Ida Lupino

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ida Lupino

Lupino in The Hard Way (1943)
Born February 4, 1918(1918-02-04)
Camberwell, London, England
Died August 3, 1995 (aged 77)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Spouse(s) 1938-45 Louis Hayward
1948-51 Collier Young
1951-84 Howard Duff

Ida Lupino (February 4, 1918[1] – August 3, 1995) was an English film actress, director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers.

Contents

[edit] Acting career

Encouraged to enter show-business by both her parents and a first cousin once-removed, Lupino Lane, Lupino made her first film appearance in 1931, in The Love Race, and worked for several years playing minor roles.

It was after her appearance in The Light That Failed in 1939 that Lupino was taken seriously as a dramatic actress.[citation needed] Her parts improved during the 1940s and she began to describe herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis."[citation needed] While working for Warner Brothers, Lupino would also refuse parts that Davis had rejected, and earned herself suspensions.[citation needed]

During this period, Lupino became known for her hard-boiled roles[citation needed], and appeared in such films as They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941). She acted regularly and was in high demand throughout the 1940s without becoming a major star.

In 1947, Lupino left Warner Brothers to become a freelance actress. Notable films around that time include Road House and On Dangerous Ground.

[edit] Directing career

It was during a suspension in the late 1940s that Lupino began studying the processes behind the camera. Her first directing job came around when Elmer Clifton fell ill during the filming of Not Wanted, a 1949 movie which she co-wrote.

Lupino often joked that if she had been the "poor man's Bette Davis" as an actress, then she had become the "poor man's Don Siegel" as a director.[citation needed] From the early 1950s she began directing films, mostly melodramas, and was one of the few women of her era to achieve success in this field. In 1952, Lupino was invited to become the "fourth star" in Four Star Productions by Dick Powell, David Niven and Charles Boyer, after Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell dropped out.

She directed Outrage in 1950, a film about rape, a subject still controversial twenty years after the adoption of the Hays Code. In addition to acting in many films noir, Lupino also directed The Hitch-Hiker (1953), the first such film directed by a woman.

[edit] Television work

Lupino continued acting throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Have Gun Will Travel, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, and Bewitched.

From January 1957 through September 1958, Lupino starred with her husband, Howard Duff, in the CBS comedy Mr. Adams and Eve, in which they played husband and wife film stars named Howard Adams and Eve Drake. Later in her career, Lupino guest starred on numerous television programs, before retiring at the age of 60 after making her final film appearance in 1978.

[edit] Awards

Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the fields of television and motion pictures. They are located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.

Awards
Preceded by
Agnes Moorehead
for The Magnificent Ambersons		 NYFCC Award for Best Actress
1943
for The Hard Way		 Succeeded by
Tallulah Bankhead
for Lifeboat

[edit] Partial filmography

[edit] Personal life

Lupino in 1979. Photo by Alan Light.
Lupino in 1979. Photo by Alan Light.

Lupino was born in Camberwell, London (allegedly[who?] under a table during a World War I zeppelin raid), the daughter of actress Connie O'Shea (a.k.a. Connie Emerald) and music hall entertainer, Stanley Lupino, one of the Lupino family. She was born in 1918 and not 1914 as other biographies have it.[1]

She married and divorced three times:

Ida Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles, California, in August 1995, aged 77.[citation needed] She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Recorded in Births Mar 1918 Camberwell Vol.1d page 1019 (Free BMD). Transcribed as "Lupine" in the official births index
  2. ^ Ida Lupino at Find A Grave

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Lupino, Ida
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1918(1918-02-04)
PLACE OF BIRTH Camberwell, London, England
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 1995 (aged 77)
PLACE OF DEATH Los Angeles, California