Let Yourself Go ... To Old Hollywood

Does Jack Warner's Story About Ida Lupino on They Drive By Night Have Any Credibility?

Warner Brothers studio chief Jack Warner relates a curious story about actress Ida Lupino in his 1965 book, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood. The story takes place during the filming of the 1940 drama They Drive by Night—22-year-old Ida Lupino's first film at Warner Brothers, after seven years in Hollywood as a top supporting player and leading lady. At this point in her career, Lupino was in the process of transforming from an ingenue and light comedienne into a notable dramatic actress. Her dynamic performance in They Drive by Night, supporting George Raft and Ann Sheridan, would launch her into the top ranks of movie stars, where she remained for the rest of the 1940s—until her attention shifted to directing, writing and producing.

In Jack Warner's story, half-way through what he claimed was a ten week shoot with half a million dollars spent, Lupino notified the studio that she would not come back to work. Producer Mark Hellinger then told him that one of the studio's flunkies, an astrology enthusiast named Richard Gully, had "put the hex on Lupino," saying that "she was just asking for trouble if she didn't get out of the picture." Warner promptly fired Gully, then "drove to Ida's home the next morning—and you can bet I don't often get down on my knees—and I begged her to come back." She refused, so Warner claimed he quickly dug up another screen play that Hellinger could get started on right away with the same cast that had been idled by Lupino's walkout. Warner said, "I determined to wait her out even if it took a long time." The wait took seven weeks according to Warner—enough time that they "finished the second picture." Warner ends on a positive note. "I'm glad we were patient with her, because she soon came down from the Milky Way and we completed the original film. In a seven-year period Ida made thirteen fine pictures for us, and recently--when she became a television director and producer--we had her back on the lot using her know-how in the new medium. Without horoscopes."

Notably, other accounts of the production of They Drive by Night make no mention of such an extensive interruption. Indeed, while this anecdote may have entertainment value, further investigation reveals it to be embellished to a comical extent.

First, the documented timeline has no room for any significant delay. Lupino had tested for her role in early April. "She made such a swell test for the role that Burbank studio executives immediately opened negotiations for a four picture pact with the star." That deal was completed by April 18. The initial start of filming was pushed back a week from the original schedule, a delay attributed in the papers to star Raft suffering from a bad cold or flu. Filming on They Drive by Night started on April 23. Production wrapped by early June, after only six or seven weeks. There is no mention in the papers of any further delays after Raft's illness. And immediately Warner Brothers began promoting Lupino as a new star as a result of her performance, casting her in the lead role opposite Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra.

Second, the alleged second picture with the same producer and cast does not exist. Neither Hellinger nor Raft nor Sheridan had the opportunity to begin, much less complete, a separate picture while They Drive by Night was under production from late April through early June.

Mark Hellinger's other productions in 1940 consisted of It All Came True, released in March; Torrid Zone and Brother Orchid, which both completed filming in early April; and High Sierra, which started in August. George Raft's schedule was less full. He completed House Across the Bay for another studio early enough that it was released in March, then after They Drive by Night he didn't start work in another film until Manpower early the next year. Ann Sheridan had been in two of Hellinger's productions that were completed early in 1940, It All Came True and Torrid Zone; then after They Drive by Night wrapped, she moved into City for Conquest in early June.

Clearly Jack Warner's tale of a lengthy walkout by Ida Lupino—leading to a muti-week interruption in the production of They Drive by Night, during which an entire separate picture was completed with its producer and top cast—is categorically false.

Yet there is one piece of Warner's story that is corroborated—and by none other than Richard Gully. Gully's reminiscences are recounted in a 2001 Vanity Fair article:

[Mark] Hellinger, a writer from New York who “specialized in gangster pictures, had me put on the payroll for one year. I had a nondescript job, just sort of wandered around.” During lunch hour one day, Gully, a follower of the stars in every sense, stopped by the soundstage where Ida Lupino was making They Drive by Night. Lupino complained that “things were going badly. So I commiserated. ‘You’re an Aquarius,’ I explained to her. ‘Your aspects are bad now.’ Right there she announced she was quitting the studio for the day, and her excuse was ‘Richard Gully told me to.’ And that,” Gully said, “is how Ida Lupino got me fired. I never spoke to her again.”

So there was a Lupino walkout after all—though it likely lasted at most a few hours, making its lack of mention in other accounts more understandable.

There is one other takeaway. For an egocentric studio chief like Jack Warner—notorious for his stubbornness in disputes with stars like James Cagney and Bette Davis where they were compelled to go on suspension or go to court—to invent a story where he portrays himself as driving to an actress' house to beg for her to return to the set, and when refused, being willing to shuffle production schedules around and wait her out for nearly two months—he must have thought very highly of Ida Lupino.

——

Sources

• Jack Warner, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood, 1965
• Amy Fine Collins, The Man Hollywood Trusted, Vanity Fair, April 2001
• Dates of film productions are gathered from newspaper accounts and trade papers from 1940 compiled by the Media History Digital Library, especially Motion Picture Daily.

Specific references:

• "That deal was completed...": Edwin Schallert, Rosalind Russell Will Costar With Stewart, Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1940
• "a delay attributed...": Louella Parsons, Jack Warner Pays $100,000 for 2 Newly Published Books, San Francisco Examiner, April 19, 1940; 'So Gallantly Gleaming' Readied at Wanger's, Hollywood Citizen-News, April 19, 1940; Sheilah Graham, Gary Cooper Battles for Contract Release, April 25, 1940
• "Filming on...": Edwin Schallert, 'Brooklyn Bridge' Now on Power's 1940 Slate, Los Angeles Times, April 24, 1940

My recommendations for Ida Lupino day on TCM's Summer Under the Stars

TCM is devoting an entire day to Ida Lupino movies on Friday, August 2, as part of its annual Summer Under the Stars programming for the month of August. This is the first such day for Lupino since 2009. TCM normally airs from zero to two Lupino movies per month, with an occasional burst up to four—so 13 on a single day is certainly a treat.

Below are my priority recommendations for those who may not be very familiar with Lupino's films.

All but one of those airing are in the range from good to exceptional. Overall, they illustrate the wide range of character types and genres that Lupino skillfully navigated as an actress. They show her ability to carry a film by force of personality or to be a critical supporting player as necessary.

In describing these films, I may sound like a big Lupino fan—and that's because I am. But I became a fan of Lupino's a few years ago by watching these films (and a number of other great ones not being shown, alas).

I will leave High Sierra (1941) and They Drive by Night (1940) off my ranking. These are probably the most aired and most well-known of Ida Lupino's films by a wide margin. See them if you haven't! But if you miss out, you'll be able to catch them again soon.

My top priority are two films that are aired rarely, but deserve far wider recognition:

• The Man I Love (1947) - A noirish wartime melodrama with music, where Ida Lupino plays a nightclub singer. But she really is portraying a superhero with vulnerabilities—compelled to address the wartime homefront problems of her family and friends while encountering her own. This is a signature Lupino performance. Directed by Raoul Walsh.
• The Hard Way (1943) - Another memorable role and dynamic performance from Lupino—but completely different from The Man I Love. Here she plays an aggressive, unethical promoter for singing-and-dancing younger sister, played by Joan Leslie. Lupino was awarded the Best Actress of 1943 from the New York Film Critics Circle for this movie. Directed by Vincent Sherman.

Just below the top tier are these, two excellent noirish melodramas and one that stands alone.

• Deep Valley (1947) - Co-starring Dane Clark. A subdued Lupino role, yet she still carries the film from beginning to end. Directed by the under-appreciated Jean Negulesco.
• On Dangerous Ground (1951) - Co-starring Robert Ryan. Lupino made this while in the midst of her run as an independent writer-producer-director from 1949 to 1954. Directed by Nicholas Ray.
• The Sea Wolf (1941) - I like to insert this film into conversations about the best films of all time. Lupino has a top supporting role, paired with John Garfield. She certainly contributes her share, but Edward G. Robinson dominates the film—the only reason I don't have this at a higher priority on a day dedicated to Ida Lupino. Directed by Michael Curtiz.

Progressing down the list, two more high quality films:

• Devotion (1946) - To best appreciate this film, ignore that this is supposed to be representing the Brontë sisters and instead treat it as a fictional story inspired by them. It is excellent in that regard. This is the film that pushed me over the edge into a superfan of Lupino's. Directed by Curtis Bernhardt.
• Pillow to Post (1945) - For a change of pace, Lupino stars in a screwball comedy! Perhaps not so surprising if you are familiar with her 1930s Hollywood career or her 1950s sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. Your preferred style of humor will affect how much you enjoy this, but it is very well done. Directed by Vincent Sherman.

Now the relatively lower priority films. Still worth seeing if you can!

• Out of the Fog (1941) - Lupino and John Garfield are top billed, but Thomas Mitchell is really the star here, with sidekick John Qualen, and is terrific. TCM has aired this fairly often recently. Directed by Anatole Litvak.
• The Big Knife (1955) - Lupino stars as the estranged wife of a movie star portrayed by Jack Palance, in this ensemble picture based on a Clifford Odets play. John Garfield was a major inspiration for the Palance character and had originated the role on the stage. Garfield, a close fiend of Lupino's, had tragically died a couple years before this film was produced. Directed by Robert Aldrich.
• Escape Me Never (1947) - Like Devotion, this film is better than its reputation. While the least memorable of Lupino's great run of pictures in the 1940s, I think it has gotten a bad rap over the years in part because Errol Flynn fans were disappointed that this is not a high-energy action film, but instead a woman's picture. Lupino and Flynn were great friends and their chemistry here is through the roof. Directed by Peter Godfrey.

And the lowest priority film by my ranking:

• While the City Sleeps (1956) - I have this at the bottom for two reasons: first, it is just an okay film; second, TCM airs it fairly often. It is unusual in that it is an ensemble film with ten stars. So Lupino has relatively little screen time. What she has is delicious, however—and unlike any other Lupino role you'll see on this day. Directed by Fritz Lang.

Before concluding this, I have to plug some of my favorite Lupino films that are rarely or never shown on TCM, because they are from studios outside the TCM library. In particular, Ladies in Retirement (Columbia, 1941), Moontide (20th Century-Fox, 1942), and Road House (20th Century-Fox, 1948). These belong in the top tier of recommendations. Seeking them out will be rewarding.

Please also peruse my writings on Ida Lupino here at this blog. I have devoted substantial time and energy to studying her life and career over the last few years and believe I have come up with some interesting and original articles. Here are couple related to the films being aired by TCM:

• How Did Ida Lupino Almost Lose Her First Warners Starring Vehicle To Bette Davis? (The Hard Way)
• Making Sense of the Lupino-Bogart feud (High Sierra and Out of the Fog)

I hope others enjoy Ida Lupino's films and would love to hear thoughts on your favorites, least favorites, and so on.

The attempted pairing of Bette Davis and Ida Lupino

Bette Davis and Ida Lupino were two of the top dramatic actresses in Hollywood in the 1940s. For seven years they overlapped at the same studio—Warner Brothers—yet they had little personal interaction and never acted in a movie together. There was one film, though, where the pairing of Davis and Lupino might have happened.

Several decades after this time, Ida Lupino told an interviewer that "Bette fought like mad to get me to play in The Corn is Green with her, playing the marvelous role of the young girl. I was committed to another picture, I'd already done wardrobe fittings and things. It would have been very exciting to do a picture with her." Yet when we survey the happenings at the time, Lupino's recollections appear distorted by rose-colored glasses. She may have later regretted never having worked with Bette Davis, but when she had the opportunity, she strongly resisted the specific vehicle.

The saga of the attempted pairing of Davis and Lupino in the Warner Brothers production of The Corn is Green begins in the spring of 1941. Davis, in her early thirties, was the most celebrated dramatic actress in Hollywood—a two-time Academy Award winner and reigning queen of the studio. Lupino, ten years her junior and new to Warners, was portrayed by press and publicists as the young upstart—a threat to Davis's position after celebrated performances in They Drive By Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941). In this atmosphere, Warner Brothers purchased the hit Broadway play, The Corn is Green and immediately promoted it as a co-starring vehicle for Davis and Lupino. "Won't that be something to star the two queens of the lot in one movie?" famed columnist Louella Parsons wrote.

The Corn is Green was written by Welsh playwright Emlyn Williams in 1938. It is the story of an English school teacher who moves to an impoverished coal mining town in Wales and mentors a promising male student to rise above the distractions of his environment. The play premiered in London in late 1938. That production's success prompted a Broadway version that opened in November, 1940, starring Ethel Barrymore, "the first lady of the American stage." Sixty-one-year-old Barrymore received headlines and great acclaim for her performance, turning the show into a prodigious moneymaker that would run for several years.

The play has a flashy secondary female role—a selfish young woman who tempts the teacher's protégé to deviate from his studies. This "horrid little Cockney wench" was portrayed on Broadway by an unknown 22-year-old named Thelma Schnee. Schnee received some fanfare for her performance, if few headlines. One critic wrote, "The woman who could steal a play from Ethel Barrymore has yet to be born, but Thelma Schnee, who plays the part of Bessie Watty, does such an astounding job that she comes dangerously close to it."

The bosses at Warner Brothers, production chief Jack Warner and executive producer Hal Wallis, saw the play as a vehicle for their star actress Bette Davis—who could transport the Barrymore role to the screen in the same fashion as she had successfully transported other celebrated stage roles of Broadway stars—such as Tallulah Bankhead's role in The Little Foxes (1940). Warner and Wallis figured the Bessie Watty role fit the villainous tramp type that Ida Lupino had performed so notably in her breakout roles—The Light That Failed (1939) and They Drive By Night (1940).

That Bette Davis would be attracted to the central role of the school teacher made sense, as it would be a showpiece for her acting. The role of a much older woman would not deter Davis, since she relished the opportunity to play unglamorous roles. Davis later wrote that the "The Corn is Green was in every way a rewarding part to play." For Lupino, the showy, but small, role of Bessie Watty was not tempting. The casting suggested she was becoming typed by the Warners producers, which was a major concern of hers after her typing as an ingenue and light comedienne in the 1930s had derailed her acting career. Any reluctance of Lupino to play this role was not an immediate concern in the spring of 1941, as Warners was contractually unable to release a film version of The Corn is Green until at least late 1943.

Through 1941 into 1942, Ethel Barrymore's performance in the stage version continued to draw praise from the New York critics and from around the country after she continued on a national tour. While Warners waited to begin the film production, their public plan continued to be to cast both Davis and Lupino. In May 1942, with filming reportedly slated for the fall, Hedda Hopper wrote, "Bette Davis gets the Ethel Barrymore role for the screen version of The Corn is Green, while Ida Lupino is set for the part of her daughter [sic]." Yet when a trade paper listed Warners' cast assignments in July, the only assignment for The Corn is Green was Bette Davis, while Lupino was assigned to three different pictures. Then in September, Hopper wrote, "It was denied at first, but now it's official that Ida Lupino will costar with Bette Davis in The Corn is Green, which is a Hal Wallis production."

The production date slipped into 1943. Meanwhile, Ethel Barrymore took the play back to Broadway for a second run, then started on another tour in late June. By this time, Lupino and the Warners executives were in a severe conflict. "Insiders report that Ida Lupino and Warner Brothers will sever relations, two months hence, by mutual consent," columnist Jimmie Fidler wrote. "She's dissatisfied with her roles, and they're irked with her constant dissatisfaction." Of the three future assignments for Lupino that had been reported in July 1942, Lupino had done none of them, suggesting she may have refused most or all of them. Instead, she had accepted lead roles in Devotion (not released until 1946) and In Our Time (1944), although the historical inaccuracies of Devotion also disturbed her. After completing these films, Lupino risked suspension by refusing to star in a re-make of Bette Davis' decade-old breakout picture, Of Human Bondage. Explaining her position, Lupino said in mid-1943, "Bette Davis was superb. She played it the only way it should be played, and I naturally will have to do it the same way. Then I'll again be called 'the poor man's Bette Davis'!" Notably this role was another villainous Cockney type like the role of Bessie Watty.

Lupino's casting in The Corn is Green soon became another casualty of her dissatisfaction and antipathy to being typed. Lupino's resistance to the role of Bessie Watty may well have begun with the initial talk of her casting in 1941, but was only was becoming public in 1943 due to additional pressure from the studio as production grew closer. In size and characterization, the role is similar to the role she had played in The Light That Failed several years earlier. The character even has the same name, Bessie. In 1939, she had fought hard for that very emotional part. It revealed her talent as a dramatic actress, allowing her to break out of a seven year rut as an ingenue and under-appreciated light comedienne. By the early 1940s, Lupino's stardom had increased dramatically and she likely would not have been inclined to revert to playing a size and type of role she had done at a much lower point in her career. On top of all that, the Bessie Watty of The Corn is Green is arguably a less substantial role than the Bessie Broke of The Light That Failed.

In August 1943, columnist Harry Mines reported, "Jack Warner still hopes to persuade Ida Lupino to play the part [of Bessie Watty], but she says definitely no." A week later, Hedda Hopper wrote, "In spite of the fact that Ida Lupino doesn't want to play any more Cockneys, Hal Wallis hopes she'll change her mind and do the part with Bette Davis in The Corn is Green." A peculiar item then appeared in Erskine Johnson's column: "Ida Lupino is sulking over failure to land the feminine lead in The Corn is Green. Bette Davis will play the part." Of course, Lupino had never been up for the lead part. This deceptive item, likely planted by studio executives to try to diminish their troublesome star, is a window into the bitterness of the dispute between Lupino and her bosses. After this extended period of discord over various projects, Lupino and Warners managed to reach one agreement—Lupino would take a six-month "leave of absence" from the studio.

Warners now started bringing in far less prominent actresses to test for the Bessie Watty part—one of whom was the role's Broadway originator. Thelma Schnee had left the stage run of The Corn is Green a couple years earlier, but the plays she had performed in afterwards had been flops. So Schnee traveled west to do a screen test in March, 1944, and allegedly became producer Hal Wallis' top choice. She promptly fell victim to Wallis' own disputes with studio chief Jack Warner. A reporter wrote in April, "Hal Wallis' resignation from Warner Brothers has held up the deal for Thelma Schnee... to play her original role of Bessy Watty in the screen version of The Corn is Green. The studio wants the new producer... of the picture to okay her first and he hasn't been assigned yet." Jack Chertok soon was assigned as producer and Schnee did not get the part.

In an odd turn, Warners now brought in another Lupino to test for the part—Rita Lupino, Ida's younger sister. Rita was a professional dancer and had not done any film acting of note. Hedda Hopper published this item on May 12, "Ida Lupino helping her sister Rita over the shakes as she tested for The Corn is Green with Bette Davis."

Rita later told more of the story:

I'd decided, after a lot of talk, and a lot more dancing, that I was pretty tired. Maybe acting wasn't a bad idea. There was a part coming up in the new Bette Davis movie--the part of the young Cockney girl, and I was set to try out for it. 'We'll work,' Ida said, and we did. She stood by, right through the test, and we saw it run off later. It was the only test of mine I'd ever glimpsed that didn't make me shrink down in the seat, and Ida grinned, and squeezed my hand. We were feeling high. The job fell through, for me. It was just one of those things, and it was Ida who broke up over it. I ended up trying to comfort her.

With Ida Lupino working so hard to prepare her novice sister for the part of Bessie Watty, it becomes even more clear that she did not contemplate the role for herself.

A few days later in May, 1944, Louella Parsons wrote that the studio was being "very secretive" about talks between producer Chertok and Lupino. Someone allegedly in the know told Parsons that "Ida is seriously considering playing the role of Bessie." Parsons added that Bette Davis was "enthusiastic about the idea," and that "Ida need have no fear she would be playing second fiddle, for Bessie is as important to the story as is the school teacher." That last sentence, inaccurately inflating the importance of the secondary character, gives away that the studio was making a last gasp attempt to convince Lupino to take a role she appears to never have had much interest in. Unsurprisingly, this did not work.

Given Davis's alleged enthusiasm for Lupino taking the part, this is the most likely time for Lupino's claim that Davis "fought like mad" for her to play the Bessie Watty role. Lupino's phrasing suggests that Davis was imploring Lupino to accept the role. (Warner executives already wanted Lupino, so who else needed to be "fought"?) The producers may even have enlisted Davis to further their cause, hoping that Davis's influence with a fellow actress would be persuasive. Lupino held firm, however.

With production on The Corn is Green on track to start before the end of June, Warners was compelled to bring the casting of Bessie Watty to a conclusion. Established dramatic actress Betty Field was tested, and she seriously considered the role—but opted to do Tomorrow the World instead. Eighteen-year-old Angela Lansbury, recently praised by critics for her role as a Cockney maid in MGM's Gaslight (1944), offered herself up for the similar type part in The Corn is Green. She reported that "the studio said 'no' [presumably MGM, concerning a loan-out to Warners]. I guess they know what they want me to do."

In the end, Warner Brothers chose a different youngster. On June 12, Louella Parsons wrote, "You can well imagine the excitement of Joan Lorring, 18 year old, who gets the chance to play the coveted role of 'Bessie Watty' in The Corn is Green with Bette Davis. With such stars as Ida Lupino and Betty Field mentioned for the role, Joan gets a break." Later in life, Lorring said that Warner Brothers had been leaning towards casting their new contract player Andrea King as Bessie, but that Bette Davis saw Lorring's screen test—made after two earlier rejections—and asked for her, with director Irving Rapper and producer Chertok agreeing.

A few weeks later, while filming on The Corn is Green was underway, Joan Lorring appeared on the radio show Hollywood Showcase to be congratulated by Ida Lupino and to do a scene from Lupino's dramatic breakthrough The Light That Failed. The studio could not have the original Lupino, so they portrayed Lorring to the public as a new Lupino.

In the end, Ida Lupino and Bette Davis never worked in a film together. Young Joan Lorring's break as Bessie Watty in The Corn is Green led to an Academy Award nomination in 1946 for Best Performance by a Supporting Actress. Lorring was unable to convert this success into a substantial film career. Meanwhile, Ida Lupino, despite her prolonged conflict with the Warner Brothers executives and eventual departure from Warners in early 1947, continued her distinguished career as a film and television star for decades—also becoming a writer, producer and director. Ironically, Lupino never received any Academy Award nominations.

—

Notes

• "Bette fought like mad...": John Kobal, People Will Talk, Alfred A. Knopf, 1985, p. 542.
• "Won't that be something...": Louella Parsons, April 2, 1941
• "horrid little Cockney wench": Robert Francis, Candid Close-Ups, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 13, 1941
• "the first lady...: Nelson Hunter, Bad Girl Makes Good, King Features Syndicate, Tacoma News Tribune, August 24, 1941
• "the woman who could steal...": Axel Storm, Broadway Nights, King Features Syndicate, Two Rivers Reporter, July 9, 1941. Other rave reviews for Thelma Schnee included this: "I think the finest performance in the cast is that of Miss Thelma Schnee, who plays the disreputable girl of the story with remarkable deftness and skill.", from Harold V. Cohen, *The Drama Desk", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 29, 1940
• "The Corn is Green was in every way...": Bette Davis, The Lonely Life, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962, p. 217.
• Warners was contractually unable... : Jack Gaver, United Press, April 26, 1941
• "Bette Davis gets the Ethel Barrymore role...": Hedda Hopper, May 6, 1942
• Yet when a trade paper...: Motion Picture Herald, July 18, 1942. Lupino's assignments from Warners were The Damned Don't Cry, Night Freight, and The Horn Blows at Midnight. In the end, she did not make any of those films.
• "It was denied at first...": Hedda Hopper, Sep 29, 1942
• Meanwhile, Ethel Barrymore took the play...: Wood Soanes, Oakland Tribune, May 18, 1943; and Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1943
• "She's dissatisfied with her roles...": Jimmie Fidler, May 24, 1943.
• "Bette Davis was superb...": Hedda Hopper, July 14, 1943
• "Jack Warner still hopes to persuade...": Harry Mines, Los Angeles Daily News, August 5, 1943. Mines was one of Lupino's closest friends for many years, so his reporting on Lupino's thoughts has extra credibility.
• "In spite of the fact...": Hedda Hopper, August 14, 1943
• "Ida Lupino is sulking...": Erskine Johnson, August 16, 1943
• "leave of absence": Louella Parsons, November 4, 1943. "There’s nothing up anybody’s sleeve about Warners granting Ida Lupino a six months’ leave of absence. What was first rumored as another 'feud' turns out to be an amicable agreement. Ida asked for permission to take 'time out' for six months to have a complete rest if she wants it, or to make an outside picture—and Jack Warner has said ‘okay’. She hasn’t yet made up her mind which she will do, but after three pictures in a row the idea of resting sounds good to her now."
• "Hal Wallis' resignation...": Harold V. Cohen, The Drama Desk, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 14, 1944
• "Ida Lupino helping her sister....": Hedda Hopper, May 12, 1944
• "I'd decided, after a lot of talk...": Rita Lupino, My Sister and I, Modern Screen, May 1948
• "Ida need have no fear...": Louella Parsons, May 17, 1944
• Established dramatic actress Betty Field was tested...: Louella Parsons, June 8, 1944
• "the studio said 'no'...": Louella Parsons, June 11, 1944
• "You can well imagine the excitement...": Louella Parsons, June 12, 1944
• Later in life, Lorring said...: Lawrence J. Quirk, The Passionate Life of Bette Davis, Robson Books, 1990, p. 277
• A few weeks later, while filming...: Hedda Hopper, July 21, 1944

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

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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

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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.