Underrated Performer of the Month: Ida Lupino

It's unfair perhaps to recognize Ida Lupino as the Cafe's Underrated Performer of the Month for January. She was indeed underrated as an actress, even by her own standards (having once referred to herself as a "poor man's Bette Davis"). But Ms. Lupino was more than just an actress. During the late 1940s and 1950s--when Hollywood film production was dominated by men--she carved out a successful career as a producer, screenwriter, and director.

She was born in London in 1918 to parents who both worked in show business. Ida landed her first film role when her mother, Emerald, auditioned for a Lolita-type role for 1933's Her First Affaire. Her mother didn't get the part, but director Allan Dwan was impressed with Ida and signed her for the role. She worked steadily in Britain and the U.S. throughout the rest of the 1930s, appearing in films such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Basil Rathbone and The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (an amusing turn in the best of Warren William's Lone Wolf  film series).

Lupino with Cornel Wilde
in Road House.

Ida Lupino landed her biggest role to date in 1939's The Light That Failed, a touching adapatation of a Rudyard Kipling novel about an artist (Ronald Colman) losing his eyesight. As a hard-bitten Cockney girl, Lupin earned raved notices and became a star at Warner Bros. She subsequently starred in classics such as They Drive By Night, High Sierra, and Devotion.

By 1947, Lupino found it harder to get good roles. She left Warner Bros. and co-wrote the screenplay for a B-film called Not Wanted (1949), a somewhat controversial (for the time) tale of an unwed mother. When director Elmer Clifton fell ill during the shooting, Lupino took over the directing chores.

She continued directing independent films in the 1950s, to include: Outrage (1950); Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) starring Claire Trevor; The Bigamist (1953) in which she co-starred with Joan Fontaine; and The Hitch-Hiker (1953), a taut little thriller that's generally considered her best film. Starting in 1956, she beginning working as a director in television, where she helmed episodes for dozens of TV series such as The Fugitive, Thriller, Dr. Kildare, Twilight Zone, Bewitched, The Virginian, and Have Gun Will Travel. She also formed a television production company, Four Star Productions, with Dick Powell, David Niven, and Charles Boyer.

She still appeared occasionally in films and on television. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby singled out for her fine supporting performance in the 1972 Steve McQueen Junior Bonner.

Ida Lupino was married three times: to actor Louis Hayward (1938-45), producer Collier Young (1948-51), and actor Howard Duff (1951-84). She died of a stroke in 1995 at age 77. Classic movie fans may remember her best for her acting, but her greatest contribution to the industry was as a pioneering female filmmaker. She was just the second woman to be inducted in the Director's Guild of America (following Dorothy Arzner).