Ida Lupino (4 February 1918^[1] – 3 August 1995) was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes. Additionally, she contributed as a writer to five films and four TV episodes.^[2]

Acting career[link]

Lupino was born in 1918 into an English family of performers.^[3] Her father, Stanley Lupino, was a music hall comedian, and her mother, Connie Emerald (1892–1959), was an actress.^[4] As a girl, Ida Lupino was encouraged to enter show business by both her parents and her uncle, Lupino Lane. She trained at RADA and made her first film appearance in The Love Race (1931), the next year making Her First Affaire. She played leading roles in five British films in 1933 at Warner Bros.' Teddington studios and for Julius Hagen at Twickenham, including in The Ghost Camera with John Mills and I Lived with You with Ivor Novello. She moved to Hollywood at the end of that year.^[5]

Lupino starred in over a dozen films in the mid-1930s. Following her appearance in The Light That Failed (1939), she began to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. As a result, her parts improved during the 1940s, and she described herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis."^[6]

During this period, Lupino became known for her hard-boiled roles,^[7] as in such films as They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941), both opposite Humphrey Bogart. For her performance in The Hard Way (1943), she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She worked regularly and was in demand throughout the 1940s without becoming a major star until later. In 1947, Lupino left Warner Bros. to freelance. Notable films she appeared in around that time include Road House and On Dangerous Ground.

Directing career[link]

In the mid-1940s, while on suspension for turning down a role,^[8] Lupino became interested in directing. She described herself as being bored on set while "someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work."^[7] She and her husband Collier Young formed an independent company, The Filmakers [sic], and Lupino became a producer, director and screenwriter of low-budget, issue-oriented films.^[9]

Her first directing job came unexpectedly in 1949 when Elmer Clifton suffered a mild heart attack and could not finish Not Wanted, the film he was directing for Filmakers. Lupino stepped in to finish the film and went on to direct her own projects, becoming Hollywood's only female film director of the time.^[10]

In an article for the Village Voice, Carrie Rickey wrote that Lupino was a model of modern feminist filmmaking, stating:

Not only did Lupino take control of production, direction and screenplay, but each of her movies addresses the brutal repercussions of sexuality, independence, and dependence.^[11]

After four "woman's" films about social issues – including Outrage (1950), a film about rape – Lupino directed her first hard-paced, fast-moving picture, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), making her the first woman to direct a film noir. Writer Richard Koszarski noted that:

Her films display the obsessions and consistencies of a true auteur... In her films The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker Lupino was able to reduce the male to the same sort of dangerous, irrational force that women represented in most male-directed examples of Hollywood film noir.^[12]

Lupino often joked that if she had been the "poor man's Bette Davis" as an actress, then she had become the "poor man's Don Siegel" as a director.^[13] In 1952, Lupino was invited to become the "fourth star" in Four Star Productions by Dick Powell, David Niven and Charles Boyer, after Joel McCrea and Rosalind Russell had dropped out of the company.

Television[link]

Lupino continued acting throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, Have Gun – Will Travel, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, The Rifleman, The Virginian, Sam Benedict, The Untouchables, The Fugitive and Bewitched.

Lupino appeared in 19 episodes of Four Star Playhouse from 1952 to 1956. From January 1957 through September 1958, Lupino starred with her then husband, Howard Duff, in the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, in which the duo played husband and wife film stars named Howard Adams and Eve Drake, living in Beverly Hills, California. Duff and Lupino also co-starred as themselves in 1959 in one of the 13 one-hour installments of The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour. Lupino guest-starred on numerous television programs, including The Ford Television Theatre (1954), The Twilight Zone (1959), Bonanza (1959), Burke's Law (1963–64), The Virginian (1963–65), Batman (1968), The Mod Squad (1969), Family Affair (1969–70), Columbo (1972–74), Barnaby Jones (1974), The Streets of San Francisco ("Blockade", 1974), Ellery Queen (1975), Police Woman (1975) and Charlie's Angels (1977), to name a few. She made her final film appearance in 1978 and retired at the age of 60.

Awards and homage[link]

Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the fields of television and motion pictures. They are located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Boulevard. Lupino is the titular subject of a jazz homage composed by Carla Bley in 1964, originally for the album Turning Point.^[14] She won the inaugural Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Devil's Rain.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

Lupino in 1979

Lupino was born in Camberwell, London, (allegedly under a table during a World War I zeppelin raid^{[citation needed]}) to actress Connie O'Shea (Connie Emerald) and music hall entertainer Stanley Lupino, a member of the theatrical Lupino family. Lupino's birth year is 1918 and not 1914 as some biographies have claimed.^[1] Her sister Rita Lupino, born in 1920, became an actress and dancer. During World War II she served as a Lieutenant in the Women's Ambulance and Defense Corps.^[15] Lupino became a U.S. citizen in 1948.^[16]

Lupino was married and divorced three times.

• Louis Hayward, actor (November 1938 - 11 May 1945)
• Collier Young, producer (1948–1951)
• Howard Duff, actor (October 1951 - 1984) with whom she had daughter Bridget Duff on 23 April 1952

In 1983, Lupino petitioned a California court 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.

Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles in August 1995, at the age of 77.^{[citation needed]} Lupino's memoirs, Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera, were edited after her death and published by Mary Ann Anderson.^[17]

Filmography[link]