing for the single appearance on the screen of any one of their stars. By its very nature, radio cannot exercise such care for the protection of a player.

"The screen and radio can continue to help each other when they cooperate for mutual benefit, but the situation today is such that unless stern measures are taken both must suffer." (United Press, Feb. 1, 1939)

Despite this statement, most entertainment reporters and columnists remained skeptical about any substantial change in cooperation between the two industries. The same article that quoted Zanuck above quickly mentioned that the Power's fellow 20th Century-Fox star Don Ameche would continue his Sunday night radio appearances on the Chase & Sanborn Hour.

"Power, while far outranking Ameche as a box office draw, has played a poor second fiddle to his colleague among radio audiences. Power's program, according to the latest Crosley rating, is 15.1, while Ameche, [Edgar] Bergen and company are rated at 46."

The Associated Press wrote that "little support was forthcoming elsewhere in Hollywood for the 20th Century-Fox head's opinion that radio hurts movie actors at the box office." Anonymous quotes from radio people poked at Zanuck, pointing out that "Mr. Power's radio rating has never been particularly high," and contradicting Zanuck's story by claiming that "Mr. Power quit the program in an argument over an introduction of a commercial announcement between acts of his play." (Buffalo News, Feb. 2, 1939)

The day after Power's final program aired, radio columnist Hugh Doddridge added some details to this last claim.

"During rehearsals for his broadcast of January 29, Power got into quite a beef with the agency producer over the policy of handling 'commercials'. Power served notice that should the sponsor continue to demand that the broadcast be broken up in the middle with an announcement, he would quit. The commercial announcement, nevertheless, was spotted as usual. Power, in quite a huff, called it quits!" (Highland Park News-Herald, Feb. 6, 1939)

Doddridge added that Zanuck took advantage of this dispute for publicity. The sure sign that nothing would change between Hollywood and radio was that the replacement for Power would be fellow movie star Charles Boyer.

As for Power's final appearance on Hollywood Playhouse, where the photograph that started this story was taken, New York Daily News columnist Ben Gross wrote: "Tyrone Power and Ida Lupino appeared in a very conventional and mechanical skit, 'And Ensuing Complications'. It isn't surprising that Zanuck has ordered Ty off the air, if juvenile stuff like this is the best material available."

Unfortunately, we cannot listen to this show and decide about its quality for ourselves. According to Wikipedia and its sources, no broadcasts of the Hollywood Playhouse during Power's tenure are known to exist in radio collections.

Zanuck did not keep Tyrone Power off the air for very long. One show that is still available is Power's appearance on The Screen Guild Theater on Jan. 7, 1940, less than year after the incidents just described. He played alongside Humphrey Bogart and Joan Bennett in an adaptation of The Petrified Forest. Listen here.

Brief review of the 1977 profile of Ida Lupino by Jerry Vermilye

This brief book review is a contribution to the 2022 Classic Film Summer Reading Challenge,, run by Raquel Stecher of the Out of the Past blog.

In 1977, Jerry Vermilye published a small booklet about Ida Lupino's career as part of a series of such booklets, Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies. It is a quick read, 140 or so pages, with plenty of pictures. The back cover suggests the book's aim is to cover "the life and career of this outstanding star". This is a worthy goal, but far too ambitious for this book.

A more appropriate title for this book would be The Films of Ida Lupino. A brief intro contains some interesting, insightful and respectful thoughts about Lupino's career, including expressing appropriate disbelief that her talents had never been acknowledged by the Motion Picture Academy with any nomination for an Oscar. Unfortunately, that flavor soon disappears in a parade of film descriptions and commentary about the films—much of which is not very insightful, often is unfairly dismissive, and sometimes contains inaccurate descriptions. There are also a few factual errors about Lupino's career, though, fortunately, such mistakes are limited in number.

One of the book's biggest deficiencies is that it downplays several critical aspects of Lupino’s career. For instance, it glosses over her unique position as the only woman director in Hollywood for a generation, plus how and why she accomplished becoming an independent producer-director-writer. It also spends very little time on Lupino’s television career in the 1950s, including her sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. This period was probably the peak of her fame given the gigantic audiences for the TV networks at the time.

In short, I would not recommend this book for those seeking to learn more about Ida Lupino's life and career. As a biography of Lupino, it is completely lacking. As a summary of her films, it is marred by inaccurate and dismissive commentary about many of them. The book may be useful if you merely want a reference to her films or a rough outline of the timeline of her career. It does have a nice collection of photographs from Lupino's films.

Brief review of Lana Turner's autobiography

This brief book review is a contribution to the 2022 Classic Film Summer Reading Challenge, run by Raquel Stecher of the Out of the Past blog.

After re-watching Ziegfeld Girl (1941), the film that turned Lana Turner into a big star, I decided it was past time to learn more about Turner's life and career. Fortunately, her autobiography is still readily available. Published in 1982, the book is called Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth, and it is an engrossing story of a fascinating—and somewhat puzzling—life.

The text flows so smoothly that I would not be surprised if Turner had a ghost writer—but her voice really comes though. It feels as if she is talking to the reader directly. She discusses so much personal detail of her life, including some very painful stories and many embarrassing details, that I emerged feeling like I knew her as a person. Even so, it is still difficult to understand some of the decisions she made—particularly in her choice of husbands. She had almost too many to keep track of and the quality started bad and did not get better.

Notable episodes in the first portion of the book are her pre-stardom period at Warner Brothers and MGM, her ridiculously bad marriage to bandleader Artie Shaw, her horrible experience with an abortion, and her relationship with Tyrone Power, who she considered the love of her life. Turner later devotes a substantial amount of space to the story of her and Johnny Stompanato—including details that could not be recounted by anyone else. As many may already know, her violent relationship with this gangster ended when Turner's teenage daughter Cheryl stabbed him to death in their home. Turner relates the whole horrific story. The book proceeds through her life all the way up to the early 1980s, when Turner was emerging, apparently successfully, from a semi-alcoholic depression.

This is an excellent first-hand look at a character who personified the image of the glamorous classic Hollywood movie star and played into that image with all her energy—highly recommended.

Index of my Ida Lupino articles

Over the last few years, I've done a substantial amount of research and writing on Ida Lupino's career. Here is a summary of the articles I've written in that time, ordered roughly chronologically by the time period they are about.

There is clearly a big gap between 1949 and 1963, a period that encompasses many different fascinating periods of Lupino's life—including virtually her entire time as independent producer-director, her transition to acting and producing for television, her successful sitcom, and her transition to television director. There is almost too much in that period to write about! I have tried—and continue to try to finish an article about a small portion of that period.

…

The articles:

1935: Behind The Scenes: Paris In Spring (1935): one of Lupino's biggest early films in Hollywood:

1937: 1937 - The Year Ida Lupino's Film Career Vaporized: a critical year in Lupino's early career.

1940-'41: Making Sense Of The Lupino-Bogart Feud: did Lupino and Bogart get along during the making of High Sierra and afterwards?

1941: How Did Ida Lupino Almost Lose Her First Warners Starring Vehicle To Bette Davis?: The Hard Way and Lupino's dispute with Warner Brothers.

1941: Which Actresses Were Considered For Jean Gabin's Co-Star In Moontide?: casting one of my favorite films.

1941-42: The Making Of Moontide — A Noir Fairy Tale: the details of how Moontide was made.

1942-43: Blind Man's House: An Important Picture That Was Never Made: a movie that Lupino might have played in.

1945-47: The story of Lupino's ill-fated first attempt to become an independent producer, divided into two parts:

• Part 1: Prelude To A Forgotten Chapter In Ida Lupino's Career

• Part 2: Never Again! The Story Of Ida Lupino And Arcadia Productions

1948: Assembling The Cast Of The Noir Classic Road House (1948): aftermath of Lupino's initial independent production efforts leads to a classic picture.

1946-49: Ida Lupino's Apple Tree Farm: Lupino writes a musical comedy—and it is produced a few years later!

1963-'64: A period in the life of Ida Lupino as television director: 1963-1964

...

I've also posted a number of smaller pieces that did not involve much research. Here are the most notable of these:

1933: Ida Lupino's Lost Film

1943: Ida Lupino's First Directing Job?

1943: Ida Lupino's NYFCC Award And Lack Of Oscar Nomination

1944: In Our Time (1944): Undeservedly Obscure

1945: Ida Lupino's Songwriting Collaborator

…

1936 article: My Daughter Ida, by Mrs. Lupino

This 1936 article offers a fascinating glimpse into Ida Lupino when she was still at a very early stage of her life and career. This article purportedly contains the words of her mother, Connie Lupino, filtered through a writer for the film magazine, Hollywood.

It was published in the February 1936 issue, and likely written around December 1935, a couple months before Ida's eighteenth birthday. At this point, Ida had already been in Hollywood for over two years, and had been a film star for over three, including a year in her native England.

My Daughter Ida

By Mrs. Lupino

Yowsah, Ida's sweet as apple cider—And her mother's right beside her!

(As told to HARMONY HAYNES)

Hollywood, Feb. 1936

This has been such a happy, carefree year that at times it is a bit difficult for me to realize that this lovely young lady with whom I play is really my own little daughter grown up.

And how does Ida feel about me? I've never asked her but I would say that she gives me a very daughterly love and affection—but when it comes to respect? Then I'm afraid I'm just the girl friend.

I don't mean by that remark that Ida is disrespectful for she is never that—to anyone, but instead of bowing dutifully when I speak and saying, "Yes, Mother," she'll screw up her face and say, "Well, now I thought—". And I'm always glad to hear what she thinks on any question. I never wanted my children to bow to my decisions just because I happened to be their mother.

Ida's father, Stanley Lupino, and I were mere kids when we married. He was rapidly becoming a great favorite as a dancer and comedian on the English stage and I played as his soubrette. We had been married two and one-half years and come from the provinces to London, when Ida was born.

We felt that his future on the London stage was secure enough so that we could safely take a house and I could devote my time to mother him and the baby. However, I returned to the stage many times at the request of producers, but managed to be at home enough to superintend the rearing of Ida and Rita, who was three years younger.

• We had no careers mapped out for our children but felt that they would just naturally turn to the stage the minute they were old enough to talk and walk.

However, Ida disappointed us. She didn't seem to care much about the profession nor show any marked talent for it. At school she was a very apt pupil, never satisfied with anything but the highest marks. She was very good at painting and sketching and couldn't get enough of it. She studied everything she could about acting and about the theatre in general, reading plays, reading histories of the stage, biographies of players. With equal enthusiasm she studied music and dancing.

• She felt that the motion picture was fast robbing the stage of its time-honored place and through her cousin, Lupino Lane, obtained extra work at the British International Studios. Not long after that, she discovered that Allan Dwan, an American director, was testing girls for a small part in a picture he was to direct, called Her First Affair.

Ida was very anxious to work in the picture, to be on the set and to learn all she could from this American man. She applied for a test and met Mr. Dwan. He passed her up for the part she applied for and gave her the lead—a grown-up lead and she was but thirteen-and-a-half!

Perhaps because her father had never permitted her to play child parts, perhaps because she had always associated with grown-ups, or perhaps because Mr. Dwan was a very splendid director, she made good in that first picture and from then on played leads.

• Once, it seemed that her career must be halted—forever. Ida was run over by an automobile. She was hurled high into the air and crashed down upon a gravel walk. Her sweet little face was literally torn to shreds. Those were pitifully anxious months waiting for the bandages to be removed—and when they were removed—scars—horrid scars! However, the doctor told us that in time they would diminish. They have—you can scarcely see them now, but at the time it was hard for us to believe.

Ida, however, did not share our pessimism. She had read of a like accident befalling Carole Lombard. She had seen Carole on the screen and thought her the most beautiful woman in the world. If she could suffer such injury and still be so perfect to the camera eye, Ida felt she had nothing to worry about.

She was right—and to this day, Ida almost worships the beauty of Carole Lombard. There are certain angles in pictures, where Ida resembles Carole, and I notice that those are always the pictures she drags out to show people. If anyone notices the resemblance, Ida is happy for days, feeling that they are "sisters under the scars".

• There was much excitement at our house when Ida was invited to come to America to make a test for Alice in Wonderland. We understood it was to be a great picture and that the girl fortunate enough to play in it would be, as the Americans say, set for life.

It was Ida's big chance, we were all agreed on that, but wasn't she too young to go to a strange country all alone? I had been to America, I knew the ropes, so to speak, but if I went with her, my husband and I would be separated for the first time in our married lives. Then there was Rita who certainly was at the age when she most needed her mother. Ida would have to go alone.

"All right," Ida said, "I don't know a thing about the country, nor the people, nor the money, and I've heard Hollywood is a dangerous place, but I'll go alone. It'll be better than breaking up the family."

She said it as bravely as a sixteen-year-old could say anything, but we couldn't help but feel the trembling in her heart. Our decision was reached, I was to accompany her and Rita was to stay with her father.

I didn't know just how long I would be gone but I determined that for Ida's sake, I would make it a lovely holiday. Ida, of course, would have to work hard, but she must have a good time, too, so that if nothing came of the venture, we could go home with happy memories.

• When Ida was tested for the role of Alice, it was found that she didn't photograph childish enough. However, she was placed under a long-term contract and so began her American career.

She is very nervous and easily discouraged when she is starting a picture, but once the picture is under way she is sure of herself and everything goes along smoothly.

She liked Hollywood and its people—she became a little "Yankee" overnight, bringing home to me bits of American slang and American phrases. Americans like her, too, and took her up professionally as well as socially. They were equally as kind to me—scarcely an invitation comes to Ida that does not include me, and usually, I accept, because this is my holiday.

• When Ida is on a picture, we lead very quiet lives, reading, writing letters, listening to the radio—anything and everything but knit and we've threatened to take that up soon. Ida studies a great deal—it is her ambition to be a very well informed person. No matter what subject comes up during the day, if it is foreign to Ida, you may be sure she'll be surrounded with a flock of books that evening doing research work.

She always says, "I never want to have to sit in a corner and keep quiet just because I don't know what people are talking about." It has always been her theory, and I think a good one, that anything she takes the trouble to look up will remain a permanent part of her education.

Since I came to America solely in the interests of Ida's career, she insisted that she take care of all financial obligations. She has done so in a manner that makes me very proud of her.

We have always had a home, so she wanted one in Hollywood. It was not sensible to buy a home at first so we rented a furnished house. Ida was not pleased with the way it was furnished but rather than put a lot of money into furniture, she merely had the old upholstered pieces covered with brightly colored glazed chints.

She employs a cook, a driver and a maid. She thought at first that she could do without the driver but driving makes her very nervous.

At times when I think she is being a bit extravagant, I quietly talk things over with her, and we cut down on bills. Outside of spending money on others, Ida is not extravagant. She has quite simple tastes. She doesn't care for clothes, especially fluffy, girlish things. Her street clothes and party clothes are always neat and conservative. Her home clothes consist of pajamas or slacks. She does like shoes and can never seem to buy enough of these lovely American styles.

She doesn't like beauty parlors—they make her very nervous. On the set her maid does her hair and at home, she likes to do it herself. It really takes very little "doing" since she never looks sweeter than when it is combed back of her ears and a little ribbon tied on the top of her head.

A few months ago, we went to London for a visit. Our first trip home after coming to American in 1933. Rita was just beginning to grow into a tall shy girl. Ida felt that Rita was developing an inferiority complex from having a father busy on the stage and in pictures and from having a mother and sister in Hollywood. She insisted on bringing Rita to Hollywood with her and ridding her of her self-consciousness.

Rita has had the time of her young life permitting Ida to play guardian. Rita has dancing lessons, tennis lessons, riding lessons and skating lessons. Since Ida wanted the responsibility, I do not interfere with the "lessons".

• When it comes to love affairs, Ida is a lover of love. She comes by it naturally. Stanley was the one love of my life and I have never gotten beyond the lover stage. The nearest to a cross word Stanley has ever spoken to me is to boyishly say, "Three women in the house and I'm out of shaving cream!"

So when Ida fancies herself in love, which she does quite often, she takes it seriously for a while. Then it doesn't go as smoothly as she feels that it should, and she comes to me heart-broken. I let her wait about it for a while because I know that young girls must enjoy their "heartache" a little bit. If she doesn't snap out of it then, all I have to do is to accuse her of being dramatic. Then the funny side of it appeals to her sense of humor and she is able to laugh at herself. And I know that when the right man comes along, it will be all laughter—no tears.

Stanley has just arrived in Hollywood for a visit. When he must return to England, I am going with him and taking Rita. I shall be very happy to be home once more but it will be a long, long time before I forget my wonderful Hollywood holiday with my daughter-friend, Ida Lupino.

Post-script: Connie Lupino did not, in fact, return to England with Stanley in early 1936. She stayed in Hollywood with her daughters.

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Here is the article in its original layout in Hollywood magazine. Click the images to get a full-size, more readable, image.