Oscar Profile #47: Eve Arden

Born April 30, 1908 in Mill Valley, California, Eunice Quedens took her stage name from two perfume bottles in her Ziegfeld Follies dressing room in 1934. She got “Eve” from Evening in Paris and “Arden” from Elizabeth Arden.

In minor roles in two films prior to her Ziegfeld stint, she had another minor role on screen in 1937’s Oh, Doctor and started filming Stage Door in yet another minor role. However her wise-cracking character in that film was so engaging that the role was expanded and she became a star character performer pretty much playing the same role for the next fifty years.

It took several more films before she had another much talked part, that of acrobat Peerless Pauline in The Marx Brothers 1939 classic, At the Circus.

She had two memorable roles in 1944, as a Russian sharpshooter in Doughgirls and as Gene Kelly’s wisecracking assistant in Cover Girl. She was at her wisecracking best as Joan Crawford’s friend in 1945’s Mildred Pierce, for which she received her only Oscar nomination.

Her part in Danny Kaye’s 1946 radio show led to her casting as the acerbic schoolteacher in Our Miss Brooks, which she played on radio from 1948 to 1957. She played the same part in a well-remembered TV version of the show that ran from 1952 to 1956, picking up Emmy nominations for four successive years from 1953 through 1956. An inferior film version was produced in 1956.

Having been in a childless marriage from 1939 to 1947, Arden married actor Brooks West in 1952 and raised four children with him, the first three of them adopted. She gave birth for the first time to her fourth child and second son at the age of 46.

In the wake of her long-running Our Miss Brooks success, Arden was unable to extend her popularity through 1957’s short-lived The Eve Arden Show. She did, however, have two of her best screen roles as James Stewart’s loyal secretary in 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder and as Dorothy McGuire’s bigoted sister in 1960’s The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.

In the 1960s she appeared on stage in the megahits Auntie Mame and Hello, Dolly! Before tackling another hit TV comedy series, The Mothers-in-Law with Kaye Ballard which lasted from 1967 to 1969.

Her role in 1974’s Mother of the Bride on ABC’s Afternoon Playbreak brought her a Daytime Emmy nomination for Best Actress in a Daytime Drama.

A new generation discovered her as the high school principal in the 1978 film version of Grease. The 1982 sequel, Grease 2 was her final film. She made her last appearance as a guest star in 1987’s Falcon Crest.

Eve Arden died in 1990 at 82.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

STAGE DOOR (1937), directed by Gregory La Cava

The comedy classic has moments of high drama and sadness, but its comic punch stays at the forefront throughout. Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers volley for acting honors as the protagonists, but all the supporting players including Adolphe Menjou, Andrea Leeds, Lucille Ball and especially Eve Arden are used to maximum efect. Wearing her pet cat around her neck as if it were a fur collar, Arden makes you laugh before she even opens her mouth to utter one of her trademark quips. It’s no wonder the part became the touchstone for an entire career.

COVER GIRL (1944), directed by Charles Vidor

Lovely Rita Hayworth and song-and-dance man Gene Kelly were the stars and Jerome Kern’s splendid score included the Oscar nominated “Long Ago and Far Away”, but for many the highlight of the film is Arden’s performance as Kelly’s wisecracking no-nonsense assistant, Cornelia “Stonewall” Jackson, aptly named after the Civil War Confederate general. It was her first color film and she looks fabulous.

MILDRED PIERCE (1945), directed by Michael Curtiz

One of Arden’s first roles was a bit part in Joan Crawford’s Dancing Lady. Twelve years later she is the comic relief of the heavy going melodrama in Crawford’s Oscar winner. Arden’s part isn’t large, but she makes every minute count and her fellow actors acknowledged her contribution with her first and, sadly, only Oscar nomination.

Crawford and Arden were reunited for 1951’s Goodbye, My Fancy co-starring another long time film star who would an even bigger splash on TV: Robert Young.

ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959), directed by Otto Preminger

With her great TV success, Our Miss Brooks, behind her, Arden moved back into supporting roles in major films. The then frank dialogue thrust this explicit murder mystery into the limelight, but the strength of the acting has kept audiences watching ever since. James Stewart had one of his best late career roles defending Ben Gazzara as the Army officer who kills wife Lee Remick’s alleged rapist. Arden has one of her best dramatic roles as his faithful secretary. That’s Brooks West, Arden’s husband, as the District Attorney.

THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS (1960), directed by Delbert Mann

If Eve Arden were to have only one Oscar nomination, perhaps it should have been for her overbearing, bigoted matron in the screen adaptation of William Inge’s played. The entire cast including Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire, Angela Lansbury, Shirley Knight and Lee Kinsolving among them, are all perfectly cast, but Arden in the role created by Eileen Heckart on stage, is the film’s most outstanding player. It’s one of those “hate the character, but love the actor” roles that come along rarely in an actor’s career and she nails it.