Eve Arden
Encyclopedia
Eve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks
, and as the Rydell High School principal in the films Grease
and Grease 2
.
, to Lucille and Charles Peter Quedens. Her parents divorced when she was a child. Arden claimed to have been an insecure child, declaring later in life that she needed therapy because her mother was so much more beautiful than she.
Some sources indicate that Arden was Catholic based solely on the fact that she had, at one point, attended a Roman Catholic convent school. However, at age 16, she left Tamalpais High School
, a public high school, and joined a stock theater company. She made her film debut, under her real name, in the backstage musical Song of Love (1929). She played a wisecracking showgirl who becomes a rival to the film's star, singer Belle Baker
. The film was one of Columbia Pictures
' earliest successes.
Arden's Broadway
debut came in 1934, when she was cast in that year's Ziegfeld Follies
revue. This role was the first in which she was credited as Eve Arden. She chose that name after being told by producer Lee Shubert
to drop her real name and claims she was inspired by two cosmetics bottles in her dressing room, one labeled Evening in Paris and the other by Elizabeth Arden.
. Her Stage Door portrayal of a fast-talking, witty supporting character, gained Arden considerable notice and was to be a template for many of Arden's future roles.
Her many memorable screen roles include a supporting role as Joan Crawford
's wise-cracking friend in Mildred Pierce
(1945) for which she received an Academy Award
nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and James Stewart
's wistful secretary in Otto Preminger
's then-explicit murder mystery, Anatomy of a Murder
(1959). (One of her co-stars in that film was husband Brooks West.) She also performed some acrobatics while trying to steal a wallet from Groucho Marx
in the Marx Brothers
film At the Circus
(1939).
's short-lived but memorably zany comedy-variety show in 1946, which also featured swing bandleader Harry James
and gravel-voiced character actor-comedian Lionel Stander
.
Kaye's show lasted one season, but Arden's display of comic talent and timing set the stage for her to be cast in her most well-known role, Madison High School English teacher Connie Brooks in Our Miss Brooks
. Arden portrayed the character on radio from 1948 to 1957, in a television version of the program from 1952 to 1956, and in a 1956 feature film. Arden's character clashed with the school's principal, Osgood Conklin (played by Gale Gordon
), and nursed an unrequited crush on fellow teacher Philip Boynton (played originally by future film star Jeff Chandler
and, on television, by Robert Rockwell
). Except for Chandler, the entire radio cast of Arden, Gordon, Richard Crenna
(Walter Denton), Gloria McMillan (Harriet Conklin), and Jane Morgan (landlady Margaret Davis) played the same roles on television.
Arden's portrayal of the character was so popular that she was made an honorary member of the National Education Association
, received a 1952 award from the Teachers College of Connecticut's Alumni Association "for humanizing the American teacher", and even received teaching job offers. She won a listeners' poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top ranking comedienne of 1948–1949, receiving her award at the end of an Our Miss Brooks broadcast that March. "I'm certainly going to try in the coming months to merit the honor you've bestowed upon me, because I understand that if I win this (award) two years in a row, I get to keep Mr. Boynton," she joked. But she was also a hit with the critics; a winter 1949 poll of newspaper and magazine radio editors taken by Motion Picture Daily named her the year's best radio comedienne.
Arden had very brief guest role in a 1955 I Love Lucy
episode entitled "L.A. at Last" in which she played herself. While awaiting their food at The Brown Derby, a Hollywood restaurant, Lucy (Lucille Ball
) and Ethel (Vivian Vance
) argue over whether a certain portrait on a nearby wall is Shelley Winters
or Judy Holliday
. Lucy urges Ethel to ask a lady occupying the next booth, who turns and replies, "Neither. That's Eve Arden." Ethel suddenly realizes she was just talking to Arden herself, who soon passes Lucy and Ethel's table to leave the restaurant while the pair gawk. This same episode also guest starred William Holden
. Desilu Productions, jointly owned by Desi Arnaz
and Ball during their marriage, was the production company for the Our Miss Brooks television show, which filmed during the same years as I Love Lucy.
Ball and Arden became acquainted when they co-starred together in the film Stage Door
in 1937. It was Ball, according to numerous radio historians, who suggested Arden for Our Miss Brooks after Shirley Booth
auditioned for but failed to land the role and Ball – committed at the time to My Favorite Husband
– could not.
Arden tried another series in the fall of 1957, The Eve Arden Show
, but it was canceled in spring of 1958 after only a few episodes. She later co-starred with Kaye Ballard
as her neighbor and in-law, Eve Hubbard, in the 1967–69 situation comedy The Mothers-in-Law
, which was produced by her old friend Desi Arnaz
after the dissolution of Desilu. Several years later, she made a new sitcom pilot co-starring Don Knotts
, but it failed to attract a network buyer.
and Auntie Mame
in the 1960s; in 1967, she won the Sarah Siddons Award
for her work in Chicago theatre
. Arden was cast in 1983 as the leading lady in what was to be her Broadway comeback in Moose Murders
. But she wisely withdrew (and was replaced with the much younger Holland Taylor
) after one preview performance, citing "artistic differences", and the show went on to open and close on the same night, becoming known as one of the most legendary flops in Broadway history.
She became familiar to a new generation of film-goers when she played Principal McGee in both 1978's Grease
and 1982's Grease 2
, as well as making appearances on such television shows as Alice
and Falcon Crest
. In 1985, she appeared as the wicked stepmother in the Faerie Tale Theatre
production of Cinderella.
Arden published her autobiography, The Three Phases of Eve, in 1985. In addition to her Academy Award nomination, Arden has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
: Radio and Television (see List of stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for addresses). She was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.
Arden died from colorectal cancer
and heart disease
at her home in Los Angeles, California
at the age of 82 and is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
in Westwood, California
.
Our Miss Brooks
Our Miss Brooks is an American situation comedy starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television , it became one of the medium's earliest hits...
, and as the Rydell High School principal in the films Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
and Grease 2
Grease 2
Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical film and sequel to Grease, which is based upon the musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Grease 2 was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch, who also choreographed the first film...
.
Early life
Eve Arden was born Eunice M. Quedens in Mill Valley, CaliforniaMill Valley, California
Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. The population was 13,903 at the 2010 census.Mill Valley is located on the western and northern shores of Richardson Bay...
, to Lucille and Charles Peter Quedens. Her parents divorced when she was a child. Arden claimed to have been an insecure child, declaring later in life that she needed therapy because her mother was so much more beautiful than she.
Some sources indicate that Arden was Catholic based solely on the fact that she had, at one point, attended a Roman Catholic convent school. However, at age 16, she left Tamalpais High School
Tamalpais High School
Tamalpais High School is a public secondary school located in Mill Valley, California. It is named after nearby Mount Tamalpais, which rises more than above Mill Valley....
, a public high school, and joined a stock theater company. She made her film debut, under her real name, in the backstage musical Song of Love (1929). She played a wisecracking showgirl who becomes a rival to the film's star, singer Belle Baker
Belle Baker
Belle Baker was an American singer and actress. Popular throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Baker introduced a number of ragtime and torch songs including Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies" and "My Yiddishe Mama". She performed in the Ziegfeld Follies and introduced a number of Irving Berlin's songs...
. The film was one of Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
' earliest successes.
Arden's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut came in 1934, when she was cast in that year's Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
revue. This role was the first in which she was credited as Eve Arden. She chose that name after being told by producer Lee Shubert
Lee Shubert
Levi "Lee" Shubert was a Polish-born American theatre owner/operator and producer and the oldest of seven siblings of the theatrical Shubert family....
to drop her real name and claims she was inspired by two cosmetics bottles in her dressing room, one labeled Evening in Paris and the other by Elizabeth Arden.
Film
Her film career began in earnest in 1937 when she appeared in the films Oh Doctor and Stage DoorStage Door
Stage Door is a RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier,...
. Her Stage Door portrayal of a fast-talking, witty supporting character, gained Arden considerable notice and was to be a template for many of Arden's future roles.
Her many memorable screen roles include a supporting role as Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
's wise-cracking friend in Mildred Pierce
Mildred Pierce (film)
Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American drama film starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Eve Arden in a film noir about a long-suffering mother and her ungrateful daughter. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, William Faulkner, and Catherine Turney was based upon the 1941...
(1945) for which she received an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and James Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
's wistful secretary in Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
's then-explicit murder mystery, Anatomy of a Murder
Anatomy of a Murder
Anatomy of a Murder is a 1959 American courtroom crime drama film. It was directed by Otto Preminger and adapted by Wendell Mayes from the best-selling novel of the same name written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker under the pen name Robert Traver...
(1959). (One of her co-stars in that film was husband Brooks West.) She also performed some acrobatics while trying to steal a wallet from Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
in the Marx Brothers
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
film At the Circus
At the Circus
At the Circus is a 1939 Marx Brothers comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which they save a circus from bankruptcy...
(1939).
Radio and television
Arden's quick wit made her a natural talent for radio; she became a regular on Danny KayeDanny Kaye
Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...
's short-lived but memorably zany comedy-variety show in 1946, which also featured swing bandleader Harry James
Harry James
Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...
and gravel-voiced character actor-comedian Lionel Stander
Lionel Stander
Lionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...
.
Kaye's show lasted one season, but Arden's display of comic talent and timing set the stage for her to be cast in her most well-known role, Madison High School English teacher Connie Brooks in Our Miss Brooks
Our Miss Brooks
Our Miss Brooks is an American situation comedy starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television , it became one of the medium's earliest hits...
. Arden portrayed the character on radio from 1948 to 1957, in a television version of the program from 1952 to 1956, and in a 1956 feature film. Arden's character clashed with the school's principal, Osgood Conklin (played by Gale Gordon
Gale Gordon
Gale Gordon was an American character actor perhaps best remembered as Lucille Ball's longtime television foil—and particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television situation comedy, The Lucy Show...
), and nursed an unrequited crush on fellow teacher Philip Boynton (played originally by future film star Jeff Chandler
Jeff Chandler (actor)
Jeff Chandler was an American film actor and singer in the 1950s.-Early life:Chandler was born Ira Grossel to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Anna and Phillip Grossel. He attended Erasmus Hall High School, the alma mater of many stage and film personalities...
and, on television, by Robert Rockwell
Robert Rockwell
Robert Rockwell was an American actor best known for playing the handsome, but awkward biology teacher Philip Boynton in the radio and television situation comedy Our Miss Brooks opposite Eve Arden....
). Except for Chandler, the entire radio cast of Arden, Gordon, Richard Crenna
Richard Crenna
Richard Donald Crenna was an American motion picture, television, and radio actor and occasional television director. He starred in such motion pictures as The Sand Pebbles, Wait Until Dark, Body Heat, the first three Rambo movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux, and The Flamingo Kid...
(Walter Denton), Gloria McMillan (Harriet Conklin), and Jane Morgan (landlady Margaret Davis) played the same roles on television.
Arden's portrayal of the character was so popular that she was made an honorary member of the National Education Association
National Education Association
The National Education Association is the largest professional organization and largest labor union in the United States, representing public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college students preparing to become...
, received a 1952 award from the Teachers College of Connecticut's Alumni Association "for humanizing the American teacher", and even received teaching job offers. She won a listeners' poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top ranking comedienne of 1948–1949, receiving her award at the end of an Our Miss Brooks broadcast that March. "I'm certainly going to try in the coming months to merit the honor you've bestowed upon me, because I understand that if I win this (award) two years in a row, I get to keep Mr. Boynton," she joked. But she was also a hit with the critics; a winter 1949 poll of newspaper and magazine radio editors taken by Motion Picture Daily named her the year's best radio comedienne.
Arden had very brief guest role in a 1955 I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on the Columbia Broadcasting System...
episode entitled "L.A. at Last" in which she played herself. While awaiting their food at The Brown Derby, a Hollywood restaurant, Lucy (Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...
) and Ethel (Vivian Vance
Vivian Vance
Vivian Roberta Jones was an American television and theater actress and singer. Often referred to as “TV’s most beloved second banana,” she is best known for her role as Ethel Mertz, sidekick to Lucille Ball on the American television sitcom I Love Lucy, and as Vivian Bagley on The Lucy...
) argue over whether a certain portrait on a nearby wall is Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
or Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...
. Lucy urges Ethel to ask a lady occupying the next booth, who turns and replies, "Neither. That's Eve Arden." Ethel suddenly realizes she was just talking to Arden herself, who soon passes Lucy and Ethel's table to leave the restaurant while the pair gawk. This same episode also guest starred William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
. Desilu Productions, jointly owned by Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
and Ball during their marriage, was the production company for the Our Miss Brooks television show, which filmed during the same years as I Love Lucy.
Ball and Arden became acquainted when they co-starred together in the film Stage Door
Stage Door
Stage Door is a RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier,...
in 1937. It was Ball, according to numerous radio historians, who suggested Arden for Our Miss Brooks after Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...
auditioned for but failed to land the role and Ball – committed at the time to My Favorite Husband
My Favorite Husband
My Favorite Husband is the name of an American radio program and network television series. The original radio show, co-starring Lucille Ball, was the initial basis for what evolved into the groundbreaking TV sitcom I Love Lucy. The series was based on the novel Mr. and Mrs...
– could not.
Arden tried another series in the fall of 1957, The Eve Arden Show
The Eve Arden Show
The Eve Arden Show is a 26-segment American television sitcom which aired during the 1957-1958 season on CBS, alternately sponsored by Lever Brothers and Shulton, Inc. .-Overview:...
, but it was canceled in spring of 1958 after only a few episodes. She later co-starred with Kaye Ballard
Kaye Ballard
Kaye Ballard is an American musical theatre and television actress, comedienne, and singer.-Life and career:Ballard was born as Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian American family, the daughter of Lena and Vincent James Balotta.Ballard established herself as a musical...
as her neighbor and in-law, Eve Hubbard, in the 1967–69 situation comedy The Mothers-in-Law
The Mothers-in-Law
The Mothers-in-Law is an American sitcom starring Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard as two matriarchs who were friends and next-door neighbors whose children's elopement rendered them in-laws. The show aired on NBC from September 1967 to April 1969; it was produced by Desi Arnaz after the dissolutions...
, which was produced by her old friend Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz
Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...
after the dissolution of Desilu. Several years later, she made a new sitcom pilot co-starring Don Knotts
Don Knotts
Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...
, but it failed to attract a network buyer.
Other credits
Arden was one of many stars to take on the title roles in Hello, Dolly!Hello, Dolly! (musical)
Hello, Dolly! is a musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1955....
and Auntie Mame
Auntie Mame
Auntie Mame is a 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis that chronicles the madcap adventures of a boy, Patrick, growing up as the ward of his deceased father's eccentric sister, Mame Dennis. The book is a work of fiction inspired by the author's eccentric aunt, Marion Tanner, whose life and outlook in many...
in the 1960s; in 1967, she won the Sarah Siddons Award
Sarah Siddons Award
The Sarah Siddons Society is an American non-profit organization founded in 1952 by prominent Chicago theatre patrons with the goal of promoting excellence in the theatre. The Society presents the Sarah Siddons Award annually to an actor for an outstanding performance in a Chicago theatre production...
for her work in Chicago theatre
Chicago theatre
Chicago theatre refers not only to theatre performed in Chicago, Illinois but also to the movement in that town that saw a number of small, meagerly-funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for tours sent out from...
. Arden was cast in 1983 as the leading lady in what was to be her Broadway comeback in Moose Murders
Moose Murders
Moose Murders is a play by Arthur Bicknell, self-described as a mystery farce.An immediate flop, it is now widely considered the standard of awfulness against which all Broadway failures are judged, and its name has become synonymous with those distinctively bad Broadway plays which open and close...
. But she wisely withdrew (and was replaced with the much younger Holland Taylor
Holland Taylor
Holland Virginia Taylor is an American actress of film, stage and television. Her notable television roles include Ruth Dunbar in Bosom Buddies, senator's wife Margaret Powers on Norman Lear's The Powers That Be, Judge Roberta Kittleson in The Practice and Evelyn Harper in Two and a Half...
) after one preview performance, citing "artistic differences", and the show went on to open and close on the same night, becoming known as one of the most legendary flops in Broadway history.
She became familiar to a new generation of film-goers when she played Principal McGee in both 1978's Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
and 1982's Grease 2
Grease 2
Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical film and sequel to Grease, which is based upon the musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Grease 2 was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch, who also choreographed the first film...
, as well as making appearances on such television shows as Alice
Alice (TV series)
Alice is an American sitcom television series that ran from August 31, 1976 to July 2, 1985 on CBS. The series was based on the 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. The show stars Linda Lavin in the title role, a widow who moves with her young son to start her life over again, and finds a job...
and Falcon Crest
Falcon Crest
Falcon Crest is an American primetime television soap opera which aired on the CBS network for nine seasons, from December 4, 1981 to May 17, 1990. A total of 227 episodes were produced....
. In 1985, she appeared as the wicked stepmother in the Faerie Tale Theatre
Faerie Tale Theatre
Faerie Tale Theatre is a live-action children's television anthology series retelling popular fairy tales. Shelley Duvall serves as narrator, host and executive producer of the program, and occasionally stars in episodes...
production of Cinderella.
Arden published her autobiography, The Three Phases of Eve, in 1985. In addition to her Academy Award nomination, Arden has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
: Radio and Television (see List of stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for addresses). She was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.
Personal life and death
Arden was married to Ned Bergen from 1939 to 1947, and to actor Brooks West from 1952 until his death in 1984 from a heart ailment. She and West had four children.Arden died from colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer, commonly known as bowel cancer, is a cancer caused by uncontrolled cell growth , in the colon, rectum, or vermiform appendix. Colorectal cancer is clinically distinct from anal cancer, which affects the anus....
and heart disease
Heart disease
Heart disease, cardiac disease or cardiopathy is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases affecting the heart. , it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, accounting for 25.4% of the total deaths in the United States.-Types:-Coronary heart disease:Coronary...
at her home in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
at the age of 82 and is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
The Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery is a cemetery in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, California. It is located at 1218 Glendon Avenue in Westwood....
in Westwood, California
Westwood, Los Angeles, California
Westwood is a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the home of the University of California, Los Angeles .-History:...
.
Features
- Song of Love (1929)
- Dancing LadyDancing LadyDancing Lady is a 1933 musical film starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, and featuring Franchot Tone, the fourth of eight collaborations between Crawford and Gable. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, produced by John W. Considine Jr. and David O. Selznick, and was based on the novel of the...
(1933) (cameo) - Oh Doctor (1937)
- Stage DoorStage DoorStage Door is a RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier,...
(1937) - Cocoanut Grove (1938)
- Having Wonderful TimeHaving Wonderful TimeHaving Wonderful Time is a 1938 romantic comedy film released by RKO Radio Pictures.-Plot summary :A bored New York office girl , goes to a camp in the Catskill Mountains called Camp Kare Free, for rest and to get away from the noise, busy, city life and finds a handsome waiter , and they fall in...
(1938) - Letter of Introduction (1938)
- Women in the Wind (1939)
- Big Town Czar (1939)
- The Forgotten Woman (1939)
- Eternally YoursEternally Yours (film)Eternally Yours is a 1939 American comedy film made by Walter Wanger and released by United Artists. The film was produced and directed by Tay Garnett with Walter Wanger as executive producer, from a screenplay by C. Graham Baker and Gene Towne....
(1939) - At the CircusAt the CircusAt the Circus is a 1939 Marx Brothers comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in which they save a circus from bankruptcy...
(1939) - A Child Is Born (1939)
- Slightly Honorable (1940)
- She Couldn't Say No (1940)
- No, No, NanetteNo, No, NanetteNo, No, Nanette is a musical comedy with lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach, music by Vincent Youmans, and a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, based on Mandel's 1919 Broadway play My Lady Friends...
(1940) - Comrade XComrade XComrade X is a 1940 lighthearted spy movie, starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr and directed by King Vidor.-Plot summary:In the Soviet Union, American reporter McKinley "Mac" Thompson secretly writes unflattering stories, attributed to "Comrade X", for his newspaper...
(1940) - That Uncertain FeelingThat Uncertain Feeling (film)That Uncertain Feeling is a 1941 comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Merle Oberon, Melvyn Douglas and Burgess Meredith. The film is about the bored wife of an insurance salesman who meets an eccentric pianist and seeks a divorce. The screenplay by Walter Reisch and Donald Ogden...
(1941) - Ziegfeld GirlZiegfeld Girl (film)Ziegfeld Girl is a 1941 American film starring James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, and Lana Turner, and co-starring Tony Martin, Jackie Cooper, Eve Arden, and Philip Dorn. Released by MGM, it was directed by Robert Z...
(1941) - She Knew All the Answers (1941)
- San Antonio Rose (1941)
- Whistling in the DarkWhistling in the Dark (1941 film)Whistling in the Dark is the first of three comedy films starring Red Skelton as Wally "the Fox" Benton, who writes and acts in radio murder mysteries. Wally is kidnapped by a greedy cult leader , who threatens to kill Wally's girlfriend and another young woman unless he concocts a perfect murder...
(1941) - ManpowerManpower (1941 film)Manpower is a 1941 film about power company linemen starring Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, and George Raft. The memorable posters for the movie proclaimed, "Robinson - He's mad about Dietrich. Dietrich - She's mad about Raft...
(1941) - Last of the Duanes (1941)
- Sing for Your Supper (1941)
- Bedtime Story (1941)
- Obliging Young Lady (1942)
- Hit Parade of 1943Hit Parade of 1943Hit Parade of 1943 also known as Change of Heart is a 1943 musical film made by Republic Pictures. It was directed by Albert S. Rogell and produced by Albert J. Cohen from a screenplay by Frank Gill Jr. and Frances Hyland....
(1943) - Let's Face It!Let's Face It!Let's Face It! is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields is based on the 1925 play The Cradle Snatchers by Russell Medcraft and Norma Mitchell....
(1943) - Cover Girl (1944)
- The Doughgirls (1944)
- Pan-Americana (1945)
- Earl Carroll Vanities (1945)
- Patrick the GreatPatrick the GreatPatrick the Great is a 1945 American film starring Donald O'Connor, Peggy Ryan, and Frances Dee. This was the last ever film for O'Connor and Ryan together, who had been a teenage team for the past several years. This was also O'Connor last film before he went to serve in World War II....
(1945) - Mildred PierceMildred Pierce (film)Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American drama film starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, and Eve Arden in a film noir about a long-suffering mother and her ungrateful daughter. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, William Faulkner, and Catherine Turney was based upon the 1941...
(1945) - My ReputationMy ReputationMy Reputation is a 1946 wartime love story, directed by Curtis Bernhardt. Barbara Stanwyck portrayed Jessica Drummond, an upper-class widow from Chicago who innocently falls in love with an army officer , much to the consternation of her gossipy friends and domineering mother...
(1946) - The Kid from BrooklynThe Kid from BrooklynThe Kid from Brooklyn is a 1946 comedy film starring Danny Kaye and co-starring Virginia Mayo, Vera-Ellen, Steve Cochran, and Eve Arden, about a milkman who becomes world boxing champion....
(1946) - Night and Day (1946)
- Song of ScheherazadeSong of ScheherazadeSong of Scheherazade is a 1947 musical film directed by Walter Reisch. It tells the story of an imaginary episode in the life of the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , in 1865, when he was a young naval officer on shore leave in Morocco...
(1947) - The Arnelo Affair (1947)
- The UnfaithfulThe UnfaithfulThe Unfaithful is a 1947 film noir based on the W. Somerset Maugham penned 1940 Bette Davis movie The Letter. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman.-Plot:Chris Hunter stabs a man in her home one night while her husband Bob is out of town...
(1947) - The Voice of the Turtle/One for the Book (1947)
- One Touch of VenusOne Touch of Venus (film)One Touch of Venus is a film directed by William A. Seiter, starring Robert Walker and Ava Gardner, released by Universal Studios, and based on the Broadway musical of the same name, book written by S. J. Perelman and Ogden Nash, with music composed by Kurt Weill...
(1948) - Whiplash (1948)
- My Dream Is YoursMy Dream Is YoursMy Dream Is Yours is a 1949 musical romantic comedy film starring Doris Day, Jack Carson and Lee Bowman.The film is perhaps best remembered today for an extended dream sequence combining animation and live action which featured a cameo appearance by Bugs Bunny, dancing with Jack Carson and Doris...
(1949) - The Lady Takes a SailorThe Lady Takes a SailorThe Lady Takes a Sailor is a 1949 comedy film starring Jane Wyman, Eve Arden and Dennis Morgan.-Plot:Jennifer Smith heads a "Consumer Reports"-type company and her reputation for honesty is her greatest asset. While out boating one day she encounters a secret prototype submarine piloted by Bill...
(1949) - Paid in Full (1950)
- Curtain Call at Cactus CreekCurtain Call at Cactus CreekCurtain Call at Cactus Creek is a 1950 American film starring Donald O'Connor and Gale Storm. In the story, a traveling entertainer gets mixed up with bank robbers....
(1950) - Tea for TwoTea for Two (film)Tea for Two is a 1950 American musical film directed by David Butler. The screenplay by Harry Clork and William Jacobs was inspired by the 1925 stage musical No, No Nanette, although the plot was changed considerably from the original book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, and the score by Harbach,...
(1950) - Three Husbands (1951)
- Goodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My Fancy is a 1951 Warner Bros. film starring Joan Crawford, Robert Young, and Frank Lovejoy in a light tale about a woman and her old flame. The screenplay by Ivan Goff was based upon a 1948 play by Fay Kanin. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by Henry Blanke...
(1951) - We're Not Married!We're Not Married!We're Not Married! is a romantic comedy film released by 20th Century Fox. The featured was directed by Edmund Goulding, and released on July 11, 1952....
(1952) - The Lady Wants Mink (1953)
- Our Miss BrooksOur Miss BrooksOur Miss Brooks is an American situation comedy starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television , it became one of the medium's earliest hits...
(1956) - Anatomy of a MurderAnatomy of a MurderAnatomy of a Murder is a 1959 American courtroom crime drama film. It was directed by Otto Preminger and adapted by Wendell Mayes from the best-selling novel of the same name written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker under the pen name Robert Traver...
(1959) - The Dark at the Top of the StairsThe Dark at the Top of the StairsThe Dark at the Top of the Stairs is a 1957 play by William Inge about family conflicts during the early 1920s in a small Oklahoma town. It won the Tony Award for Best Play and was made into a film in 1960.-Plot:...
(1960)
- Sergeant Dead Head (1965)
- The Strongest Man in the WorldThe Strongest Man in the WorldThe Strongest Man in the World is a 1975 film starring Kurt Russell, still a student in the fictional Medfield College. It is the sequel to the 1972 film Now You See Him, Now You Don't, itself a sequel to the 1969 film, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.-Plot:Medfield College's Dean Higgins is being...
(1975) - GreaseGrease (film)Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
(1978) - Under the RainbowUnder the RainbowUnder the Rainbow is a 1981 comedy film starring Chevy Chase, Carrie Fisher, Eve Arden, and Billy Barty.The plot is loosely based on the gathering of little people in a Hollywood hotel, to audition for roles as Munchkins in the movie The Wizard of Oz...
(1981) - PandemoniumPandemonium (film)Pandemonium is a 1982 comedy film spoofing horror movies. It had an ensemble cast including Eileen Brennan, Phil Hartman, Tab Hunter, Carol Kane, David Lander, Eve Arden, Paul Reubens, and Tom Smothers....
(1982) - Grease 2Grease 2Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical film and sequel to Grease, which is based upon the musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Grease 2 was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch, who also choreographed the first film...
(1982)
Short subjects
- Screen Snapshots: Off the Air (1947)
- Screen Snaphots: Hollywood Life (1954)