Ida Lupino (4 February 1918Recorded in Births Mar 1918 Camberwell Vol. 1d, p. 1019 (Free BMD). Transcribed as "Lupine" in the official births index – 3 August 1995) was a British and American actress and filmmaker. Throughout her 48-year career she appeared in 59 films and directed eight, working primarily in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system era. With her independent production company she co-wrote and co-produced several social-message films and became the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker, in 1953.
Among Lupino's other directed films the best known are Not Wanted (1949), about unwed pregnancy (she took over for a sick director and refused directorial credit); Never Fear (1950), loosely based upon her own experiences battling paralysis by polio; Outrage (1950), one of the first films about rape; The Bigamist (1953); and The Trouble with Angels (1966). Her short yet immensely influential directorial career, tackling themes of women trapped by social conventions, usually under melodramatic or noir coverings, is a pioneering example of proto-feminist filmmaking.
As an actress Lupino's best known films are The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) with Basil Rathbone, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra (1941) with Bogart, The Sea Wolf (1941) with Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield, Ladies in Retirement (1941) with Louis Hayward, Moontide (1942) with Jean Gabin, The Hard Way (1943), Deep Valley (1947) with Dane Clark, Road House (1948) with Cornel Wilde and Richard Widmark, While the City Sleeps (1956) with Dana Andrews and Vincent Price, and Junior Bonner (1972) with Steve McQueen.
Lupino also directed more than 100 episodes of television shows in a variety of genres, including westerns, supernatural tales, situation comedies, murder mysteries, and gangster stories.Acker, Alley (1991). Reel Women – Pioneers of the Cinema, pp. 74–78. The Continuum Publishing Company, New York. She was the only woman to direct an episode of the original The Twilight Zone series ("The Masks") and the only director to star in an episode ("The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine").Ida Lupino Biography, Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved on 4 July 2011.
Early life and family
Lupino was born at 33 Ardbeg Road in Herne Hill, London, to actress Connie O'Shea (also known as Connie Emerald) and music hall comedian Stanley Lupino, a member of the theatrical Lupino family, which included Lupino Lane, a song-and-dance man.Flint, Peter B. "Ida Lupino, Film Actress and Director, Is Dead at 77," The New York Times. 5 August 1995. Retrieved on 11 April 2016. Her great-grandfather George Hook Lupino (1828–1902) was an acrobatic clown descended from an Italian family of puppeteers. Her father, a top name in musical comedy in the UK, encouraged her to perform at an early age, building an outdoor theatre for her and her sister Rita (1921–2016), who also became an actress and dancer. Ida wrote her first play at age seven and toured with a travelling theatre company as a child.Ida Lupino Milestones, Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved on 11 April 2016. By the age of ten Lupino had memorised the leading female roles in Shakespeare's plays. After all this training and experience in theatre acting, Ida's uncle Lupino Lane assisted her in moving toward film acting by getting her work as a background actress at British International Studios.
Ida wanted to be a writer but, in order to please her father, enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She excelled in a number of "bad girl" film roles, often playing prostitutes; however, she did not enjoy being an actress. Lupino was uncomfortable with many of the early parts she was given and felt she was pushed into the profession due to her family history.
Career
Actress
Lupino made her first film appearance in The Love Race (1931) and the following year, aged 14, she worked under director Allan Dwan in Her First Affaire, in a role for which her mother had previously tested.Hagen, Ray & Wagner, Laura (2004). Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames, pp. 103–114. McFarland & Company Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina. She played leading roles in five British films in 1933 at Warner Bros.' Teddington studios and for Julius Hagen at Twickenham, including The Ghost Camera with John Mills and I Lived with You with Ivor Novello. She said of her early roles "My father once said to me: 'You're born to be bad', and it was true. I made eight films in England before I came to America, and I played a tramp or a slut in all of them".
Dubbed "the English Jean Harlow", she was discovered by Paramount in the 1933 film Money for Speed, playing a good girl/bad girl dual role. Lupino claimed the talent scouts saw her play only the sweet girl in the film and not the part of the prostitute, so she was asked to try out for the lead role in Alice in Wonderland (1933). When she arrived in Hollywood, the Paramount producers did not know what to make of their sultry potential leading lady, but she did get a five-year contract. While at Paramount, Lupino played the lead in a stage production of The Pursuit of Happiness at the Paramount Studio Theatre.
Lupino starred in over a dozen films in the mid-1930s while under contract to Paramount. She left the studio in late 1937 after becoming unsatisfied with her roles and remained off screen for over a year. She then worked at Columbia Pictures in a two-film deal in 1939, and at 20th Century-Fox in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), after which she returned to Paramount for an important role in The Light That Failed (1939). This was a role she acquired after running into director William Wellman's office unannounced, demanding an audition. After this breakthrough performance as a spiteful cockney model who torments Ronald Colman, she began to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. As a result, her parts improved during the 1940s and her stardom grew.
Mark Hellinger, associate producer at Warner Bros., was impressed by Lupino's performance in The Light That Failed, and hired her for the femme-fatale role in the Raoul Walsh-directed They Drive by Night (1940), opposite stars George Raft, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart. The film did well and the critical consensus was that Lupino stole the movie, particularly in her unhinged courtroom scene.Kurtti-Pellerin (Producers), (4 November 2003). Divided Highway: The Story of They Drive by Night (documentary short). Turner Entertainment Co., US: Kurtti-Pellerin. Warner Bros. offered her a contract which she negotiated to include some freelance rights. She worked with Walsh and Bogart again in High Sierra (1941), where she impressed critic Bosley Crowther in her role as an "adoring moll".Crowther, Bosley. The New York Times, film review, "High Sierra, Considers the Tragic and Dramatic Plight of the Last Gangster," 25 January 1941. Accessed: 29 January 2008.
Her performance in The Hard Way (1943) won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She starred in Pillow to Post (1945), which was her only comedic leading role. Although in demand throughout the 1940s, she arguably never became a major star although she often had top billing in her pictures, above actors such as Humphrey Bogart, and was repeatedly critically lauded for her realistic, direct acting style.
She often incurred the ire of studio boss Jack Warner by objecting to her casting, refusing poorly written roles that she felt were beneath her dignity as an actress, and making script revisions deemed unacceptable by the studio. As a result, she spent a great deal of her time at Warner Bros. suspended.Orgeron, Marsha (2008). Hollywood Ambitions, pp. 170–179. Wesleyan University, Middleton, Connecticut. In 1941, she rejected a supporting role in Kings Row and a lead role in Juke Girl and was put on suspension at the studio. Within a few months, a rapprochement was brokered, but her relationship with the studio remained strained over the next few years. After the drama Deep Valley (1947) finished shooting, Lupino left Warner Brothers having turned down a four-year exclusive contract. A year later, she appeared for 20th Century Fox as a nightclub singer in the film noir Road House, performing her musical numbers in the film. She starred in On Dangerous Ground in 1951.
Director, writer and producer – The Filmakers Inc.
While on suspension, Lupino had ample time to observe filming and editing processes, and she became interested in directing.Rickey, Carrie (29 October – 4 November 1980). "Lupino Noir," Village Voice, p. 43 She described how bored she was on set while "someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work", and said "It's so much more fun. Creating it yourself, not just parading in front of a camera".
She and her then-husband, producer and writer Collier Young, formed an independent company, The Filmakers Inc., to "produce, direct, and write low-budget, issue-oriented films". It was formed in 1948 with Lupino as vice-president, Collier Young as president, and screenwriter Malvin Wald as treasurer. The Filmakers produced 12 feature films, six of which Lupino directed or co-directed, five of which she wrote or co-wrote, three of which she acted in, and one of which she co-produced.Hurd, Mary (2007). Women Directors & Their Films, pp. 9–13. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut. The Filmakers' mission was to make socially conscious films, encourage new talent, and bring realism to the screen. Their goal was to tell "how America lives" through independent B pictures shot in two weeks for less than US$200,000 with a creative "family", "the ring of truth" emphasized by fact-based stories – a combination of "social significance" and entertainment. In short, low-budget pictures, they explored virtually taboo subjects such as rape in Outrage (1950) and The Bigamist (1953). The latter received rave reviews at the time of release, with Howard Thompson of The New York Times calling it "Filmakers' best offering, to date". Lupino's best-known directorial effort, The Hitch-Hiker, a 1953 RKO release, is the only film noir from the genre's classic period directed by a woman.
Her first directing job came unexpectedly in 1949 when director Elmer Clifton suffered a mild heart attack and was unable to finish Not Wanted, a film Lupino co-produced and co-wrote. Lupino stepped in to finish the film without taking directorial credit out of respect for Clifton. Although the film's subject of out-of-wedlock pregnancy was controversial, it received a vast amount of publicity, and she was invited to discuss the film with Eleanor Roosevelt on a national radio program.
Never Fear (1949), a film about polio, which she had personally experienced at age 16, was her first director's credit. The film was noticed by Howard Hughes, who was looking for suppliers of low-budget feature films for distribution by his recently acquired RKO Pictures. Hughes agreed to put up financing and distribute The Filmakers' next three features through RKO, leaving The Filmakers total control over the content and the production of the films. After producing four more films about social issues, including Outrage (1950), a film about rape (while this word is never used in the movie), Lupino directed her first hard-paced, all-male-cast film, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), making her the first woman to direct a film noir.