I recently stumbled across this item in a Hedda Hopper column from April 28, 1943 that may represent Ida Lupino's first directing job.
Ida Lupino always wanted to direct. Now she's doing it—directing the drama group from the Lockheed-Vega swing shift in their production of "You Can't Take it With You." In that crew are many noted actors, including stars.
A couple days earlier, on April 26, this news item had appeared in the Los Angeles Daily News, headlined "Ida Lupino to direct drama":
Screen actress Ida Lupino accepted an invitation yesterday to direct the dramatically inclined aircrafters at Lockheed-Vega swingshift in their forthcoming stage show "You Can't Take It With You".
Three rehearsals a week will be held, starting next Thursday at 1 a.m.
The workers to their first crack at histrionics last year with the production of "Return Engagement".
I haven't yet been able to find anything else about this. Was it a part-time, "guest director" thing (if such a thing exists)? Or did she take several weeks, which is what it would presumably have taken, to do the full job?
Ida was in between films at Warner Brothers at this point, having recently completed Devotion with Olivia de Havilland and Paul Henreid. The next film she started was In Our Time, which didn't get underway until June. So she may well have had the time and opportunity to spend a few weeks helping the Lockheed-Vega crew out.
It also struck me that this scenario—a glamorous movie star steps in the direct a ragtag crew of aircraft war workers, likely including many Rosie-the-Riveter types, in the middle of the night—seems ready-made for a screenplay. It could be a combination of Swing Shift Maisie and the Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland 'let's-put-on-a-show' musicals.
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