Let Yourself Go ... To Old Hollywood

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.

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

To celebrate the memory of dear departed classic film champion and blogger Patricia Nolan-Hall, for "The Caftan Woman Blogathon", I am covering a time in the life and career of Ida Lupino that Paddy had touched upon in her writing a few years ago.

Paddy contributed an article to the collection of essays The Ida Lupino Files entitled Ida Lupino Directs The Fugitive And Creates Classic Television. Lupino directed three episodes of that television show, all in its first season—1963-'64. In her essay, Paddy summarizes these episodes for those of us not familiar with them. My essay will cover events in Lupino's life in the months prior to and after working on The Fugitive.

Background

At the time Lupino directed The Fugitive, she was in her mid-40s and at the height of the television-directing episode of her career. Television director was one of several incarnations Lupino went through during her nearly five decade in show business, including roles as actress, composer, writer, producer, and motion picture director. Over three decades earlier, Lupino had begun her film career in her native England at the age of fourteen, with lead roles in six films. Within a year, she was discovered by Hollywood, signed to a multi-year contract and moved across the Atlantic. Her acting career had ups and downs in the 1930s, but by the early 1940s she had become a big name thanks to her roles in films like The Light That Failed, They Drive By Night, and High Sierra.

For the next decade, she was a full-fledged movie star. Yet, as reporter Peter Bart described her later, she "was a movie star who hated stardom, a glamour queen who loathed glamour". Near the end of the 1940s, Lupino decided to shift away from acting towards the work she found more interesting. She started her own production company in partnership with then-husband Collier Young. She co-wrote and co-produced several successful low-budget pictures—and became the only woman director in Hollywood at the time.

By 1954, the popularity of television was revolutionizing the film industry. Lupino's company, The Filmakers, was a victim of the changing times. She then moved into television acting and writing, with occasional film roles added in. By the late 1950s, she and new husband Howard Duff had created a sitcom that they starred in, Mr. Adams and Eve, which had a brief run of popularity. The show was cancelled in 1958 after two seasons, and Lupino, now 40, decided again to move behind the scenes. She started directing television shows in late 1958 with Have Gun, Will Travel and soon became in-demand. She virtually gave up acting—aside from infrequent guest appearances on television.

1963-1964

This brings us to the year when Lupino became involved with The Fugitive, nearly five years into her television directing career.

Lupino began 1963 with work as both actor and director on Sam Benedict, a detective show starring Edmond O'Brien. O'Brien had worked with Lupino in her days as a movie producer-director, starring in two of her films a decade earlier—The Hitch-Hiker and The Bigamist. Now, Lupino acted with him on his television show as a guest star, and directed two other episodes. Also in the early months of 1963, Lupino directed two episodes of The Untouchables, plus appeared as a guest star on an episode of The Virginian.

Both of Lupino's guest acting appearances in early 1963 were alongside her husband, Howard Duff, who she frequently tried to work with. She and Duff had been married in late 1951 immediately after Lupino had obtained a divorce from Collier Young. Lupino gave birth to their daughter in the spring of 1952. By the next year, the Lupino-Duff marriage was in trouble—very public trouble. They had several prolonged separations that were much discussed in the press. With each one, divorce seemed more likely. Yet each time they reconciled—to the amazement of their friends.

By 1955, with their tempestuous relationship inspiring the theme of the sitcom they were then developing, the Lupino-Duff marriage appears to have stabilized. But once Mr. Adams and Eve was in the past, their troubles occasionally returned. The 1963-'64 period appears to have been relatively calm, as there were no indications in the press of any personal troubles between them, and the two appeared together on television frequently. For instance, aside from their acting appearances mentioned above, they were both guests of new host Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show in May, 1963.

Lupino and Duff also were business partners, with Lupino trying to replicate the success she had had as an independent producer with Collier Young and The Filmakers from 1949 to 1954. In late 1961, she and Duff formed Stanley Productions—named after her late father—to produce a thriller they had purchased entitled The Plotters. By May, 1963, this project was still in development, but clearly Lupino was pushing hard. An article in the Philadelphia Daily News quotes her:

My husband and I are now planning to make some films in the next couple of years. We are highly encouraged by the fact that the money men and producers seem to want to keep production here in the United States and are willing to put up money for low-budget pictures.

The story is the thing. About a year ago we bought a couple of books, including one called "The Plotters", which we hope to get into production next month.

Our company is a combination of a friend of ours named Fred Hamilton, who used to be a production executive at NBC, my husband, and me. They are the president and vice-president, in reverse order, and I’m treasurer. We call the company Stanley Productions, after my father. I’ll direct some of these pictures... but I’ll keep a hand in all the rest of them.

The setup that Lupino sketches here sounds virtually identical to that for The Filmakers from a decade prior. With her earlier company, Lupino similarly had two business partners—with one her husband—plus she directed some films and kept a hand in "all the rest".

At this same time, Louella Parsons wrote that Lupino and Duff aimed to launch a "full-scale production program of two movie scripts and three TV pilots", while simultaneously writing a children's book.

Alas, while Lupino discussed Stanley Productions into at least 1966 and pursued similar projects well into the 1970s, no new productions by Lupino ever materialized. It's not clear from the public record why her aim to again independently produce and direct films was stymied. Perhaps a hint is that, a few years later, Lupino wrote an essay (Me, Mother Directress) where she mentioned having turned down good opportunities to direct films because they would have to be produced overseas and she did not want to spend months away from her husband and daughter.

So with Stanley Productions unable to move forward, Lupino maintained her directing career with work in television. In late April, 1963, shortly before her Tonight Show appearance, Lupino signed to direct several episodes of the new series The Fugitive that would air on ABC-TV in the fall. Also for the 1963-'64 season, she signed to direct episodes of Mr. Novak, The Breaking Point, Dr. Kildare, Kraft Suspense Theater, and The Twilight Zone. This last one, where she directed the episode titled The Masks, is one of her most often cited and most well-regarded directorial efforts today. She also continued her writing, and, in collaboration with her younger cousin, Richard Lupino, sold a script to Alfred Hitchcock for his television show.

In addition to her busy directorial schedule and behind-the-scenes efforts on Stanley Productions, Lupino continued to dabble in acting, despite some possible insecurities about aging. Columnist Sidney Skolsky quoted her in August: "I’ve never gone through that frightening period of having been a glamor girl. To be a glamor girl and then lose your looks must mean a painful emotional transition."

Lupino was one of several celebrity guest stars, including husband Duff, who had small roles in an episode of Burke's Law aired on November 8, 1963. And she had a co-starring role in an episode of Kraft Suspense Theater, One Step Down, with Gena Rowlands and Leslie Nielsen, that aired the next week.

A few days after that, November 19, the first of the episodes she directed for The Fugitive aired—Fatso. Two weeks later, with President Kennedy's assassination happening in the interim, her second directed episode of The Fugitive was shown—Glass Tightrope. Six weeks after that, her third and final one, The Garden House, aired on January 14, 1964.

Lupino's now most famous television directing effort—The Masks for The Twilight Zone—aired on March 30 to virtually no press notice. While that episode receives a lot of attention today, Lupino herself appears to have thought her work that season on The Fugitive and Mr. Novak was most worthy of recognition. The New York Daily News reported in September, 1963 that her ambition was to win an Emmy award for either of those shows. Furthermore, in an interview a decade later (published in People Will Talk by John Kobal), Lupino mentioned her work on The Fugitive, Mr. Novak and The Untouchables as work she especially enjoyed.

An anecdote published in July 1964, said that Lupino "will go to any lengths to get the effect she wants. She was directing a show that called for a breath-taking drive down a steep mountain road. With a stuntman doing the driving, Ida climbed into the back seat with a cameraman and gave running directions to both men during the hazardous drive. The brass at the studio, which objected strenuously to Ida's taking such an active part, breathed a sigh of relief when everyone came out unscathed."

After November, 1963, Lupino had no further acting appearance on television that season. But she did appear with her husband on the evening premiere of the game show You Don't Say on Jan. 7, 1964. She and Duff also appeared on another game show the next July called The Celebrity Game.

As the 1964-'65 television season opened, Lupino's work on The Fugitive was in the past—but new projects beckoned. She acted and directed on The Rogues, a well-received comedy caper show starring Lupino's old acting colleagues David Niven, Charles Boyer and Gig Young and produced by her ex-husband Collier Young. She directed some comedy shows with Gilligan's Island and Bewitched—and more.

But the biggest project, finally getting underway early in 1965, was to become the first feature film she had directed in over a decade, plus her first and only feature film that she directed for a major studio—the movie initially known as Mother Superior and later released as The Trouble With Angels, starring Rosalind Russell and Haley Mills. That, of course, marked the beginning of yet another episode in Ida Lupino's storied career and is a tale for another day.

Sources

• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
• Me, Mother Directress, 1967 essay by Ida Lupino, as read in podcast Sass Mouth Dames, ep. 9

Further reading

• The Ida Lupino Files, edited by Letícia Magalhães, Cine Suffragette, 2020

Making sense of the Lupino-Bogart feud

The 1941 Warner Brothers film High Sierra was a landmark in the careers of its stars, Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart—marking a transition from years of frustration to full-fledged stardom for both. High Sierra provided the first starring role for Bogart in a prestige project, and it was Lupino's first lead after her attention-getting supporting performance in They Drive By Night. Various sources relate different stories of the working relationship of the two new stars during this classic movie's production. Depending on what you read, you can get the impression that the two were close to lovers or that they throughly detested each other.

The feud stories were predominant in the period right before and after the film was released. For instance, shortly before the opening, an item in a nationally-syndicated gossip column claimed that Bogart and Lupino never spoke on set except in their scenes together. Several months later, a preeminent movie magazine headlined the Lupino-Bogart relationship in an article titled "Who Hates Whom in Hollywood"—saying "The Lupino-Bogart feud is one of Hollywood's liveliest."

Modern sources, however, frequently discount any feud based on observations from others working on the set. Film historian Eddie Muller claimed in a 2019 segment on TCM that the rumors Lupino and Bogart did not get along during High Sierra were "nonsense". The thoroughly-researched biography of Bogart by Ann Sperber and Eric Lax reports that "no one connected with High Sierra saw anything to suggest animosity between Bogart and Lupino; all the evidence is to the contrary."

Irving Rapper, dialogue director on High Sierra, provided key evidence used by Sperber-Lax and others to counteract the alleged feud. In a later interview, Rapper stated that "Bogie was crazy about Ida", and that "Ida was in love with [Bogart]". Lupino's and Bogart's respective spouses, actor Louis Hayward and actress Mayo Methot, visited the set frequently, and according to Rapper, "[Lupino] was evidently too charming. Mayo Methot was jealous."

Lupino was always effusive in her remembrances of Bogart, who died in 1957. For instance, she contributed an endearing tribute, including a story from their work together on High Sierra, as part of the 1967 television documentary Bogart. Lupino said:

I find it very hard to cry in front of a whole crew. Especially when they'd say, 'Quiet, everybody, quiet!' I'd freeze up. I couldn't do anything.

So, Bogey sensed this. This was the side of this man—this tough guy—that, you know, his friends knew. But I didn't know.

He took me to one side and looked at our director, Raoul Walsh, and gave him a sign, and he said, 'Listen, doll. If you can't cry, just remember one thing—I'm going to take the picture away from you.' Oh, I started to laugh. And I said, 'Now listen, Bogey, I can't cry. Don't break me up.' He said, 'All right, you're relaxed.' And I said, 'Yes, I am, but now I can't cry.' He said, 'All right, next step. Come on.' He walked me further away.

And he said, 'Just try to think of one thing. If you can't relate it to me or the character—my character, right now—go back to your childhood. Can you remember when you had to say goodbye to somebody—somebody you loved—and you thought you weren't going to see them again?' And I said, 'yes'.

And he said, 'Well think of that, baby, that of it!'

And there were tears in his eyes. And before I knew it, I was crying!

In a separate interview, Lupino said about Bogart that "It didn't turn out for us to be lovers. But we did care about each other. Being with him was absolutely heaven, and I guess he didn't think I was too bad."

In contrast to the claim in Sperber-Lax that "all the evidence [about a feud] is to the contrary", several notable pieces suggest the animosity rumors had some truth. First, shortly after the filming of High Sierra, Bogart repeatedly expressed the belief that Lupino had used her influence to prevent him from being cast with her again in Out of the Fog. Second, Sperber-Lax recount an interview Bogart gave three years later where he "allegedly acknowledged giving Lupino quite a verbal battering" during High Sierra.

Finally, a smoking gun came five years after the events. In 1945, Lupino herself wrote that she and Bogart did not speak for two years after High Sierra. This confession came in an article published in the November 1945 issue of Screenland magazine titled The Truth About Myself, by Ida Lupino. In the article, Lupino debunks numerous inaccuracies that had been related about her over the years. But with the High Sierra stories, she does the opposite:

According to gossip, I have been involved in more feuds than any other Hollywood actress. Actually, I have had only one real feud.

There are three kinds of Hollywood feuds—the real kind, the publicity type which is used to promote a picture, and the kind which isn't a feud at all but is just a slight misunderstanding which is blown up out of all proportion.

I once had a real feud with Humphrey Bogart, when we were working on 'High Sierra'. I have a way of kidding with a straight face; so has Bogey. Neither of us recognized the trait in the other. Each of us thought the other was being nasty, and we were both offended. For a long time we would pass each other with our noses up in the air. For two years we didn't speak. Then one day I was working on a picture with Paul Henreid and we went over to the set where Bogey was working to wish his director, Curtis Bernhardt, good luck on his new picture. Bogey had to look right at me and I at him. We both began to laugh—and that broke the ice. Now we are very good friends.

Seeing the contrasting stories from different sources over the years, I found it interesting to investigate how the Lupino-Bogart relationship was described in the press in real time.

High Sierra production

Ida Lupino was cast as a lead in High Sierra in early July, 1940. This came shortly after her excellent performance in They Drive By Night, her first film at Warner Brothers and the role that propelled her to major stardom. Paul Muni was slated for the male lead in High Sierra at the time. Within a week, though, Muni and Warner Brothers had broken up. The studio needed a new star—and Humphrey Bogart, who had been campaigning for the role, was the logical choice.

Lupino and Bogart had first met during the filming of They Drive By Night a couple months earlier. But they did not share many scenes together. So, according to Lupino, she "didn't get to know [Bogart] at the time."

Production on High Sierra began on August 5. The crew, led by director Raoul Walsh, initially travelled to the Arrowhead Springs resort in the mountains outside Los Angeles. Two weeks later they returned to Hollywood for studio setups. In mid-September, the company went on another location trip—this time to Lone Pine and the Sierra Nevada mountains. On September 19, they all returned to Hollywood, wrapping filming a week later.

In the initial press reports, there is no evidence of any problems between the film's two stars. A reporter for Photoplay magazine visited the set and found "real excitement":

Here was the picture Paul Muni dropped his Warners contract rather than make. Here was Bogey, as all Hollywood calls him, getting his first real starring role. And here was Miss Lupino, "the new sensation", as they told us, forgetting all about Ida's seven discouraging years already spent in flicker town.

In an August 28 column, Sheilah Graham related that while she was interviewing Ida Lupino on set, "Humphrey Bogart joins us. He is smiling and happy." The two stars good-naturedly discussed the film together. Ironically, in this interview, Lupino was compelled to deny rumors that she and Ann Sheridan were feuding after their work in They Drive By Night: "It's utter nonsense. Ann Sheridan and I have been friends ever since she came here seven years ago. Ann's first picture was with me. We lived together for a year. I don't blame her for not liking her part in 'They Drive By Night,' but she's too real a person to let it upset our friendship."

One alleged feud was shot down; but another soon was born. The next day Jimmie Fidler wrote that Lupino and Bogart "are stepping on each other's toes". He included no details. This is the only published indication of any discord between Lupino and Bogart that I have been able to find that was reported during production.

A couple weeks later, during the Lone Pine location shoot in mid-September, something more significant may have happened to affect Lupino and Bogart's relationship. On September 29, a few days after filming completed, Louella Parsons wrote:

I'm surprised to hear that there was plenty of temperament on the location of 'High Sierra', with most of the flare-ups between Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart. Ida is such a level-headed little person and I've known Humphrey so long it is difficult to believe they had trouble to the point of the little Lupino threatening to walk out. It's true that big success has come to both of them suddenly with the past year—but they're both real troupers who have never begrudged honors before. Well, location trips are tough on everybody's nerves so maybe that was the reason.

A few months later, Dorothy Kilgallen wrote that the "tiff" between Bogart and Lupino had started when the two and their spouses "shared a cottage... and stopped talking!"

Speculating on what may have precipitated a conflict, the Sperber-Lax book points out that, on September 18—the day before the company left Lone Pine—Warner Brothers executive producer Hal Wallis had decided to give Lupino top billing over Bogart. The next two days, studio records list Lupino as unable to work due to a rash or illness. Sperber-Lax then write:

In the absence of records no one knows whether Bogart took out his disappointment on Lupino or even if they had a direct confrontation. He knew well enough that she had nothing to do with the decision, and she later insisted that "he never said a word about" the [billing] change.

Sperber-Lax also report that Lupino thought Bogart was unhappy "toward the finish".

Some in the press tried to discount the discord rumors, even at the time. A photo taken in August at Arrowhead Springs resort, in the early stages of filming, was captioned in Screenland magazine's December 1940 issue: "This pleasant picture of Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, left, with Irving Rapper, dialogue director, while on location for 'High Sierra', makes us doubt the rumors that Ida and Bogey were tiffing because one was trying to steal scenes from the other."

Immediately after High Sierra

Whatever friction between Lupino and Bogart that developed on the set of High Sierra had fallout a few months later with the casting of Out of the Fog (which had the working title of The Gentle People).

Warners, sensing they had a hit on their hands with High Sierra, considered re-teaming its two stars. In the last few weeks of 1940, while Lupino was working on The Sea Wolf with Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield, press items appeared suggesting that she and Bogart would do a picture titled Highway 99; other items paired them in The Gentle People. In December, Bogart was sent east to do a personal appearance tour with his wife in preparation for the opening of High Sierra a month later.

Bogart had not been notified of any new role. While on his New York trip, he sent a cable to Warners producer Henry Blanke asking if the "rumor" about The Gentle People was true, adding that it "seems like a good idea". Apparently the casting rumor was not true—at least not yet. James Cagney and George Raft were the studio's top choices, though both soon turned it down. Bogart continued his campaign for the role.

With advance publicity for the late January opening of High Sierra kicking into gear, new press items relating to the rumored Bogart-Lupino discord appeared. On December 27, Jimmie Fidler wrote that Bogart, in his appearances in New York, "could hold audiences spellbound with reports of how 'beautifully' he and Ida Lupino got along during the filming of that picture."

Then on December 31, Paul Harrison published this sensationalized item: "Except on one occasion—when she told him plenty—Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart spoke to each other only in the dialog on 'High Sierra'."

After all the other stories from the set of High Sierra, this—coming several months after filming completed—is not believable. It is perhaps a press agent's idea of how to get attention for the new movie by building on the earlier rumors. This item was re-printed numerous times in the lead up to the movie's opening a few weeks later.

Casting controversy

The Gentle People, released under the title Out of the Fog, was a high-profile Warner Brothers production based on a play by Irwin Shaw. Lupino was considered for a leading role as early as December, while, as we saw, Bogart was rumored for the male lead—an unsympathetic racketeer named Goff.

While Cagney and Raft had turned the Goff role down, Bogart was eager for it; and so was fellow Warner contractee John Garfield. In the latter half of January, while Bogart was pushing for a meeting with Jack Warner to discuss the role, several Hollywood columnists were printing that Lupino's husband, Louis Hayward, was a candidate as well—despite Hayward's not having a contract with Warners. One columnist even claimed that Hayward was being tested and that Lupino did the test with him. (Lupino and Hayward were definitely trying to find a vehicle to work together in at the time. Very soon, the couple would be cast together in Ladies in Retirement at Columbia, which was filmed in the early summer of 1941.)

As of January 31, 1941, internal Warners documents had Bogart penciled in for the Goff role in The Gentle People. But in the press and in the internal memos of the Warner executives, John Garfield had emerged as the most likely candidate. Sheilah Graham wrote that Garfield "probably" had the role; while behind the scenes, producer Blanke told Jack Warner that casting Garfield would eliminate "the problem of convincing Lupino to play with Bogart". On February 4, Jack Warner cabled executive producer Hal Wallis that "Lupino refuses to play in picture with Bogart." On February 7, Garfield's casting as Goff became official. Bogart was soon assigned to Manpower with Marlene Dietrich and George Raft.

The internal Warners documents claiming Lupino did not want to work with Bogart were devoid of the usual detail, according to Sperber-Lax. They suggest that it is possible "the studio invented the slight as a means of not casting Bogart and shifting the onus onto Lupino". Lupino's memories support this interpretation. In an interview decades later, she vociferously denied that she refused to work with Bogart in Out of the Fog, saying, "Warners was absolutely lying, completely untrue, completely untrue." [Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera]. At the time, though, Bogart believed that Lupino had pushed him out of the film.

Suspension

Bogart's unhappiness with losing the Goff role was compounded when George Raft asked for him to be removed from Manpower. As Bogart saw it, Ida Lupino and George Raft were casting movies at Warners now—at his expense. On top of that, he strongly disliked the next script Warners gave him—Bad Men of Missouri. In early April, he refused that role and the studio suspended him.

During the suspension, Bogart's displeasure made the papers. On April 13, Whitney Bolton, presenting himself as a personal friend of Bogart's, wrote an opinion column in the Philadelphia Inquirer describing hostility between Lupino and Bogart during High Sierra—"icy goings-on"—although "they never actually had words". Then he repeats the story that Lupino did not wish to work with Bogart again and lambasts her repeatedly (and Raft as well). A sample: "The best that can be deduced from all those triple plays is that Miss Lupino and Raft skitter away from having an actor in their pictures. It would be possible for Bogart to get in there and pitch and steal 'Gentle People' from Lupino. It would be even less trouble for him to steal it from George."

This is a long, mean-spirited essay and hard to take literally—though coming from a self-identified friend of Bogart, it is evidence of significant bad feelings. Since this made it into print, what kind of talk was going on in private? The two years that Lupino mentioned of her and Bogart not speaking become understandable.

Epilogue

A month or so later, Bogart's professional situation turned around drastically when Warners put him back on the payroll and cast him as the lead in The Maltese Falcon. On the set of that legendary film in June, Bogart repeated the idea that Lupino had kept him out of the earlier film: "I was up for the John Garfield part in 'Out of the Fog', but Ida Lupino didn't want me." The bad feelings remained.

Within a few years of High Sierra, as Lupino recounted in her 1945 article, she and Bogart had transformed from cool antagonists into solid friends. An example comes from late 1944: Hedda Hopper tells of Bogart, with Lauren Bacall accompanying him during the early stages of their highly-publicized romance, taking time off from The Big Sleep to visit Ida Lupino on the set of Pillow to Post. Numerous other anecdotes in various publications show Lupino and Bogart socializing during the mid and late 1940s. And, of course, Lupino's own words in 1945 relate that they were "very good friends". Finally, there are Lupino's remembrances of Bogart many years later:

"When he liked you and he believed in you, he was the most loyal, wonderful guy in the whole wide world."

Sources

• Bogart by A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax, HarperCollins Publishers, 1997
• Bogart, television movie, directed by Marshall Flaum, 1967
• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
• Media History Digital Library archives of Hollywood fan magazines and trade papers
• Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera by Mary Ann Anderson, BearManor Media, 2018
• Ida Lupino: A Biography by William Donati, University Press of Kentucky, 2000
• Noir Alley, outro to High Sierra by Eddie Muller, Turner Classic Movies, March 17, 2019
• He Ran All the Way: The Life of John Garfield by John Nott, Limelight Editions, 2003

Notes

All information derived from internal Warner Brothers documents comes from the research presented in the Sperber-Lax biography of Bogart.

1937 - the year Ida Lupino's film career vaporized

This is a story from a critical, early phase of Ida Lupino's multi-decade long career in Hollywood—from a time when acting and music were her pursuits and her directing career lay far off—from a time when she was well-known, but still an up-and-comer and not yet a major star. It is the story of a year in her young life that saw her career fortunes tumble unexpectedly and precipitously.

At the beginning of 1937, Ida Lupino was one of the most talked-about young actresses in Hollywood and had just been awarded a contract extension and a raise from her home studio. Approaching her nineteenth birthday, it appeared she was on her way to the top.

At the end of 1937, Ida Lupino was out of work—with no contract and with no screen prospects.

How did this happen?

Lupino started that year as a Hollywood veteran of over three years and a lead actress of nearly four, including films she made in her native England She was celebrated as an accomplished light comedienne, plus was gradually winning more acclaim as an actress.

She had been under contract to Paramount studios since mid-1933. They had immediately put her into lead or prominent supporting roles in modestly-budgeted films, then had moved her into supporting roles in prestigious fare like the Gary Cooper-Ann Harding drama Peter Ibbetson and the Bing Crosby musical Anything Goes.

In 1936, she had the good fortune of Paramount loaning her to a new independent studio run by United Artists co-founder Mary Pickford and producer Jesse L. Lasky. There, Lupino made a big splash in two comedies: first as Francis Lederer's leading lady in One Rainy Afternoon; then, thanks to her strong showing in the first, as opera singer Nino Martini's in The Gay Desperado. Her performances in these well-publicized films, bracketing a juicy role in Paramount's own Yours For The Asking as a humorous crook, propelled her to a new level of stardom. She appeared to be on the verge of a major breakthrough.

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Unfortunately, Paramount could not produce another good role for Lupino. A lead role in a forgettable football picture called Rose Bowl was her next assignment. An attack of tonsillitis spared her from from that role—probably for the best. In the last months of 1936, Paramount loaned Lupino out for two modestly better films, but still in innocuous leading lady parts: RKO's Sea Devils and Columbia's Let's Get Married. As Lupino was highly-sought after for such "ingenue" roles, Paramount exercised its option on Lupino's contract and gave her a raise from $1000 to $1750 per week.

"Ida was not the sort to be content with smooth sailing and comfortable checks. She had ambition," wrote Hedda Hopper a few years later.

So, at the end of 1936, Lupino was troubled. Picture Play magazine caught up with her in an anxious mood: "I've been fighting with every one at the studio, and I don't think my career is doing very well." She realized she was at a critical juncture. She had worked to put herself in a position to rise into the top tier of Hollywood actresses. Yet she could easily sink into a sea of undistinguishable starlets if Paramount continued to give her average parts in unmemorable movies.

On a brighter note, her hobby of composing music was taking off and earning her substantial publicity. Press reports suggested she was aiming to have thirty of her songs published. She also wrote chorus music for local stage performances. One piece of hers, variously referred to as "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" or "Aladin Suite", was performed and broadcast over the radio twice in February by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Describing the Aladdin performance, the Los Angeles Times wrote that Lupino had "penned some most excellent music and lyrics."

By late March, both Sea Devils and Let's Get Married had been released to modest reviews—and garnered Lupino little attention. One reviewer of the latter described Lupino as "now at the peak of her screen career", but mentioned that was due to her 1936 Pickford-Lasky films.

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In mid-April, Paramount cast Lupino in a movie on their own lot for the first time in almost a year. Jack Benny picked her to be his co-star in an elaborate musical production called Artists and Models. Lupino and Richard Arlen would play the romantic leads in a plot-thin farce that was essentially a variety show. Despite Lupino's music and dancing skills, she was not involved in any of the production numbers. The film is enjoyable and well-produced, but the limited role must not have been fulfilling. (Artists and Models notably marks the first of four times Lupino was directed by Raoul Walsh, who later became one of her mentors for her directing career.)

As preparations began, a press item noted that Lupino had changed her hair color from blonde to "light brown, her natural color". One of Lupino's more memorable scenes in Artists and Models involved her falling into a swimming pool while wearing an extravagant evening gown. Columnist (and her close friend) Harry Mines reported her discomfort. "In practically everything I've done, I've taken a soaking," she said. "But I think this is the worst. The pool is so shallow I'm afraid I'll brain myself. I'd hate to be poor Dick [Arlen]. He has to dive in head-first." She added, "I know I have to do it. There's no way out."

Her composing hobby continued. In May, the BBC reportedly requested some of her songs to be played during the coronation of King George VI. In June, orchestra leader Andre Kostelanetz, also involved in Artists and Models, used one of Lupino's songs on his national radio program, which reportedly left her "agog".

When Artists and Models concluded in late June, Paramount immediately shipped Lupino off to another studio, loaning her back to RKO for another innocuous leading lady role—this time in a Jack Oakie comedy, Fight For Your Lady. Lupino's romantic counterpart would be John Boles. In this movie, she finally had a chance to reveal some of her non-acting talents, playing a singing ventriloquist. She also has a solo dancing routine with a dummy in top-hat-and-tails, a la Fred Astaire. Alas, virtually none of her routine made the final cut, with the camera instead focused on Oakie and Boles mugging at each other in the audience.

Throughout the year, the press regularly commented on the long-term romance of Lupino with actor Louis Hayward—who she had been dating regularly since early in 1936. The press frequently suggested they were on the brink of marriage. In early August, Lupino was reported saying that she'd love to marry him, but "he hasn't asked me yet." The reason was that each wanted to get more professionally established first.

After Fight For Your Lady completed filming in August, Lupino's mentions in the press dropped off dramatically. No prospective projects were publicized. The most notable press item regarding her in this period was in late October when Louella Parsons and another columnist mentioned that Gary Cooper was using Lupino's dressing room after refusing Carole Lombard's because it was "too dainty".

This was the calm before the storm that was about to erupt. It would be fascinating to know what was going on behind the scenes between Lupino and Paramount in the fall of 1937.

The storm hit in mid-November.

"Ida Lupino walked out of Paramount a few days ago taking her contract with her," Louella Parsons reported on November 20. "Her grievance is Jungle Lover, in which she was asked to support Dorothy Lamour, who was just starting when Ida was playing leads. Playing second fiddle isn't the little Lupino's only annoyance, but her brief four pages of dialogue was the straw that really broke the camel's back."

Two very prominent New York columnists also mentioned the Lupino-Paramount blow-up. On November 22, Ed Sullivan wrote that "Ida Lupino could have got her Paramount release without stalking off the lot." On the 24th, Walter Winchell picked it up, saying "Ida Lupino walked out of Her Jungle Love rather than risk emoting in a pewy role. The contract she mutually agreed to tear up brought her $1,750 per!"

"Paramount had decided to get rid of me," Lupino told a reporter three years later. She added, "The studio handed me a part which was so brief it was an insult. I quit—and we were both happy." Paramount had a replacement officially named the next day—the inexperienced and then-unknown Dorothy Howe (later and better known as Virginia Vale)—indicating that they were not exactly surprised by Lupino's abrupt walkout.

Years afterward, after Lupino had reconstituted her career and reached new heights, she credited Hedda Hopper with encouraging this "rebellion". Hopper was still an actress and not yet a notorious gossip columnist. She and Lupino had become friendly on the set of Artists and Models, so Lupino asked Hopper's advice on how to break out of her rut of ingenue roles. Hopper encouraged her to change to a more natural look and to "go and think and study a bit about acting", as Lupino recalled.

Lupino told Hopper, “It’s now or never, if I’m going to get anywhere."

With her walkout, Lupino's four-year tenure at Paramount was suddenly over. Her substantial paycheck was gone. With an unremarkable series of roles over the previous year, would she be able to succeed as a free-lance actress? Nothing concrete was on the horizon.

Louella Parsons suggested Lupino's new plan was to return to her native England and make a picture with her father—well-known stage and screen comedian Stanley Lupino. She also had Louis Hayward to consider, who was intent on establishing himself in American movies. So to close out the year, Lupino remained in Hollywood, taking a radio gig in mid-December on Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theater, co-starring with Robert Montgomery in The Thirty-Nine Steps. The brief on-air chat after the drama did not mention any screen prospects for Lupino. Instead, they discussed her music hobby. "What's your latest composition?" DeMille asked. Lupino replied:

Something I've just sent to London. The score and book for a musical comedy. Look, I hope no one is going to get the impression that I think I'm a great musician. In fact, I know so little that I often use a code to take the place of notes and musical symbols until I have time to figure out what I'm trying to do. I use the letters of the alphabet for a code. If you ever saw one of my scores, you'd think someone had spilled alphabet soup on an orchestration sheet.

Ultimately, Lupino would not return to England to make pictures there, and she would not start work on another Hollywood film for another year.

As 1937 drew to a close, Lupino was entering her career wilderness phase—apparently washed up before her twentieth birthday. It was a challenging period for her, but it would set her up for the breakthrough that did happen in 1939. That is a story for another day.

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Sources

• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
• Media History Digital Library archives of Hollywood fan magazines and trade papers
• This is Your Life: Ida Lupino, television program, 1958.
• Lux Radio Theater: The Thirty-Nine Steps, radio program, Dec. 13, 1937.

Quotes taken from these articles not mentioned explicitly

• Ida Lupino Has Strange Tale to Tell, Frederick C. Othman, United Press, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 25, 1940.
• Hedda Hopper's Hollywood: Ida Lupino's Story of Screen Success Told in Three Small Words, Hedda Hopper, Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1940.

Assembling the cast of the noir classic Road House (1948)

The film noir classic Road House (1948) contains one of Ida Lupino's most compelling performances in a career full of them. It was made at a crossroads of her life and career, when she was in the middle of an extended transition from leading actress to being a writer, producer, and director.

As part of the larger story of the making of this film, here is the story of how its cast was assembled. This tale brings together a number of interesting personalities in post-war Hollywood, several of whom were also at critical points in their respective careers.

Originator: Ida Lupino

In September, 1947, Ida Lupino herself initiated the project that became Road House. Early that year, Lupino had finished her long-term contract at Warner Brothers. Seeking creative control over her acting career, she rejected a new exclusive contract and instead chose to become an independent producer. In February, she formed Arcadia Productions with producer Benedict Bogeaus and took on the job of producer of her own movies, with an ambition to produce others as well. By late summer, however, she had nothing to show for her hard work. (See this earlier article for more on this episode in Lupino's career.)

Meanwhile, amongst the many scripts, stories, and books she had been poring over in search of good material, Lupino found a story called The Dark Love, by Margaret Gruen and Oscar Saul. She decided that this story should be her next project. At this time, prominent Hollywood agent Charles Feldman was attempting to win her services, and he and Ida worked out a deal where they purchased the story rights for $20,000 and then sold them to 20th Century-Fox with the condition that Lupino play the lead. Her salary would be $95,000, plus $15,000 profit on the story sale. Feldman waived his commissions and Lupino joined his agency.

Interestingly, this story deal happened at virtually the same time that Lupino dissolved Arcadia Productions. The first mention of Lupino's interest in Dark Love in the Hollywood press was on September 2, 1947 in a Hedda Hopper column. The very next day Sheilah Graham carried an item that "Ida Lupino and Benedict Bogeaus have called off their picture deal. They couldn't get together on story or price." Ten days after that, Louella Parsons broke the news that Lupino would be doing The Dark Love—already retitled Road House—at 20th Century-Fox.

Could the Lupino-Bogeaus breakup have been precipitated by The Dark Love? Why did Lupino not attempt to produce The Dark Love herself via Arcadia Productions as she had tried with other material? Here are some considerations: first, after seven months of unsuccessful attempts at producing other pictures, she was frustrated with that role; second, Feldman's deal was very lucrative for her and also provided her choice of story; third, she had a contractual obligation to 20th Century-Fox for one picture—an obligation that had been outstanding for several years.

So Lupino gave up her independent production efforts—temporarily, it turned out—and returned to acting at one of the large Hollywood studios. The fact that she had selected the story, though, was a major difference from her earlier career, when she was a contract player with little to no say in the material she was given.

Co-star Victor Mature?

The initial press reports for Road House in September mentioned Victor Mature as Lupino's leading man. Mature, a star at 20th Century-Fox for several years but long derided as an actor, was riding a wave of good notices for his performance in Kiss of Death—released the previous month. As Louella Parsons wrote in her item announcing the Road House role for Lupino, "I used to feel I could take or leave [Victor Mature] as an actor, but now I do not want to leave him, because he is that good." In mid-October, Hedda Hopper wrote that Mature was the "hottest star in town".

Road House was originally slated to begin production in November. It would not actually start until late the next March. Press reports are not explicit about the reasons for the delays, but it is likely that finding a director and casting the two leading male roles contributed. Four directors turned down the project, according to William Donati in his Lupino biography. And while Lee J. Cobb was the initial name tossed around for the "heavy" role, according to film historian Eddie Muller in the 2008 DVD commentary, 20th Century-Fox studio chief Darryl Zanuck wanted hot newcomer Richard Widmark. Waiting for him to be available may thus have been another reason.

Victor Mature was still being mentioned in the press as Lupino's leading man as late as November 24. But that same month, other reports suggested that The Chair for Martin Rome (later released as Cry of the City) would be Mature's next film. Indeed, that film started production in late December and Mature was in the starring role. The identity of Lupino's co-star for Road House was still up in the air.

Lupino did not let the delays stop her from preparing. In late December, Sheilah Graham wrote that "most of the story takes place in a bowling alley. And that's where you'll find Ida these days and evenings—learning to bowl."

Academy-award candidate Celeste Holm

The next casting news did not come until January 26, 1948, when the press reported that Celeste Holm had "an important role in Road House". Holm was an ex-Broadway actor, most notable for originating the role of Ado Annie in the 1943 stage hit Oklahoma. In 1946, she signed a contract with 20th Century-Fox and did a couple roles in relatively unnoticed musical films. By early 1948, however, she was receiving spectacular notices for her first dramatic role, in Gentleman's Agreement—including Academy Award talk as supporting actress. That film had been released just two months earlier in New York and Chicago and was still not released nationally.

Director Jean Negulesco

A director for Road House was finally found two weeks later. On February 11, Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times reported that 20th Century-Fox had signed Jean Negulesco to helm the movie. Negulesco was coming off eight years at Warner Brothers—most recently directing Johnny Belinda. During production of that film, Jack Warner became annoyed that Negulesco was taking too many pictorial shots. Hedda Hopper described the aftermath in her January 29 column: "Jean Negulesco brought in Johnny Belinda for $1,300,000—nearly $250,000 under budget. Then 10 days before Christmas, has was laid off by Warners and hasn't worked since. If that's gratitude, we should find a new meaning for the word. I'm told by those who have seen it that Belinda is one of the most sensitive, beautiful and artistic pictures ever made."

Negulesco recalled, "After Warner gave me the sack, I was very sad and I thought of going back to painting and quit making films." Zanuck and 20th Century-Fox snapped up Negulesco in February and paid him $3000 a week, three times his previous salary. Negulesco told Hopper, "At the first producers' meeting, I thought I was being kidded when asked [by Zanuck], 'What can I do to make you happy? Just name it.'"

Lupino was no doubt pleased that Negulesco was on board. Her last film, Deep Valley, completed over a year earlier at Warner Brothers, was also directed by Negulesco. During that film, she was extremely happy working with Negulesco and his crew. She was reported saying that she wanted him to direct her next picture. She also stated that she would stay at Warners if they allowed her to choose her own directors. Her demands weren't met by Warners, yet Negulesco was indeed directing Lupino's next film—at 20th Century-Fox. Could Lupino have pulled strings with Zanuck behind the scenes? Interestingly, Negulesco recalls that Zanuck told him at their first meeting, "I've watched a film of yours that I liked a lot: Deep Valley."

Richard Widmark, aka 'Tommy Udo'

In late February, the two male leads were finalized, clearing the way for production to start within a few weeks. Hedda Hopper reported that Cornel Wilde and Richard Widmark would fill those roles.

Richard Widmark entered Road House on a career trajectory similar to Celeste Holm. He, too, was ex-Broadway actor and newcomer to Hollywood who was receiving huge plaudits for his most recently released film. Unlike Holm, Widmark's breakout had come in his very first film, Kiss of Death—the same film that raised Victor Mature's acting reputation in the late summer of 1947—where Widmark played the maniacal Tommy Udo, a character infamous for pushing a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs.

Widmark was currently finishing up The Street With No Name as another murderer. In January, he had told Hedda Hopper, "This will be my last [such role]. I didn't come into pictures to be typed as a killer; I'm an actor—I hope." His transition away from psychopaths would take a bit longer, however, as his role in Road House would be similar.

Leading man Cornel Wilde

Cornel Wilde, Lupino's new leading man in Road House, was one of 20th Century-Fox's top stars of the previous few years. He had already been in two films with Lupino—both before he hit the big time. In High Sierra (1941) he had a small role, while in Life Begins at Eight-Thirty (1942), he had been Lupino's love interest, with the top male role filled by Monty Woolley.

Wilde's breakthrough came in 1945 with the role of Frederic Chopin in the biopic A Song to Remember, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination as best actor. His most recent project had been The Walls of Jericho at 20th Century-Fox, with Linda Darnell, Anne Baxter and Kirk Douglas. After that completed, he spent a lot of his energy—unsuccessfully—trying to find a suitable Broadway play for him and his wife Patricia Knight.

The marriage of Wilde and Knight was on the volatile side, apparently, and attracted a lot of attention by the Hollywood press. The previous summer, Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times, discussing a temporary break up, wrote that their relationship was "considered one of the most celebrated of love idylls In Hollywood history". Wilde had also gotten a reputation related to his attempted promotion of his wife's career. In November 1947, Louella Parsons wrote that Humphrey Bogart "doesn't want to be another Cornel Wilde and get himself disliked at the studio or criticized in the press because he keeps asking for his bride as his movie partner." Parsons reassured Bogart, "I don't think your case and the Cornel Wilde case are in the least comparable. Betty [Bogart's wife Lauren Bacall] has already made a success and I never heard of your trying to push her."

A glittering cast

So by late February, 1948, the Road House lineup was full of celebrated stars. Darryl Zanuck was clearly not holding back. With top-billed Ida Lupino was one of 20th Century-Fox's top male box office stars and two of the hottest new supporting players. Director Negulesco said of Road House: "It's the finest cast I've ever had."

As the cast was finalized, Widmark and Holm both received Academy Award nominations for their supporting roles in their most recent films: Kiss of Death and Gentleman's Agreement, respectively. Director Negulesco also had just had a breakout, award-nominated performance of his own— Johnny Belinda—though the full impact of that awaited its release later in 1948. He would receive an Academy Award nomination for best director the next year.

On March 10, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave their Golden Globe award for best supporting actress to Celeste Holm and their award for best male newcomer to Richard Widmark. Then, on March 20—two days before Road House started production—Holm won the Academy Award, while Widmark lost out to Edmund Gwenn for Miracle on 34th Street. Road House was starting on a high note for its supporting cast.

Stay tuned for the next edition, which will cover the making of the film and its aftermath for Lupino, Wilde, Widmark, Holm, and Negulesco.

. . .

Further watching

• Watch the full movie Road House here
• Better yet, buy the great Kino Lorber blu-ray

Sources

• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
• Media History Digital Library archives of Hollywood fan magazines and trade papers
• Ida Lupino: A Biography by William Donati, University Press of Kentucky, 2000
• Jean Negulesco: The Life and Films by Michelangelo Capua, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2017

Never Again! The Story of Ida Lupino and Arcadia Productions

In the first edition of the story of Ida Lupino's little-discussed first venture into film production, we left off in early February 1947. Lupino had concluded her contract at Warner Brothers and promptly formed an independent production company, Arcadia Productions, in partnership with Benedict Bogeaus. In this arrangement, she was to produce and star in one film a year over three years.

The 1947 Bogeaus-Lupino alliance is described as a "hasty partnership" in Donati's biography of Lupino, but as we saw, Lupino had put much time and effort over several years behind the decision to produce her own vehicles and take more creative control over her career. Additionally, as reported in Showmens Trade Review the same month Arcadia was formed, Lupino intended to produce films in which she was not the star. Her production designs extended beyond picking her own roles.

Beginnings of Arcadia Productions

In the early weeks of Arcadia, Lupino was spending her time in the desert, in Palm Springs—recovering from spiral meningitis obtained during the grueling shoot of Deep Valley, her last film at Warners. During this period, she and Bogeaus were considering numerous possibilities for her first film as producer.

A comedy called New Years' Eve was mentioned as Lupino's first project in the Louella Parsons article where the formation of Arcadia was first reported. Within days, though, a period drama, The Queen's Necklace became the reported choice. This film had been announced as a Lupino acting vehicle when she first signed with Bogeaus a year before. Now, Brian Aherne was mentioned as her potential co-star. Then, in March, a drama called Celia by Arch Oboler was purchased by Bogeaus and also became a candidate for Lupino's first Arcadia project. Clearly nothing was set in stone. In mid-March, press reports suggested they were three months away from starting filming on whatever project was decided upon.

At this same time, Lupino was recruiting a certain Broadway actor as her leading man. A reporter for the Hollywood Evening Citizen News wrote:

She won't reveal his name because 'it wouldn't be fair to him if nothing should come of it'. But she's compiled a complete dossier on the gent, full of clippings and pictures. And if he lives up to his press clippings, she expects to bring his signature back on a contract.

The big search is being made for her independent film with Ben Bogeaus, which the actress will start shortly after returning from the East. In spite of her interest in the unnamed New York actor, she is constantly looking out for someone in Hollywood who might fit the bill.

While it's not clear to me whether she ever made this New York recruiting trip or not, this is an early appearance of Lupino's ambition to foster new talent. This desire was the driving motivation in her subsequent producing efforts, where she helped launch the film acting careers of Sally Forrest, Mala Powers, Keefe Brasselle, Hugh O'Brian and others.

Early Autumn

By the beginning of April, Lupino's first Arcadia project was finalized. Bogeaus purchased Early Autumn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Louis Bromfield. This drama would provide a dual acting role for Lupino, as a mother of 40 and a girl of 18.

The pace of activity at Arcadia now picked up, with the signing of Frances Robinson—a good friend of Lupino's—as story editor, the hiring of Dewitt Bodeen to write the screenplay, and the pursuit of King Vidor to direct. The quest for a leading man also continued, with Lupino and Bogeaus ardently pursuing both Arthur Kennedy and Robert Preston. Lupino reportedly also considered her ex-husband Louis Hayward.

Meanwhile, Lupino helped her new business partner by giving a dinner party on the Bogeaus lot for a number of prominent press representatives, then giving a screening of Bogeaus' newest production, The Macomber Affair.

By late April, the press was reporting on Ida Lupino's "debut as producer", while also noting her high demand as a leading actress. Columnist Erskine Johnson quoted her saying, "Bill Cagney [James Cagney's producer brother] came to me the other day and wondered in Producer Lupino would loan him Actress Lupino for a role in The Time of Your Life." Johnson continued:

Every agent in town is chasing her to hire their clients. She's just about ready to ask someone to proclaim a 'Be Kind to Producers Week'. And if all producers had such pretty legs, I'd proclaim it myself.

All this activity at Arcadia on Early Autumn had been going on while Lupino was also studying for her U.S. citizenship exam, which she passed on the last day of April. Lupino's friend, columnist Hedda Hopper, used this occasion as an excuse to hype Lupino's career transformation over the years, from struggling ingenue to award-winning dramatic star to, now, "helping" Bogeaus produce Early Autumn and soon to "turn full producer". Hopper separately reported that Lupino was planning to produce a film for Dorothy Lamour after completing her first for Bogeaus.

April 1947 was a momentous month in Lupino's life for another reason. While the press reported that she and Clark Gable were "sparking" and that Gable was wooing her with flowers, she turned down Gable's advances and instead took up with Warner Brothers executive, and aspiring writer and producer, Collier Young. She and Young were to marry in late 1948 and become partners in the next, far more successful, phase of Lupino's producing career—forming Emerald Productions in 1949 and re-constituting it as The Filmakers later that year.

With the anticipated June 1947 starting date of Early Autumn approaching, Lupino and Bogeaus continued to try to nail down the production. Lupino was also working on her potential second film at Arcadia, The Queen's Necklace and talking with Hurd Hatfield to be her leading man in that film. Columnist Sheilah Graham reported that Lupino "says it's fun being a producer because every one loves her and every one wants her to give them a job!"

Talks continued through May with actors Arthur Kennedy, Robert Preston, and director King Vidor about Early Autumn, but nothing was formalized. Hopper once reported that Lupino had signed King Vidor to direct—but no one else picked that up, so it presumably was premature.

Soon, the axe fell on Early Autumn. Hedda Hopper broke the news on June 6:

Ben Bogeaus tells me that since neither he nor Ida likes the script of "Early Autumn", they'll wait until they get a good one before making the picture. Meanwhile, Ida's free to make an outside film.

The reasons for the delay—and effective cancellation—were likely more complicated than Hopper's item suggested. Subsequent reports suggest Bogeaus' other commitments effectively squeezed out Early Autumn. His current production of A Miracle Can Happen (later retitled On Our Merry Way) had just had a troublesome preview and needed substantial re-shoots. And Bogeaus had a commitment to begin work on Lulu Belle on August 11, based on the loan-out agreement for its star Dorothy Lamour. As reported by Film Bulletin, the money coming as as part of the Lamour deal made it a top priority, as Bogeaus' only source of revenue at the time was The Macomber Affair.

Sheilah Graham needled Lupino in her column: "Being a producer isn't all it's cracked up to be, eh, Ida?" Graham also suggested Lupino was on the verge of returning to Warner Brothers "because the script of Early Autumn has her licked."

Warner Brothers was indeed ramping up efforts to woo her back—but without success. Early Autumn may have been moribund, but Producer Lupino was not.

Miracle in the Rain

Lupino then attempted to re-purchase her own screenplay, Miss Pennington—the one she had sold to RKO a couple years earlier (see the first edition of this story for a reminder), but was unable to close that deal. Yet, in less than a month, Lupino had a new project underway. Louella Parsons wrote in her July 5 column:

Ida Lupino, who recently put her feet under a desk as a woman producer for Ben Bogeaus, has selected her first. She will boss and star in "Miracle in the Rain", a Ben Hecht magazine story published about four years ago.

Once again the publicity for Arcadia Productions kicked into gear. Miracle in the Rain was being adapted by Dwight Taylor. It would go into production as soon as the screenplay was ready. Lupino and Bogeaus again wanted King Vidor to direct. Early Autumn was still on the books as Lupino's second vehicle. Arcadia was still planning to produce pictures other than those starring Lupino.

Five weeks later, alas, this project was in dire straits as well—though most of the details do not appear to have made it into print. Lupino's choice for her leading man in Miracle in the Rain was Robert Walker—not yet famous for the creepy murderer in Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951), but instead for romantic leads such as opposite Judy Garland in The Clock (1945). MGM, however, refused to loan him out—which Erskine Johnson reported left Walker "burning". Lupino's reaction is not documented.

Less than two weeks after that, on August 21, 1947, Hedda Hopper reported with little fanfare that Miracle in the Rain had been "postponed indefinitely". No reasons given; no excuses reported.

Producer Lupino was soon ready to throw in the towel. On September 3, Sheilah Graham wrote, "Ida Lupino and Benedict Bogeaus have called off their picture deal. They couldn't get together on story or price." And so Arcadia Productions was no more.

Aftermath

The last weeks of Arcadia was the period where Lupino's romance with Collier Young blossomed. Given their joint ambitions as filmmakers, Lupino may have become distracted by new goals—both personal and professional. That is what is suggested in the Donati biography.

Some hints as to Lupino's view of her experience an attempted producer in 1947 come from later comments. In April, 1948, Bob Thomas reported her saying about producing

Never again! I passed up four pictures while I was working myself practically to death on a film that was never made.

Then, a decade later, long after she had become a successful producer-director-writer, she was asked about the beginnings of her next attempt at an independent production company on the This Is Your Life television program. She said to the host, "Let me, you know, put myself completely in the clear. I did not want to become a producer." Then she laughed and added, "They're very badly-treated people." Her real goal in starting Emerald Productions and The Filmakers was discovering new talent.

Could it be that her disinclination to return to producing was the result of her experiences in 1947? After all, even early in her Arcadia tenure, she had said she was ready to declare a "Be Kind to Producers Week".

Going back to the late summer of 1947, Lupino did not let this failure as a first-time producer stop her. Even as she was shutting down Arcadia, she was hard at work piecing together her next acting gig. She had already picked a story, The Dark Love. Through the arrangements of her and her agent with 20th Century-Fox, this would soon become the noir classic Road House (1948).

A few months after that, despite her vow of "Never again!", she would be producing independent films—this time using unknown actors she discovered—and this time with unforgettable results.

Epilogue

Early Autumn never made it into movie form. Ben Bogeaus made another attempt to produce it in 1956, retitled Conquest, but again nothing came of it.

Miracle in the Rain passed through several hands before being made at Warner Brothers in 1955, starring Jane Wyman and Van Johnson, directed by Rudolf Maté.

Sources

• Newspapers.com archives for United States newspapers
• "Ida Lupino: A Biography" by William Donati, University Press of Kentucky, 2000
• Media History Digital Library archives of Hollywood fan magazines and trade papers

Other articles on this blog referenced in this article

• Prelude to a forgotten chapter in Ida Lupino's career

Prelude to a forgotten chapter in Ida Lupino's career

This is the story of a non-legendary chapter in a legendary career—the story of Ida Lupino's first attempt to become a film producer in Hollywood. It was a frustrating experience that set the stage for her later triumphs.

The legendary part of Lupino's story is that, in 1949, she left her career as an established Hollywood movie star to become the driving force behind an independent production company—eventually known as "The Filmakers". There, with collaborators Collier Young and Malvin Wald, she wrote, produced, and directed low-budget films, initially starring unknown actors, that told stories the major studios of the time were not addressing.

Less known is that Lupino's first attempt to move behind-the-scenes into film production came two years earlier. This chapter of the Lupino story is typically ignored in overviews of her career. Even the comprehensive biography by William Donati devotes only a single paragraph to it.

For this initial effort as producer, her approach was very different from her later one. Her goal was to produce films at the same level as the major studios with herself as the star—continuing her acting career, but with creative control. After many months of hard work through most of 1947, she was left with no visible accomplishments. Yet it is likely that from this discouraging episode, she learned lessons that helped make her later creative efforts successful—and that immortalized her career.

To set the stage, let's begin a couple years earlier—January 1945. The end of the all-consuming war was in sight, Lupino's six-year marriage had recently broken up, and Lupino was emerging from that emotional trauma contemplating her life.

At the age of 27, Lupino claimed she was "flummoxed" about her career and seriously considering a major change. At the time, she was a Hollywood veteran of over a decade, at the height of her fame, with a stellar reputation as one of the top dramatic actresses in the industry. But, as she told columnist Erskine Johnson:

"I'll go berserk if I'm still dashing around at 30 [getting up at 5 o'clock every morning making myself look beautiful and then rushing to the studio]. I have a time now making myself look good—and I've got a voice like Wallace Beery's."

She had long known that her time at the top would be limited, and that she needed alternatives in order to survive in Hollywood when her leading actress days were over. Her present plan was to give up acting and become a full-time writer.

Her acting contract with Warner Brothers still had two more years to go. Over those two years, she used her down time to sample various plans for the next phase of her career. She worked on several screenplays, often in collaboration with others—notably her ex-husband, actor Louis Hayward, and actress Barbara Read. In early 1946, Lupino sold one of her screenplays to RKO—Miss Pennington—for $20,000.

Music was another major effort, building on what had been a passion of hers for years. She wrote numerous songs, by herself and in collaboration with Nick Arden and William MacIlwinen. In the spring of 1946, she and MacIlwinen undertook to get a musical stage show produced on Broadway. Lupino took a three-month leave-of-absence from her Warners contract to push this project to completion. Unfortunately, it did not come to fruition as a Broadway show; however, it was eventually produced at a smaller venue in 1949. (See this earlier article for more on Apple Tree Farm.)

Another approach was to continue acting, but to produce her own films. For Lupino, who had been battling studio executives for years over scripts, the lure of creative freedom beckoned. Initially she contemplated a co-producing-acting partnership with ex-husband Hayward, with whom she remained friendly and who also had self-producing ambitions.

But she went a different route. Enter independent producer Benedict Bogeaus.

Ben Bogeaus was a businessman who had made a lot of money in the early years of the war, and then, in 1944, moved to Hollywood to produce films. Bogeaus' movies had name stars and respectable budgets. His company had already released three films by the end of 1945, and his ambitions were expanding. In January 1946, Lupino—with a year left on her Warners contract—signed on to star in one of Bogeaus' pictures. Initially there was no mention of her producing.

At this same time, Lupino claimed that she would be willing to extend her time with Warners if they let her pick stories and directors. While Warners likely would never cede so much control, this indicates Lupino's producing ambition had solidified. In March, 1946, it became explicit. Lupino told Hedda Hopper, "I'd like to get into writing and producing. Acting is too tortuous."

As the Broadway hopes for her stage show slipped away, her next Warner Brothers film suffered delays, and the one with Bogeaus was on hold, Lupino continued her writing work on music and screenplays, while also enjoying a newfound passion for sailing.

Late in 1946, she revealed to the press that one of the sticking points in her negotiations with Warner Brothers was that she wanted the right to independently produce one picture a year—"which I've already contracted to do" (emphasis added). This is the first sign I have found that her deal with Bogeaus had extended from acting into producing. She also said that she was comparing notes on the challenges of being a producer with friend and fellow actor-turned-producer John Garfield.

Lupino left her longtime studio in early 1947, refusing to sign the long-term exclusive contract Warners insisted on. Within days of completing her last film at Warners, Deep Valley, Lupino, along with Bogeaus, announced the formation of a new company to house their joint effort—a company separate from Bogeaus' own. Louella Parsons wrote on Feb. 5, 1947:

Those swanky new offices being redecorated on the Ben Bogeaus lot are for Ida Lupino, who moves over to General Service Studio [Bogeaus' lot at the time] as a producer as well as star.

She and Ben have formed the Arcadia Productions, with Ida set for one film a year for the next three years.

Ida's first is a comedy, "New Year's Eve", an original story by Norman Reilly Raine. Ida plays an heiress who gets kidnaped on New Year's Eve by a prize fighter and a G.I. and the complications that ensue can be imagined.

I'll say for Bogeaus that he tries to keep his stars happy by letting them have their say about their movies. Gregory Peck has a "piece" of "Macomber Affair" and Burgess Meredith is co-producer of "A Miracle Can Happen" and several other pictures he's made with Ben.

Over much of the succeeding year, Ida Lupino would devote her prodigious energies to her new role as producer of her own films. We will see how that turned out in the next edition.