Biography

Ida Lupino

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Overview

Born
February 4, 1918 · Camberwell, London, England, UK
Died
August 3, 1995 · Los Angeles, California, USA (died of a stroke while battling colon cancer)
Nickname
- Little Scout
Height
5′ 4″ (1.63 m)

Mini bio

Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1941), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>

Family

Spouses
Children
Parents
Relatives

Trademarks

Calls everyone "Darling"
Her seductive, deep voice

Trivia

As rigid and tough-minded as Bette Davis, Lupino would often refuse to play a Davis hand-me-down role and was often suspended by Warner Brothers for doing so. It was during those breaks that she learned the craft of directing. Widely respected as a pioneer for women filmmakers, Lupino was the second woman to be admitted to the Director's Guild (Dorothy Arzner).
She was the only person to both appear in and direct episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959), acting in The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine (1959) and directing The Masks (1964). She was also the only woman to have directed an episode of the series.
At age 34, Lupino gave birth to her only child, a daughter Bridget Mirella Duff (aka Bridget Duff) on April 23, 1952. Bridget's father was Lupino's third husband, actor Howard Duff. Bridget Duff weighed only 4 pounds at birth and almost died.
Became lifelong friends with Mala Powers (whom she directed in Outrage (1950)). When Lupino died in 1995, Powers was named the executor of her estate. Lupino was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
Richard Boone told columnist Erskine Johnson in 1961 about her skills as a director, "Ida stimulates me as an actor because she knows acting. In a weekly show, you get into acting patterns. Ida gets you out of them.".

Quotes

My agent had told me that he was going to make me the Janet Gaynor of England - I was going to play all the sweet roles. Whereupon, at the tender age of thirteen, I set upon the path of playing nothing but hookers.
I'd love to see more women working as directors and producers. Today, it's almost impossible to do it unless you are an actress or writer with power... I wouldn't hesitate right this minute to hire a talented woman if the subject matter were right.
The beautiful thing about Warner Brothers when I was there was, I only worked with great people, actors, directors, producers. But when I left, nobody said goodbye.
[To Jack L. Warner after turning down a four year exclusive contract] I don't want to be told someday that I will be replaced by some starlet as I was told I would replace Bette [Davis].
[To a method actor] Darling, we have a three day schedule. There's no time to do anything but to do it.