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lupinoBorn February 4, 1918 in London, England, Ida Lupino was the daughter of actors Stanley Lupino and Connie Emerald and the niece of actor Lupino Lane. Her theatrical ancestry goes back centuries to Bologna, Italy.

Accompanying her mother to an audition, she was given the role her mother, the lead in the 1932 British film, Her First Affaire. She was 13. She made her Hollywood debut in 1934โ€™s Search for Beauty at 15. Subsequent 1930s films included Peter Ibbetsen, Anything Goes, The Gay Desperado, Artists & Models, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Light That Failed. A bleached blonde in her first Hollywood films, she wore dark wigs throughout most of her career to hide her almost completely bald head.

A major Warner Bros. star in the 1940s, she thought of herself the poor manโ€™s Bette Davis, but she was nevertheless outstanding in her contract years through 1947 in such well-regarded films as They Drive by Night , High Sierra, The Sea Wolf, Out of the Fog, Ladies in Retirement, Moontide, The Hard Way, Forever and a Day, Thank Your Lucky Stars, Hollywood Canteen, Devotion, The Man I Love, Deep Valley and Escape Me Never.

Lupino was married to actor Louis Hayward from 1938 to 1945. She was married to writer-producer Collier Young from 1948 to 1951. While still married to Young, she had an affair with Howard Duff and Young had one with Joan Fontaine. Pregnant by Duff with her only child, daughter Bridget Duff, Lupino divorced Young and married Duff. Young then married Fontaine. Both of those marriages ended in divorce as well, the Lupino-Duff marriage lasting until 1984.

Not interested in renewing her Warner Bros. contract, Lupino continued in major starring roles for other studios in such films as 1948โ€™s Road House, 1952โ€™s On Dangerous Ground and Beware, My Lovely among many others. Now a director as well, she received kudos for her direction of such films as 1953โ€™s The Hitch-Hiker and The Bigamist. A frequent contributor to TV from the mid-1950s through the late 1970s both in front of and behind the camera, Lupinoโ€™s acting credits throughout her career totaled 105 while her directing credits totaled an equally impressive 41.

Lupino received three Primetime Emmy nominations for her TV work from 1957 through 1959. A New York Film Critics award winner for 1943โ€™s The Hard Way, she was a runner-up for Best Supporting Actress for both 1972โ€™s New York Film Critics award and the National Society of Film Critics award.

Lupinoโ€™s last screen role was as the mother of a juvenile delinquent in 1978โ€™s My Boys Are Good Boys opposite Ralph Meeker.

Ida Lupino died on August 3, 1995 at 77.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE HARD WAY, directed by Vincent Sherman (1943)

Lupino, the self-described poor manโ€™s Bette Davis was only 24 when she played the manipulative older sister of talented Joan Leslie who stage manages the younger girlโ€™s career beginning with pushing her into a marriage with vaudevillian Jack Carson, then breaking up Carsonโ€™s act with Dennis Morgan and destroying veteran performer Gladys George in order to push the talented if naรฏve Leslie along. The performance earned her the Best Actress award of the New York Film Critics in competition with Grace Fields in Holy Matrimony and Katina Paxinou in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

ROAD HOUSE, directed by Jean Negulesco (1948)

Lupino throws screen convention on its ear as she plays a drifter who has the men fighting over her rather than the other way around. This noir classic is remembered for the performances of Lupino as the lounge singer in Richard Widmarkโ€™s roadside joint and Widmark in another of his trademark lunatic roles molded on his Oscar nominated performance in the previous yearโ€™s Kiss of Death. Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm add to the star power. Lupino, whose voice had been dubbed in previous roles, is allowed to sing herself this time around. One of her songs, โ€œAgainโ€ even made the hit parade in early 1949.

ON DANGEROUS GROUND, directed by Nicholas Ray (1952)

Howard Hughes, then head of RKO, interfered post-production with Rayโ€™s film noir, cutting scenes here, ordering re-shoots there, holding up release of the film until nearly two years after Ray left the project. Despite his interference and the filmโ€™s initial lukewarm reception by critics and public alike, it has emerged as one of the best loved of the genre. Robert Ryan delivers one of his best performances as the brutal, obsessed cop who is redeemed by the love of blind country girl, Lupino, also giving one of her best performances. The pulsating score by Bernard Herrmann is one of his finest.

THE BIGAMIST, directed by Ida Lupino (1953)

This terrific film noir is even more fascinating when you look at the ironies beyond the plot about traveling salesman Edmond Oโ€™Brien with wife no. 1 (Joan Fontaine) planning an adoption in San Francisco and wife no. 2 (Lupino) who he marries after she becomes pregnant in Los Angeles. It was written by Collier Young who was married to Lupino, who also directed, when she became pregnant by Howard Duff and divorced him to marry Duff. Young, who had his own affair with Fontaine, later married her as well. Fontaineโ€™s mother, Lillian, played Lupinoโ€™s landlady. Everybodyโ€™s favorite Santa, Edmund Gwenn, played the head of the adoption agency.

JUNIOR BONNER, directed Sam Peckinpah (1972)

Steve McQueen has the title role as the aging rodeo pro in this unusually gentle film from Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs) who returns to his family home in Prescott, Arizona where his daydreaming father (Robert Preston) is planning a move to Australia to start a sheep farm and his long-suffering mother (Lupino) has learned to accept life as it is. Preston and Lupino steal the show, with Lupino earning awards recognition from both the New York Film Critics and National society of Film Critics where she was runner-up to Jeannie Berlin in The Heartbreak Kid for supporting actress honors.

IDA LUPINO AND OSCAR

  • No nominations, now wins.

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