Ida Lupino facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ida Lupino
Lupino before performance on the radio series Cavalcade of America
Born	(1918-02-04)4 February 1918 Herne Hill, London, England
Died	3 August 1995(1995-08-03) (aged 77) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Citizenship	United Kingdom United States
Alma mater	Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actress director writer producer
Years active	1931–1978
Political party	Democrat
Spouse(s)	Louis Hayward ​ ​ (m. 1938; div. 1945)​ Collier Young ​ ​ (m. 1948; div. 1951)​ Howard Duff ​ ​ (m. 1951; div. 1984)​
Children	1
Parents	Stanley Lupino (father) Connie Emerald (mother)
Family	Lupino
Signature

Ida Lupino (4 February 1918 – 3 August 1995) was a British actress, director, writer, and producer. 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.

Early life and family

Ida Lupino in 1937

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. Her great-grandfather, George Hook, changed his name to Lupino. Her father, a top name in musical comedy in the UK, encouraged her to perform at an early age. He built a backyard theatre for Lupino and her sister Rita (1921–2016), who also became an actress and dancer. Lupino wrote her first play at age seven and toured with a travelling theatre company as a child. By the age of ten, Lupino had memorised the leading female roles in each of Shakespeare's plays. After her intense childhood training for stage plays, Ida's uncle Lupino Lane assisted her in moving towards film acting by getting her work as a background actress at British International Studios.

She wanted to be a writer, but in order to please her father, Lupino enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She excelled in a number of film roles, but did not enjoy being an actress and felt uncomfortable with many of the early roles she was given. She felt that she was pushed into the profession due to her family history.

Career

Publicity photograph of Lupino for Moontide (1942)

Lupino is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. 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), Never Fear (1950), Outrage (1950), The Bigamist (1953), and The Trouble with Angels (1966).

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.

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. After the drama Deep Valley (1947) finished shooting, neither Warner Bros. nor Lupino moved to renew her contract and she left the studio in 1947. 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.

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. 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").

Personal life

Lupino was diagnosed with polio in 1934. The New York Times reported that the outbreak of polio within the Hollywood community was due to contaminated swimming pools. The disease severely affected her ability to work, and her contract with Paramount fell apart shortly after her diagnosis. She recovered and eventually directed, produced, and wrote many films, including a film loosely based upon her travails with polio titled Never Fear in 1949, the first film that she was credited for directing. Lupino worked for various nonprofit organizations to raise funds for polio research.

Lupino's interests outside the entertainment industry included writing short stories and children's books, and composing music. Her composition "Aladdin's Suite" was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1937. She composed it while recovering from polio in 1935.

Politics and religion

She became an American citizen in June 1948 and was a staunch Democrat who supported the presidency of John F. Kennedy. She was a Catholic.

Marriages

Lupino was married and divorced three times. She married actor Louis Hayward in November 1938. They separated in May 1944 and divorced in May 1945.

Her second marriage was to producer Collier Young on 5 August 1948. They divorced in 1951. When Lupino filed for divorce in September that year, she was already pregnant from an affair with future husband Howard Duff. The child was born seven months after she filed for divorce from Young.

Lupino's third and final marriage was to actor Howard Duff, whom she wed on 21 October 1951. Six months later, they had a daughter, Bridget, on 23 April 1952. They separated in 1966 and divorced in 1983.

She petitioned a California court in 1984 to appoint her business manager, Mary Ann Anderson, as her conservator due to poor business dealings from her prior business management company and her long separation from Howard Duff.

Death

Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles on 3 August 1995, at the age of 77. Her memoirs, Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera, were edited after her death and published by Mary Ann Anderson.

Influences and legacy

Ida Lupino's The Hitch-Hiker (1953) was the first American film noir directed by a woman.

Lupino learned filmmaking from everyone she observed on set, including William Ziegler, the cameraman for Not Wanted. When in preproduction on Never Fear, she conferred with Michael Gordon on directorial technique, organization, and plotting. Cinematographer Archie Stout said of Ms. Lupino, "Ida has more knowledge of camera angles and lenses than any director I've ever worked with, with the exception of Victor Fleming. She knows how a woman looks on the screen and what light that woman should have, probably better than I do." Lupino also worked with editor Stanford Tischler, who said of her, "She wasn't the kind of director who would shoot something, then hope any flaws could be fixed in the cutting room. The acting was always there, to her credit."

Accolades

The Hard Way (1943)

• Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for contributions to the fields of television and film – located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.
• New York Film Critics Circle Award – Best Actress, The Hard Way, 1943
• Inaugural Saturn Award - Best Supporting Actress, The Devil's Rain, 1975
• A Commemorative Blue Plaque is dedicated to Lupino and her father Stanley Lupino by The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America and the Theatre and Film Guild of Great Britain and America at the house where she was born in Herne Hill, London, 16 February 2016
• Composer Carla Bley paid tribute to Lupino with her jazz composition "Ida Lupino" in 1964.
• The Hitch-Hiker and Outrage were inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998 and 2020 respectively.

Filmography

Partial television credits

Radio appearances

Images for kids

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  Lupino (left) directing The Hitch-Hiker, 1953

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  Cinematographer Ted McCord, Lupino and Dane Clark in Deep Valley (1947)

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  Lupino in It Takes a Thief in 1968

See also

In Spanish: Ida Lupino para niños