Gene Tierney
Encyclopedia
Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film
and stage
actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura
(1944) and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress
in Leave Her to Heaven
(1945).
Other notable roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can Wait
(1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor's Edge
(1946), Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
(1947), Ann Sutton in Whirlpool (1949), Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season
(1951) and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God
(1955). Certain of her film-related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University
Cinema Archives, to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access.
, New York
, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavina Taylor. She had an elder brother, Howard Sherwood “Butch” Tierney, Jr., and a younger sister, Patricia “Pat” Tierney. Her father was a prosperous insurance broker
of Irish
descent, her mother a former gym
teacher.
Tierney attended St. Margaret’s School in Waterbury, Connecticut
, and the Unquowa School in Bridgeport
, Connecticut. Her first poem, entitled “Night,” was published in the school magazine, and writing verse
became an occasional pastime during the rest of her life. She then spent two years in Europe
and attended the Brillantmont finishing school
in Lausanne
, Switzerland
, where she learned to speak fluent French
.
Tierney returned to the U.S. in 1938 and attended Miss Porter's School
. On a trip to the West Coast
, she visited Warner Bros.
studios. The director
Anatole Litvak
, who was so taken by the seventeen-year-old’s beauty, told her that she should become an actress. Warner Bros. wanted to sign her to a contract, but her parents advised against it because of the low salary.
Tierney’s coming-out party as a debutante
occurred on September 24, 1938, when she was 17 years old. She was bored with society life and decided to pursue a career in acting. Her father felt “If Gene is to be an actress, it should be in the legitimate theatre.” Tierney studied acting at a small Greenwich Village
acting
studio
in New York
with Benno Schneider.
, she carried a bucket of water across the stage in What a Life! (1938). A Variety
magazine critic declared, "Miss Tierney is certainly the most beautiful water carrier I’ve ever seen!" At the same time, she was an understudy for The Primrose Path (1938). The next year, she appeared in the role as Molly O' Day in the Broadway production Mrs. O' Brien Entertains (1939). The New York Times
critic Brooks Atkinson
wrote, "As an Irish maiden fresh from the old country, Gene Tierney in her first stage performance is very pretty and refreshingly modest." That same year, Tierney appeared as Peggy Carr in Ring Two (1939) to favorable reviews. Theater critic Richard Watts, Jr.
of the New York Herald Tribune
wrote, "I see no reason why Miss Tierney should not have an interesting theatrical career, that is if cinema does not kidnap her away."
Tierney’s father set up a corporation, Belle-Tier, to fund and promote her acting career (He later went on to steal all of her money). Columbia Pictures
signed her to a six-month contract in 1939. She also met Howard Hughes
, who tried unsuccessfully to seduce her, but she was from a well-to-do family and was not impressed by Hughes' wealth. He did, however, become a lifelong friend. A cameraman advised Tierney to lose a little weight, saying “a thinner face is more seductive.” Tierney then wrote to Harper’s Bazaar
for a diet, which she followed for the next twenty-five years. Years later Tierney was quoted as saying, "I love to eat. For all of Hollywood's rewards, I was hungry for most of those twenty-five years." Tierney was offered the lead role in National Velvet
but production was delayed. National Velvet would be produced at MGM
in 1944.
Columbia Pictures failed to find Tierney a project; so, she returned to Broadway
and starred as Patricia Stanley to critical and commercial success in The Male Animal
(1940). In The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote, "Tierney blazes with animation in the best performance she has yet given". She was the toast of Broadway before her 20th birthday.
The Male Animal was a hit, and Tierney was featured in Life
magazine. She was also photographed by Harper's Bazaar
, Vogue
and Collier's Weekly
.
Two weeks after The Male Animal opened, one evening before the curtain went up, there was a rumor that Darryl F. Zanuck
, the head of 20th Century Fox
had flown in from the coast and was in the audience. During the performance, he told an assistant to make a note of Tierney's name. Later that night, Zanuck dropped by the Stork Club
, where he saw a young lady on the dance floor. He told his assistant, "Forget the girl from the play
. See if you can sign that one." It was Tierney. Zanuck was not easily convinced that the two women were one and the same. Tierney was quoted after the fact, "I always had several different 'looks', a quality that proved useful in my career."
Hollywood called once again, Tierney signed with 20th Century-Fox. Her motion picture
debut was in a supporting role as Elenore Stone in Fritz Lang
's western
The Return of Frank James
(1940), opposite Henry Fonda
. A small role as Barbara Hall followed in Hudson's Bay (1941) with Paul Muni
.
Also, in 1941
, Tierney co-starred as Ellie Mae Lester in John Ford
's comedy
Tobacco Road
, along with the title role in Belle Starr
, Zia in Sundown and Victoria Charteris a.k.a. Poppy Smith in The Shanghai Gesture
. The following year
, she played Eve in Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake
, along with the dual role as Susan Miller a.k.a. Linda Worthington in Rouben Mamoulian
's screwball comedy film
Rings on Her Fingers
, Kay Saunders in Thunder Birds
and Miss Young in China Girl
.
Top billing in Ernst Lubitsch
's classic 1943 comedy
Heaven Can Wait
as Martha Strable Van Cleve signaled an upward turn in Tierney's career, as her popularity increased. Tierney recalled during the production of Heaven Can Wait, "Lubitsch was a tyrant on the set, the most demanding of directors. After one scene, which took from noon until five to get, I was almost in tears from listening to Lubitsch shout at me. The next day I sought him out, looked him in the eye, and said, 'Mr. Lubitsch, I'm willing to do my best but I just can't go on working on this picture if you're going to keep shouting at me.' 'I'm paid to shout at you', he bellowed. 'Yes', I said, 'and I'm paid to take it — but not enough.' After a tense pause, Lubitsch broke out laughing. From then on we got along famously." In 1944, she starred in what became her most famous role: the intended murder victim, Laura Hunt, in Otto Preminger
's film noir
Laura
, opposite Dana Andrews
. After playing Tina Tomasino in A Bell for Adano
(1945), she played the jealous, narcissistic femme fatale
Ellen Berent Harland, opposite Cornel Wilde
, in the film version of the best-selling Ben Ames Williams
novel Leave Her to Heaven
, a performance that won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress
(1945). Leave Her To Heaven was 20th Century-Fox's most successful film of the 1940s. It was cited by acclaimed director Martin Scorsese
as one of his favourite films of all time and assessed Gene Tierney as one of the most underrated actresses of the Golden Era.
In 1946, Tierney starred as Miranda Wells in Joseph L. Mankiewicz
's debut film as a director
in Dragonwyck, along with Walter Huston
and Vincent Price
. That same year, she starred in another critically praised performance as Isabel Bradley, opposite Tyrone Power
, in The Razor's Edge
, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham
's novel
. She followed that with her role as Lucy Muir in Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
(1947), which many critics and film scholars have noted to be her greatest performance (besides Laura
and The Razor's Edge
) for which she did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The following year, Tierney co-starred once again with Power, this time as Sara Farley in the successful screwball comedy film
That Wonderful Urge
(1948). As the decade came to a close, Tierney reunited with Laura director Preminger to star as Ann Sutton in the classic film noir
Whirlpool, co-starring Richard Conte
and José Ferrer
(1949).
Tierney gave memorable performances in two other film noirs (both in 1950
) — Jules Dassin
's Night and the City
and Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends
.
In 1951
, Tierney was loaned to Paramount Pictures
and gave a memorable comic turn as Maggie Carleton in Mitchell Leisen
's classic ensemble
screwball comedy film
The Mating Season
with John Lund
, Thelma Ritter
and Miriam Hopkins
. This was also the year Tierney gave a tender performance as Midge Sheridan in the Warner Bros.
film Close to My Heart
(1951) with Ray Milland
. The film is about a couple trying to adopt. Tierney felt this was her best role in a half-dozen years, as it touched the chords of her own experience. The film addressed the issue of "nature versus nurture
" and opened an early conversation about the adoption process. Later in her career she would be reunited with Milland in Daughter of the Mind
(1969), which has a cult following.
After appearing opposite Rory Calhoun
as Teresa in Way of a Gaucho
(1952), her contract at 20th Century-Fox expired. That same year she starred as Dorothy Bradford in Plymouth Adventure
, opposite Spencer Tracy
at MGM
, during which she had a brief romance with. Tierney then played Marya Lamarkina, opposite Clark Gable
, in Never Let Me Go (1953
), which was filmed in England. She found Gable patient and considerate, but lonely and vulnerable, as he was still mourning the death of Carole Lombard
. She remained in Europe
to play Kay Barlow in United Artists
' Personal Affair
(1953), which was released that same year. While Tierney was in Europe, she began a romance with Prince Aly Khan
, but their marriage plans met with fierce opposition from his father, Aga Khan III
. Early in 1953, Tierney returned to the U.S. to co-star in a film noir
film as Iris Denver in Black Widow
(1954) with Ginger Rogers
and Van Heflin
.
During 1953, Tierney's mental health problems were becoming harder for her to hide; she dropped out of Mogambo
and was replaced by Grace Kelly
. While playing Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God
(1955), opposite Humphrey Bogart
, Tierney’s long string of personal troubles finally took its toll. She said that “Bogey could tell that I was mentally unstable.” (Bogart himself had a sister who suffered from mental illness, to whom he was close.) During the production he fed Tierney her lines and encouraged her to seek help. Worried about her mental health, she consulted a psychiatrist and was admitted to Harkness Pavilion in New York
. Later, she went to The Institute of Living
in Hartford
, Connecticut
. After some 27 shock treatments
Tierney attempted to flee but was caught and returned. She became an outspoken opponent of shock treatment therapy, claiming that it had destroyed significant portions of her memory.
In 1957 Tierney was seen by a neighbor as she was about to jump from a ledge. The police were called and she was admitted to the Menninger Clinic
in Topeka, Kansas
on December 25. She was released from Menninger the following year after a treatment that included - in its final stages - working as a sales girl in a large department store (where she was recognized by a customer, resulting in sensational newspaper headlines).
Later that year 20th Century-Fox offered her a lead role in Holiday for Lovers
(1957), but the stress proved too great. Days into production she was forced to drop out of the film and was readmitted to Menninger.
(1962), co-starring with Franchot Tone
. A year later, she played Albertine Prine in Toys in the Attic
, followed by the International production of Las cuatro noches de la luna llena (1963) with Dan Dailey
. She received overall critical praise for her performances. Tierney's career turn as a solid character actress seemed to be on track. She played Jane Barton in The Pleasure Seekers
(1964), then again retired.
Tierney came back to star in the television movie
Daughter of the Mind
(1969) with Don Murray
and Ray Milland
. Her final performance was in the TV miniseries
Scruples (1980).
and fashion
designer
Oleg Cassini
on June 1, 1941. She and Cassini had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (October 15, 1943 - September 11, 2010) and Christina "Tina" Cassini (born November 19, 1948).
In June 1943, while pregnant
with Daria, Tierney contracted rubella
during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen
. Daria was born prematurely in Washington, D.C.
, weighing only three pounds, two ounces (1.42 kg) and requiring a total blood transfusion
. Because of Tierney's illness, Daria was also deaf
, partially blind
with cataract
s and had severe mental retardation
. Tierney's grief over the tragedy led to many years of depression and may have begun her bipolar disorder
. Some time after the tragedy surrounding her daughter Daria's birth, Tierney learned from a fan who approached her for an autograph at a tennis
party that the woman (who was then a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps) had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with rubella to meet Tierney at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. In her autobiography, Tierney related that after the woman had recounted her story, she just stared at her silently, then turned and walked away. She wrote, "After that I didn't care whether ever again I was anyone's favorite actress." Biographers have theorized that Agatha Christie
used this real-life tragedy as the basis of her plot for The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
. The incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information was imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in the story. Tierney's tragedy had been well-publicized for years previously. During this time, Howard Hughes
, an old friend, saw to it that Daria received the best medical care available, paying for all of her medical expenses. Tierney never forgot Hughes' acts of kindness.
Tierney separated from Cassini, challenged by the marital stress of Daria's condition, but they later reconciled and had a second daughter, Tina. During her separation, during the filming of Dragonwyck, she met a young John F. Kennedy
, who was visiting the set. They began a romance that ended the following year, when Kennedy told her he could never marry her because of his political ambitions. Tierney then reconciled with Cassini, but they divorced on February 28, 1952. "Cassini promised in his 1952 divorce from Gene Tierney that he would write a will leaving both of his daughters half of his fortune".
In 1960, Tierney sent Kennedy a note of congratulations on his election victory; she later admitted that she had voted for Richard Nixon
, saying, "I thought that he would make a better president."
In 1958, Tierney met Texas
oil
baron W. Howard Lee, who was married to Hedy Lamarr
from 1953 to 1960. Tierney and Lee married in Aspen
, Colorado
on July 11, 1960, and lived in Houston, Texas. She loved life in Texas with Lee and became an expert contract bridge
player. In 1962, 20th Century Fox announced Tierney would play the lead role in Return to Peyton Place
, but she became pregnant and dropped out of the project. She later miscarried.
Tierney's autobiography
, Self-Portrait, in which she candidly discussed her life, career and mental illness, was published in 1979.
On February 17, 1981, Tierney was widowed when Lee died after a long illness.
In 1986, Tierney was honored alongside actor Gregory Peck
with the first Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award
at the San Sebastian Film Festival Spain for their body of work. Also for her contribution to the motion picture industry, Tierney has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 6125 Hollywood Boulevard
in Hollywood
, California
.
Gene Tierney died in 1991, shortly before her 71st birthday, of emphysema
in Houston, Texas. She had started smoking after a screening of her first movie to lower her voice because "I sound like an angry Minnie Mouse." She became a heavy smoker, which contributed to her death. She is interred next to Lee in the Glenwood Cemetery
in Houston, Texas.
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
(1944) and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
in Leave Her to Heaven
Leave Her to Heaven
Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills...
(1945).
Other notable roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can Wait
Heaven Can Wait (1943 film)
Heaven Can Wait is a 1943 American comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson based on the play Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Edward Cronjager.The film tells the story of a man who has...
(1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor's Edge
The Razor's Edge (1946 film)
The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham....
(1946), Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick...
(1947), Ann Sutton in Whirlpool (1949), Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season
The Mating Season (film)
The Mating Season is a 1951 classic farce with elements of screwball comedy. A film made by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Mitchell Leisen and produced by Charles Brackett from a screenplay by Charles Brackett, Richard Breen and Walter Reisch, based on the play Maggie by Caesar Dunn...
(1951) and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God
The Left Hand of God
The Left Hand of God is a 1955 drama film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Buddy Adler, from a screenplay by Alfred Hayes, based on the novel The Left Hand of God by William Edmund Barrett. It stars Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney, with a supporting cast...
(1955). Certain of her film-related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
Cinema Archives, to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access.
Early life
Tierney was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavina Taylor. She had an elder brother, Howard Sherwood “Butch” Tierney, Jr., and a younger sister, Patricia “Pat” Tierney. Her father was a prosperous insurance broker
Insurance broker
An insurance broker finds sources for contracts of insurance on behalf of their customers. The three largest insurance brokers in the world, by revenue, are Aon, Marsh & McLennan, and Willis Group Holdings.-Purpose of insurance brokers:...
of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
descent, her mother a former gym
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
teacher.
Tierney attended St. Margaret’s School in Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, on the Naugatuck River, 33 miles southwest of Hartford and 77 miles northeast of New York City...
, and the Unquowa School in Bridgeport
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
, Connecticut. Her first poem, entitled “Night,” was published in the school magazine, and writing verse
Verse (poetry)
A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
became an occasional pastime during the rest of her life. She then spent two years in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and attended the Brillantmont finishing school
Finishing school
A finishing school is "a private school for girls that emphasises training in cultural and social activities." The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the educational experience, with classes primarily on etiquette...
in Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, where she learned to speak fluent French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
Tierney returned to the U.S. in 1938 and attended Miss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School
Miss Porter's School, sometimes simply referred to as Porter's or Farmington, is a private college preparatory school for girls located in Farmington, Connecticut.- History :...
. On a trip to the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
, she visited Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
studios. The director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Anatole Litvak
Anatole Litvak
Anatole Litvak was a Ukrainian-born filmmaker who wrote, directed, and produced films in a various countries and languages...
, who was so taken by the seventeen-year-old’s beauty, told her that she should become an actress. Warner Bros. wanted to sign her to a contract, but her parents advised against it because of the low salary.
Tierney’s coming-out party as a debutante
Debutante
A débutante is a young lady from an aristocratic or upper class family who has reached the age of maturity, and as a new adult, is introduced to society at a formal "début" presentation. It should not be confused with a Debs...
occurred on September 24, 1938, when she was 17 years old. She was bored with society life and decided to pursue a career in acting. Her father felt “If Gene is to be an actress, it should be in the legitimate theatre.” Tierney studied acting at a small Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
acting
Acting
Acting is the work of an actor or actress, which is a person in theatre, television, film, or any other storytelling medium who tells the story by portraying a character and, usually, speaking or singing the written text or play....
studio
Studio
A studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or the catchall term for an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of architecture, painting, pottery , sculpture, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, radio or television...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
with Benno Schneider.
Broadway
In Tierney’s first part on BroadwayBroadway 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...
, she carried a bucket of water across the stage in What a Life! (1938). A Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine critic declared, "Miss Tierney is certainly the most beautiful water carrier I’ve ever seen!" At the same time, she was an understudy for The Primrose Path (1938). The next year, she appeared in the role as Molly O' Day in the Broadway production Mrs. O' Brien Entertains (1939). The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
critic Brooks Atkinson
Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960...
wrote, "As an Irish maiden fresh from the old country, Gene Tierney in her first stage performance is very pretty and refreshingly modest." That same year, Tierney appeared as Peggy Carr in Ring Two (1939) to favorable reviews. Theater critic Richard Watts, Jr.
Richard Watts, Jr.
Richard Watts, Jr. was an American theatre critic.Born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Watts was educated at Columbia University. He began his writing career as the film critic for the New York Herald Tribune before assuming the post of the newspaper's drama critic in 1936.After spending World War...
of the New York Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
wrote, "I see no reason why Miss Tierney should not have an interesting theatrical career, that is if cinema does not kidnap her away."
Tierney’s father set up a corporation, Belle-Tier, to fund and promote her acting career (He later went on to steal all of her money). 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...
signed her to a six-month contract in 1939. She also met Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, who tried unsuccessfully to seduce her, but she was from a well-to-do family and was not impressed by Hughes' wealth. He did, however, become a lifelong friend. A cameraman advised Tierney to lose a little weight, saying “a thinner face is more seductive.” Tierney then wrote to Harper’s Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
for a diet, which she followed for the next twenty-five years. Years later Tierney was quoted as saying, "I love to eat. For all of Hollywood's rewards, I was hungry for most of those twenty-five years." Tierney was offered the lead role in National Velvet
National Velvet (film)
National Velvet is a 1944 drama film, in Technicolor, based on the novel by Enid Bagnold, published in 1935. It stars Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp and a young Elizabeth Taylor....
but production was delayed. National Velvet would be produced at MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
in 1944.
Columbia Pictures failed to find Tierney a project; so, she returned to 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...
and starred as Patricia Stanley to critical and commercial success in The Male Animal
The Male Animal
The Male Animal is a Warner Brothers film starring Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie.The film was based on a hit 1940 Broadway play of the same name written by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent. The screenplay was written by Stephen Morehouse Avery, Julius J. Epstein, and Philip G....
(1940). In The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote, "Tierney blazes with animation in the best performance she has yet given". She was the toast of Broadway before her 20th birthday.
The Male Animal was a hit, and Tierney was featured in Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine. She was also photographed by Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
, Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
and Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
.
Two weeks after The Male Animal opened, one evening before the curtain went up, there was a rumor that Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
, the head of 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
had flown in from the coast and was in the audience. During the performance, he told an assistant to make a note of Tierney's name. Later that night, Zanuck dropped by the Stork Club
Stork Club
The Stork Club was a nightclub in New York City from 1929 to 1965. From 1934 onwards, it was located at 3 East 53rd Street, just east of Fifth Avenue...
, where he saw a young lady on the dance floor. He told his assistant, "Forget the girl from the play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
. See if you can sign that one." It was Tierney. Zanuck was not easily convinced that the two women were one and the same. Tierney was quoted after the fact, "I always had several different 'looks', a quality that proved useful in my career."
Film career
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
debut was in a supporting role as Elenore Stone in Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
The Return of Frank James
The Return of Frank James
The Return of Frank James is a 1940 western film directed by Fritz Lang and starring Henry Fonda and Gene Tierney. It is a sequel to Henry King's 1939 film Jesse James. Written by Sam Hellman, the film loosely follows the life of Frank James following the death of his outlaw brother, Jesse James at...
(1940), opposite Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
. A small role as Barbara Hall followed in Hudson's Bay (1941) with Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...
.
Also, in 1941
1941 in film
The year 1941 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Citizen Kane, consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, was released in 1941.-Top grossing films :-Academy Awards:...
, Tierney co-starred as Ellie Mae Lester in John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
's comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
Tobacco Road
Tobacco Road (film)
Tobacco Road is a 1941 film directed by John Ford starring Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy and Dana Andrews. It was based on the novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell, but the plot was rewritten for the film.-Cast:...
, along with the title role in Belle Starr
Belle Starr (film)
Belle Starr is a 1941 20th Century Fox production directed by Irving Cummings loosely based on the life of a real American outlaw Belle Starr. Starring Gene Tierney, Randolph Scott and Dana Andrews-Plot summary:...
, Zia in Sundown and Victoria Charteris a.k.a. Poppy Smith in The Shanghai Gesture
The Shanghai Gesture
The Shanghai Gesture is a 1941 American United Artists film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney and Walter Huston, with Victor Mature and Ona Munson....
. The following year
1942 in film
The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
, she played Eve in Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake
Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake
Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake is a 1942 adventure film directed by John Cromwell, starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. The film was adapted from Edison Marshall's 1941 historical novel Benjamin Blake.-Plot:...
, along with the dual role as Susan Miller a.k.a. Linda Worthington in Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian was an Armenian-American film and theatre director.-Biography:Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to an Armenian family, Rouben relocated to England and started directing plays in London in 1922...
's screwball comedy film
Screwball comedy film
The screwball comedy is a principally American genre of comedy film that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. It is characterized by fast-paced repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, and plot lines involving...
Rings on Her Fingers
Rings on Her Fingers
Rings on Her Fingers is a 1942 screwball comedy film starring Henry Fonda and Gene Tierney. A poor man gets mistaken for a millionaire and is swindled out of his life savings.-Cast:* Henry Fonda as John Wheeler...
, Kay Saunders in Thunder Birds
Thunder Birds (1942 film)
Thunder Birds is a Technicolor film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, and John Sutton...
and Miss Young in China Girl
China Girl (1942 film)
China Girl is a 1942 drama film which follows the exploits of a newsreel photographer in China and Burma against the backdrop of World War II. The film was directed by Henry Hathaway, and stars Gene Tierney, George Montgomery, Lynn Bari and Victor McLaglen....
.
Top billing in Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...
's classic 1943 comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
Heaven Can Wait
Heaven Can Wait (1943 film)
Heaven Can Wait is a 1943 American comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson based on the play Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Edward Cronjager.The film tells the story of a man who has...
as Martha Strable Van Cleve signaled an upward turn in Tierney's career, as her popularity increased. Tierney recalled during the production of Heaven Can Wait, "Lubitsch was a tyrant on the set, the most demanding of directors. After one scene, which took from noon until five to get, I was almost in tears from listening to Lubitsch shout at me. The next day I sought him out, looked him in the eye, and said, 'Mr. Lubitsch, I'm willing to do my best but I just can't go on working on this picture if you're going to keep shouting at me.' 'I'm paid to shout at you', he bellowed. 'Yes', I said, 'and I'm paid to take it — but not enough.' After a tense pause, Lubitsch broke out laughing. From then on we got along famously." In 1944, she starred in what became her most famous role: the intended murder victim, Laura Hunt, 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 film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Laura
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
, opposite Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews
Dana Andrews was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s.-Early life:...
. After playing Tina Tomasino in A Bell for Adano
A Bell for Adano
A Bell for Adano is a film directed by Henry King starring John Hodiak and Gene Tierney. The film was adapted from the novel A Bell for Adano by John Hersey, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945. In his 1945 review of the film, Bosley Crowther wrote, "... this easily vulnerable picture, which came...
(1945), she played the jealous, narcissistic femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
Ellen Berent Harland, opposite Cornel Wilde
Cornel Wilde
Cornel Wilde was an American actor and film director.-Early life:Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary , although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City...
, in the film version of the best-selling Ben Ames Williams
Ben Ames Williams
Ben Ames Williams American writer who published over thirty novels, including All the Brothers Were Valiant ,Come Spring ,The Strange Woman , House Divided , Leave Her to Heaven and The Unconquered...
novel Leave Her to Heaven
Leave Her to Heaven
Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills...
, a performance that won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(1945). Leave Her To Heaven was 20th Century-Fox's most successful film of the 1940s. It was cited by acclaimed director Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
as one of his favourite films of all time and assessed Gene Tierney as one of the most underrated actresses of the Golden Era.
In 1946, Tierney starred as Miranda Wells in Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J...
's debut film as a director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
in Dragonwyck, along with Walter Huston
Walter Huston
Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:...
and Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
. That same year, she starred in another critically praised performance as Isabel Bradley, opposite Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
, in The Razor's Edge
The Razor's Edge (1946 film)
The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham....
, an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.-Childhood and education:...
's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
. She followed that with her role as Lucy Muir in Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick...
(1947), which many critics and film scholars have noted to be her greatest performance (besides Laura
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
and The Razor's Edge
The Razor's Edge (1946 film)
The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham....
) for which she did not receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The following year, Tierney co-starred once again with Power, this time as Sara Farley in the successful screwball comedy film
Screwball comedy film
The screwball comedy is a principally American genre of comedy film that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. It is characterized by fast-paced repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, and plot lines involving...
That Wonderful Urge
That Wonderful Urge
That Wonderful Urge is a 1948 20th Century Fox screwball comedy film, a remake of Love is News , directed by Robert Sinclair starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney.- Plot :...
(1948). As the decade came to a close, Tierney reunited with Laura director Preminger to star as Ann Sutton in the classic film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Whirlpool, co-starring Richard Conte
Richard Conte
Richard Conte was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films from the 1940s through 1970s, including I'll Cry Tomorrow and The Godfather.-Life and career:...
and José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
(1949).
Tierney gave memorable performances in two other film noirs (both in 1950
1950 in film
The year 1950 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 15 - Walt Disney Studios' animated film Cinderella debuts.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:*Ambush...
) — Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
's Night and the City
Night and the City
Night and the City is a film noir based on the novel by Gerald Kersh, directed by Jules Dassin, and starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney. Shot on location in London, the plot evolves around an ambitious hustler whose plans keep going wrong....
and Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Where the Sidewalk Ends is a 1950 American film noir directed and produced by Otto Preminger. The screenplay for the film was written by Ben Hecht, and adapted by Robert E. Kent, Frank P. Rosenberg, and Victor Trivas. The screenplay and adaptations were based on the novel Night Cry by William L....
.
1951 in film
The year 1951 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Sweden - May Britt is scouted by Italian film-makers Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
, Tierney was loaned to Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and gave a memorable comic turn as Maggie Carleton in Mitchell Leisen
Mitchell Leisen
Mitchell Leisen was an American director, art director, and costume designer.-Film career:He entered the film industry in the 1920s, beginning in the art and costume departments...
's classic ensemble
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
screwball comedy film
Screwball comedy film
The screwball comedy is a principally American genre of comedy film that became popular during the Great Depression, originating in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s. It is characterized by fast-paced repartee, farcical situations, escapist themes, and plot lines involving...
The Mating Season
The Mating Season (film)
The Mating Season is a 1951 classic farce with elements of screwball comedy. A film made by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Mitchell Leisen and produced by Charles Brackett from a screenplay by Charles Brackett, Richard Breen and Walter Reisch, based on the play Maggie by Caesar Dunn...
with John Lund
John Lund
John Lund was an American film actor who is probably best remembered for his role in the film A Foreign Affair , directed by Billy Wilder.-Background:...
, Thelma Ritter
Thelma Ritter
Thelma Ritter was an American supporting and character actress from the 1940s until her death in 1969.-Early life:...
and Miriam Hopkins
Miriam Hopkins
Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles.Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in Bainbridge, a town in the state's southwest near the Alabama border...
. This was also the year Tierney gave a tender performance as Midge Sheridan in the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
film Close to My Heart
Close to My Heart
Close to My Heart is a 1951 Warner Bros. drama directed by William Keighley, written by James R. Webb , and starring Ray Milland and Gene Tierney.-Plot:...
(1951) with Ray Milland
Ray Milland
Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...
. The film is about a couple trying to adopt. Tierney felt this was her best role in a half-dozen years, as it touched the chords of her own experience. The film addressed the issue of "nature versus nurture
Nature versus nurture
The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences...
" and opened an early conversation about the adoption process. Later in her career she would be reunited with Milland in Daughter of the Mind
Daughter of the Mind
Daughter of the Mind is a made-for-television suspense film starring Don Murray, Ray Milland and Gene Tierney. It was first broadcast on ABC on December 9, 1969 as the ABC Movie of the Week.-Plot:...
(1969), which has a cult following.
After appearing opposite Rory Calhoun
Rory Calhoun
Rory Calhoun was an American television and film actor, screenwriter and producer, best known for his roles in Westerns.-Early life:...
as Teresa in Way of a Gaucho
Way of a Gaucho
Way of a Gaucho ia a 1952 20th Century Fox western set in Argentina. It stars Gene Tierney and Rory Calhoun....
(1952), her contract at 20th Century-Fox expired. That same year she starred as Dorothy Bradford in Plymouth Adventure
Plymouth Adventure
Plymouth Adventure is a 1952 drama film with an ensemble cast starring Spencer Tracy, Gene Tierney, Van Johnson and Leo Genn, made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Clarence Brown, and produced by Dore Schary...
, opposite Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
at MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, during which she had a brief romance with. Tierney then played Marya Lamarkina, opposite Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, in Never Let Me Go (1953
1953 in film
The year 1953 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*September 16 — The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:A...
), which was filmed in England. She found Gable patient and considerate, but lonely and vulnerable, as he was still mourning the death of Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s...
. She remained in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
to play Kay Barlow in United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
' Personal Affair
Personal Affair
Personal Affair is a 1953 British drama film directed by Anthony Pelissier and starring Gene Tierney, Leo Genn, and Glynis Johns.-Plot summary:...
(1953), which was released that same year. While Tierney was in Europe, she began a romance with Prince Aly Khan
Prince Aly Khan
Prince Ali Solomone Aga Khan , known as Aly Khan was a son of Aga Khan III, the head of the Ismaili Muslims, and the father of Aga Khan IV. A socialite, racehorse owner and jockey, he was the third husband of actress Rita Hayworth...
, but their marriage plans met with fierce opposition from his father, Aga Khan III
Aga Khan III
Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah, Aga Khan III, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GCVO, PC was the 48th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. He was one of the founders and the first president of the All-India Muslim League, and served as President of the League of Nations from 1937-38. He was nominated to represent India to...
. Early in 1953, Tierney returned to the U.S. to co-star in a film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
film as Iris Denver in Black Widow
Black Widow (1954 film)
Black Widow is a 1954 mystery color film noir, written, produced and directed by Nunnally Johnson and starring Van Heflin, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney, and George Raft.-Plot:...
(1954) with Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
and Van Heflin
Van Heflin
Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin, Jr. was an American film and theatre actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man...
.
Health Issues
Mogambo
Mogambo is a 1953 film directed by John Ford, featuring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Donald Sinden. The film was adapted by John Lee Mahin from the play by Wilson Collison....
and was replaced by Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
. While playing Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God
The Left Hand of God
The Left Hand of God is a 1955 drama film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Buddy Adler, from a screenplay by Alfred Hayes, based on the novel The Left Hand of God by William Edmund Barrett. It stars Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney, with a supporting cast...
(1955), opposite Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, Tierney’s long string of personal troubles finally took its toll. She said that “Bogey could tell that I was mentally unstable.” (Bogart himself had a sister who suffered from mental illness, to whom he was close.) During the production he fed Tierney her lines and encouraged her to seek help. Worried about her mental health, she consulted a psychiatrist and was admitted to Harkness Pavilion in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Later, she went to The Institute of Living
The Institute of Living
The Institute of Living is a mental health center in Hartford, Connecticut which merged with Hartford Hospital in 1994. The hospital was built in 1823, and was opened to admissions in 1824. Eli Todd was its first director. The hospital cost $12,000 to build and could serve up to 40 patients at a time...
in Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. After some 27 shock treatments
Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...
Tierney attempted to flee but was caught and returned. She became an outspoken opponent of shock treatment therapy, claiming that it had destroyed significant portions of her memory.
In 1957 Tierney was seen by a neighbor as she was about to jump from a ledge. The police were called and she was admitted to the Menninger Clinic
Menninger Foundation
The Menninger Foundation was founded in 1919 by the Menninger family in Topeka, Kansas, and consists of a clinic, a sanatorium, and a school of psychiatry, all of which bear the Menninger name. In 2003, the Menninger Clinic moved to Houston. The foundation was started by Drs. Karl, Will, and...
in Topeka, Kansas
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka |Kansa]]: Tó Pee Kuh) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County. It is situated along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, located in northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was...
on December 25. She was released from Menninger the following year after a treatment that included - in its final stages - working as a sales girl in a large department store (where she was recognized by a customer, resulting in sensational newspaper headlines).
Later that year 20th Century-Fox offered her a lead role in Holiday for Lovers
Holiday for Lovers
Holiday for Lovers is a 1959 comedy film directed by Henry Levin. Based on a 1957 play by Ronald Alexander, the film stars Clifton Webb, Jane Wyman, Jill St. John and Carol Lynley.-Plot:...
(1957), but the stress proved too great. Days into production she was forced to drop out of the film and was readmitted to Menninger.
Comeback
Tierney made a screen comeback in Advise and ConsentAdvise and Consent (film)
Advise & Consent is a 1962 American motion picture based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Allen Drury, published in 1959. The movie was adapted for the screen by Wendell Mayes and was directed by Otto Preminger...
(1962), co-starring with Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of Mutiny on the Bounty and many other films through the 1960s...
. A year later, she played Albertine Prine in Toys in the Attic
Toys in the Attic (film)
Toys in the Attic is a 1963 American drama film starring Dean Martin, Geraldine Page, Yvette Mimieux, Gene Tierney and Wendy Hiller. The film was directed by George Roy Hill and is based on a Tony Award-winning play by Lillian Hellman...
, followed by the International production of Las cuatro noches de la luna llena (1963) with Dan Dailey
Dan Dailey
Daniel James Dailey Jr. was an American dancer and actor.-Early life and career:Born in New York City on December 14, 1915, to James J. and Helen Dailey, both born in New York City. He appeared in a minstrel show when very young, and appeared in vaudeville before his Broadway debut in 1937 in...
. She received overall critical praise for her performances. Tierney's career turn as a solid character actress seemed to be on track. She played Jane Barton in The Pleasure Seekers
The Pleasure Seekers
The Pleasure Seekers is a 1964 20th Century Fox motion picture starring Ann-Margret, Anthony Franciosa, and Carol Lynley, with Gardner McKay, Pamela Tiffin, Brian Keith, and Gene Tierney....
(1964), then again retired.
Tierney came back to star in the television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
Daughter of the Mind
Daughter of the Mind
Daughter of the Mind is a made-for-television suspense film starring Don Murray, Ray Milland and Gene Tierney. It was first broadcast on ABC on December 9, 1969 as the ABC Movie of the Week.-Plot:...
(1969) with Don Murray
Don Murray (actor)
Donald Patrick "Don" Murray is an American actor.-Early life and career:Murray was born in Hollywood, California on July 31, 1929, the only child of Dennis Aloisius, a Broadway dance director and stage manager and Ethel Murray, a former Ziegfeld performer...
and Ray Milland
Ray Milland
Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...
. Her final performance was in the TV miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
Scruples (1980).
Personal life
Tierney married twice, first to costumeCostume design
Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
and fashion
Fashion design
Fashion design is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. Fashion design is influenced by cultural and social latitudes, and has varied over time and place. Fashion designers work in a number of ways in designing clothing and accessories....
designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...
Oleg Cassini
Oleg Cassini
Oleg Cassini was a French-born American fashion designer noted for being chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy to design her state wardrobe in the 1960s....
on June 1, 1941. She and Cassini had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (October 15, 1943 - September 11, 2010) and Christina "Tina" Cassini (born November 19, 1948).
In June 1943, while pregnant
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
with Daria, Tierney contracted rubella
Rubella
Rubella, commonly known as German measles, is a disease caused by the rubella virus. The name "rubella" is derived from the Latin, meaning little red. Rubella is also known as German measles because the disease was first described by German physicians in the mid-eighteenth century. This disease is...
during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen
Hollywood Canteen
The Hollywood Canteen operated at 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, California between October 3, 1942 and November 22, 1945 as a club offering food, dancing and entertainment for servicemen, usually on their way overseas...
. Daria was born prematurely in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, weighing only three pounds, two ounces (1.42 kg) and requiring a total blood transfusion
Blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of receiving blood products into one's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used in a variety of medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood...
. Because of Tierney's illness, Daria was also deaf
Hearing impairment
-Definition:Deafness is the inability for the ear to interpret certain or all frequencies of sound.-Environmental Situations:Deafness can be caused by environmental situations such as noise, trauma, or other ear defections...
, partially blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
with cataract
Cataract
A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye or in its envelope, varying in degree from slight to complete opacity and obstructing the passage of light...
s and had severe mental retardation
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
. Tierney's grief over the tragedy led to many years of depression and may have begun her bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
. Some time after the tragedy surrounding her daughter Daria's birth, Tierney learned from a fan who approached her for an autograph at a tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
party that the woman (who was then a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps) had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with rubella to meet Tierney at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. In her autobiography, Tierney related that after the woman had recounted her story, she just stared at her silently, then turned and walked away. She wrote, "After that I didn't care whether ever again I was anyone's favorite actress." Biographers have theorized that Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
used this real-life tragedy as the basis of her plot for The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on November 12, 1962 and in US by Dodd, Mead and Company in September 1963 under the shorter title of The Mirror Crack'd and with a copyright date of 1962...
. The incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information was imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in the story. Tierney's tragedy had been well-publicized for years previously. During this time, Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, an old friend, saw to it that Daria received the best medical care available, paying for all of her medical expenses. Tierney never forgot Hughes' acts of kindness.
Tierney separated from Cassini, challenged by the marital stress of Daria's condition, but they later reconciled and had a second daughter, Tina. During her separation, during the filming of Dragonwyck, she met a young John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, who was visiting the set. They began a romance that ended the following year, when Kennedy told her he could never marry her because of his political ambitions. Tierney then reconciled with Cassini, but they divorced on February 28, 1952. "Cassini promised in his 1952 divorce from Gene Tierney that he would write a will leaving both of his daughters half of his fortune".
In 1960, Tierney sent Kennedy a note of congratulations on his election victory; she later admitted that she had voted for Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, saying, "I thought that he would make a better president."
In 1958, Tierney met Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
oil
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
baron W. Howard Lee, who was married to Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
from 1953 to 1960. Tierney and Lee married in Aspen
Aspen, Colorado
The City of Aspen is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 5,804 in 2005...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
on July 11, 1960, and lived in Houston, Texas. She loved life in Texas with Lee and became an expert contract bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
player. In 1962, 20th Century Fox announced Tierney would play the lead role in Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place is a 1959 novel by Grace Metalious, a sequel to her best-selling 1956 novel Peyton Place.-Plot summary:After the phenomenal success of her first novel, Metalious hastily penned a sequel centering on the life and loves of bestselling author Allison MacKenzie, who ironically...
, but she became pregnant and dropped out of the project. She later miscarried.
Tierney's autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, Self-Portrait, in which she candidly discussed her life, career and mental illness, was published in 1979.
On February 17, 1981, Tierney was widowed when Lee died after a long illness.
In 1986, Tierney was honored alongside actor Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
with the first Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award
Donostia Award
The Donostia Award is an honorific award given every year to one, two or three actors in the San Sebastián International Film Festival. It was created in 1986.-Award winners:*2011: Glenn Close.*2010: Julia Roberts.*2009: Ian McKellen....
at the San Sebastian Film Festival Spain for their body of work. Also for her contribution to the motion picture industry, Tierney has a star 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...
at 6125 Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard
-Revitalization:In recent years successful efforts have been made at cleaning up Hollywood Blvd., as the street had gained a reputation for crime and seediness. Central to these efforts was the construction of the Hollywood and Highland shopping center and adjacent Kodak Theatre in 2001...
in Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Gene Tierney died in 1991, shortly before her 71st birthday, of emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
in Houston, Texas. She had started smoking after a screening of her first movie to lower her voice because "I sound like an angry Minnie Mouse." She became a heavy smoker, which contributed to her death. She is interred next to Lee in the Glenwood Cemetery
Glenwood Cemetery (Houston, Texas)
The Glenwood Cemetery is located at 2525 Washington Avenue in Houston, Texas. It was the first cemetery in Houston to be professionally designed and opened in 1871. The cemetery is situated between Washington Avenue on the North side and Memorial Drive on the South side, the latter overlooking...
in Houston, Texas.
Credits in theatre, film, and television
| Year | Title | Format/genre | Role | Staged by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1938 | What A Life! | Original Play, Comedy | Walk on, Water carrier | |
| 1938 | Original Play, Drama/Comedy | Understudy | ||
| 1939 | Mrs O' Brian Entertains | Original Play, Comedy | Molly O' Day | |
| 1939 | Ring Two | Original Play, Comedy | Peggy Carr | |
| 1940 | Original Play, Comedy | Patricia Stanley |
| Year | Title | Role | Director | Other cast members | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1940 | Eleanor Stone | Henry Fonda Henry Fonda Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins... |
Technicolor Technicolor Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952... |
||
| 1941 | Hudson's Bay Hudson's Bay (film) Hudson's Bay is a 1941 Historical drama by 20th Century Fox starring Paul Muni, Gene Tierney and Laird Cregar. The film is about a pair of French-Canadian explorers whose findings lead to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company... |
Barbra Hall | |||
| 1941 | Tobacco Road Tobacco Road (film) Tobacco Road is a 1941 film directed by John Ford starring Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy and Dana Andrews. It was based on the novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell, but the plot was rewritten for the film.-Cast:... |
Ellie Mae Lester | |||
| 1941 | Belle Starr Belle Starr (film) Belle Starr is a 1941 20th Century Fox production directed by Irving Cummings loosely based on the life of a real American outlaw Belle Starr. Starring Gene Tierney, Randolph Scott and Dana Andrews-Plot summary:... |
Belle Starr Belle Starr Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr , better known as Belle Starr, was a notorious American outlaw.-Early life:... |
Technicolor | ||
| 1941 | Sundown Sundown (film) Sundown is a 1941 war film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Bruce Cabot and Gene Tierney. The film's adventure story, set against a war backdrop was well received by critics, earning three Academy Award nominations and was a box office success.... |
Zia | Bruce Cabot Bruce Cabot Bruce Cabot was an American film actor, best remembered as Jack Driscoll in King Kong . He is also known for his roles in films such as the sixth version of Last of the Mohicans, Fritz Lang's Fury and the western Dodge City.-Early life:Cabot was born Etienne Pelissier Jacques de Bujac in Carlsbad,... |
||
| 1941 | Victoria Charteris aka Poppy Smith |
Walter Huston Walter Huston Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:... |
|||
| 1942 | Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake is a 1942 adventure film directed by John Cromwell, starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. The film was adapted from Edison Marshall's 1941 historical novel Benjamin Blake.-Plot:... |
Eve | Tyrone Power Tyrone Power Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,... |
Sepia tone (sequences) | |
| 1942 | Rings on Her Fingers Rings on Her Fingers Rings on Her Fingers is a 1942 screwball comedy film starring Henry Fonda and Gene Tierney. A poor man gets mistaken for a millionaire and is swindled out of his life savings.-Cast:* Henry Fonda as John Wheeler... |
Susan Miller (aka Linda Worthington) | Henry Fonda | ||
| 1942 | Thunder Birds Thunder Birds (1942 film) Thunder Birds is a Technicolor film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, and John Sutton... |
Kay Saunders | Technicolor | ||
| 1942 | China Girl China Girl (1942 film) China Girl is a 1942 drama film which follows the exploits of a newsreel photographer in China and Burma against the backdrop of World War II. The film was directed by Henry Hathaway, and stars Gene Tierney, George Montgomery, Lynn Bari and Victor McLaglen.... |
Miss Young | George Montgomery | ||
| 1943 | Heaven Can Wait Heaven Can Wait (1943 film) Heaven Can Wait is a 1943 American comedy film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson based on the play Birthday by Leslie Bush-Fekete. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Edward Cronjager.The film tells the story of a man who has... |
Martha Strabel Van Cleve | Don Ameche Don Ameche Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:... |
Technicolor | |
| 1944 | Laura Laura (1944 film) Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary.... |
Laura Hunt Laura (novel) Laura is a detective novel by Vera Caspary. It is her best known work, and was adapted into a popular film in 1944, with Gene Tierney in the title role.-Publication history:... |
|||
| 1945 | Tina Tomasino | John Hodiak John Hodiak John Hodiak was an American actor who worked in radio and film.-Early life:He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Walter Hodiak and Anna Pogorzelec . He was of Ukrainian and Polish descent... |
|||
| 1945 | Leave Her to Heaven Leave Her to Heaven Leave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills... |
Ellen Brent Harland | |||
| 1946 | Dragonwyck | Miranda Wells Van Ryn | |||
| 1946 | Isabel Bradley Maturin | ||||
| 1947 | Lucy Muir | ||||
| 1948 | Anne Gouzenko | Dana Andrews | |||
| 1948 | That Wonderful Urge That Wonderful Urge That Wonderful Urge is a 1948 20th Century Fox screwball comedy film, a remake of Love is News , directed by Robert Sinclair starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney.- Plot :... |
Sara Farley | Tyrone Power | ||
| 1949 | Whirlpool | Ann Sutton | |||
| 1950 | Night and the City Night and the City Night and the City is a film noir based on the novel by Gerald Kersh, directed by Jules Dassin, and starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney. Shot on location in London, the plot evolves around an ambitious hustler whose plans keep going wrong.... |
Mary Bristol | Richard Widmark Richard Widmark Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death... |
||
| 1950 | Where the Sidewalk Ends Where the Sidewalk Ends Where the Sidewalk Ends is a 1950 American film noir directed and produced by Otto Preminger. The screenplay for the film was written by Ben Hecht, and adapted by Robert E. Kent, Frank P. Rosenberg, and Victor Trivas. The screenplay and adaptations were based on the novel Night Cry by William L.... |
Morgan Taylor (Paine) | Dana Andrews | ||
| 1951 | Maggie Carleton McNulty | ||||
| 1951 | On the Riviera On the Riviera On the Riviera is a 1951 musical comedy film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Walter Lang, produced by Sol C. Siegel from a screenplay by Valentine Davies and Phoebe and Henry Ephron, based on the play The Red Cat by Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler, with dance sequences choreographed and... |
Lili Duran | Danny Kaye Danny Kaye Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian... |
Technicolor | |
| 1951 | Marcia Stoddard | Glenn Ford Glenn Ford Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades... |
|||
| 1951 | Close to My Heart Close to My Heart Close to My Heart is a 1951 Warner Bros. drama directed by William Keighley, written by James R. Webb , and starring Ray Milland and Gene Tierney.-Plot:... |
Midge Seridan | Ray Milland Ray Milland Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting... |
||
| 1952 | Way of a Gaucho Way of a Gaucho Way of a Gaucho ia a 1952 20th Century Fox western set in Argentina. It stars Gene Tierney and Rory Calhoun.... |
Teresa | Rory Calhoun Rory Calhoun Rory Calhoun was an American television and film actor, screenwriter and producer, best known for his roles in Westerns.-Early life:... |
Technicolor | |
| 1952 | Plymouth Adventure Plymouth Adventure Plymouth Adventure is a 1952 drama film with an ensemble cast starring Spencer Tracy, Gene Tierney, Van Johnson and Leo Genn, made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Clarence Brown, and produced by Dore Schary... |
Dorothy Bradford | Technicolor | ||
| 1953 | Never Let Me Go | Marya Lamarkina | Clark Gable Clark Gable William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh... |
||
| 1953 | Personal Affair | Kay Barlow | |||
| 1954 | Black Widow Black Widow (1954 film) Black Widow is a 1954 mystery color film noir, written, produced and directed by Nunnally Johnson and starring Van Heflin, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney, and George Raft.-Plot:... |
Iris Denver | Ginger Rogers Ginger Rogers Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century.... |
CinemaScope CinemaScope CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically... , Deluxe color |
|
| 1954 | Baketamon | CinemaScope, Deluxe color | |||
| 1955 | Anne Scott | Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.... |
CinemaScope, Deluxe color | ||
| 1962 | Advise and Consent Advise and Consent (film) Advise & Consent is a 1962 American motion picture based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Allen Drury, published in 1959. The movie was adapted for the screen by Wendell Mayes and was directed by Otto Preminger... |
Dolly Harrison | Panavision Panavision Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product... |
||
| 1963 | Toys in the Attic Toys in the Attic (film) Toys in the Attic is a 1963 American drama film starring Dean Martin, Geraldine Page, Yvette Mimieux, Gene Tierney and Wendy Hiller. The film was directed by George Roy Hill and is based on a Tony Award-winning play by Lillian Hellman... |
Albertine Prine | Dean Martin Dean Martin Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"... |
||
| 1963 | Las cuatro noches de la luna llena | Dan Dailey Dan Dailey Daniel James Dailey Jr. was an American dancer and actor.-Early life and career:Born in New York City on December 14, 1915, to James J. and Helen Dailey, both born in New York City. He appeared in a minstrel show when very young, and appeared in vaudeville before his Broadway debut in 1937 in... |
English title: Four Nights of the Full Moon Four Nights of the Full Moon Four Nights of the Full Moon directed by Sobey Martin is a 1963 Documento short film, starring an international ensemble cast with Gene Tierney, Dan Dailey and Analia Gade.-Cast:* Gene Tierney* Dan Dailey* Analia Gade* Don Jame de Mora y Aragon... |
||
| 1964 | Jane Barton | Ann-Margret Ann-Margret Ann-Margret Olsson is a Swedish-American actress, singer and dancer whose professional name is Ann-Margret. She became famous for her starring roles in Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, The Cincinnati Kid, Carnal Knowledge, and Tommy... |
CinemaScope, Deluxe color |
| Year | Title | Role | Other cast members | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947 | Sir Charles Mendl Show | Herself | Host: Sir Charles Mendl | |
| 1953 | Toast of the Town The Ed Sullivan Show The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan.... |
Herself | Host: Ed Sullivan Ed Sullivan Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S... |
Episode #6.33 |
| 1954 | 26th Academy Awards 26th Academy Awards The 26th Academy Awards honored the best in films of 1953.The second national telecast of the Awards show draws an estimated 43,000,000 viewers. Shirley Booth, appearing in a play in Philadelphia, presents the Best Actor award through a live broadcast cut-in, and privately receives the winner's... |
Herself | Host: Donald O'Connor Donald O'Connor Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule... , Fredric March Fredric March Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr... |
Presenter: Costume Design Costume design Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such... Awards |
| 1957 | What's My Line? What's My Line? What's My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasked celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations.... |
Herself | Host: John Charles Daly John Charles Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (generally known as John Charles Daly or simply John Daly (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was an American journalist, game show host and radio personality, probably best known for hosting... |
Episode: August 25, Mystery guest |
| 1960 | General Electric Theater General Electric Theater General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald W. Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.-Radio:... |
Ellen Galloway | Host: Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor.... |
Episode: "Journey to a Wedding" |
| 1969 | Faye Simpson | Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I. He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the series Maverick and as the voice behind the character Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Animated Series... |
Episode: "Conspiracy of Silence" | |
| 1969 | Daughter of the Mind Daughter of the Mind Daughter of the Mind is a made-for-television suspense film starring Don Murray, Ray Milland and Gene Tierney. It was first broadcast on ABC on December 9, 1969 as the ABC Movie of the Week.-Plot:... |
Lenore Constable | Ray Milland Ray Milland Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting... |
TV movie |
| 1974 | Herself | Host: Merv Griffin Merv Griffin Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting... |
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| 1979 | Herself | Host: Merv Griffin Merv Griffin Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting... |
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| 1980 | Herself | Host: Johnny Carson Johnny Carson John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987... |
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| 1980 | Herself | Host: Mike Douglas | ||
| 1980 | Dinah! Dinah! Dinah! is a daytime talk show hosted by singer and actress Dinah Shore, which aired in American syndication markets through 20th Century Fox Television from its premiere on September 9, 1974 until the summer of 1980... |
Herself | Host: Dinah Shore Dinah Shore Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality... |
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| 1980 | Scruples Scruples (novel) Scruples is a 1978 novel by Judith Krantz. A direct sequel, Scruples Two, was published in 1992.The novel details the life story of protagonist Wilhelmina Hunnewell Winthrop , as she evolves from the overweight "poor relation" in an aristocratic Boston Brahmin family to become a thin, stylish... |
Harriet Toppington | Lindsay Wagner Lindsay Wagner Lindsay Jean Wagner is an American actress. She is probably best known for her portrayal of Jaime Sommers in the 1970s television series The Bionic Woman , though she has maintained a lengthy career in a variety of other film and television productions since.-Early life:Wagner was born in Los... |
TV Mini-series |
| 1999 | Biography Biography (TV series) Biography is a documentary television series. It was originally a half-hour filmed series produced for CBS by David Wolper from 1961 to 1964 and hosted by Mike Wallace. The A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987... |
Herself (archive material) | Host: Peter Graves Peter Graves (actor) Peter Aurness , known professionally as Peter Graves, was an American film and television actor. He was best known for his starring role in the CBS television series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973... |
"Gene Tierney: A Shattered Portrait", biographical documentary, March 26 |
About Tierney
By Tierney
Cultural references
- Tierney was ranked number 71 in Premiere Magazines list of "The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars of All Time". They said, "Tierney, a classic beauty, may at first seem too elegant to be a sex symbol, but her Oscar-nominated performance as the femme fatal in Leave Her to HeavenLeave Her to HeavenLeave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills...
firmly established her sexy cred. Plus, Tierney owned her look. She didn't let studio executives mess with her hair color or length, and refused to fix a slight overbite, earning extra sexy points for confidence." - When Grauman's Chinese TheatreGrauman's Chinese TheatreGrauman's Chinese Theatre is a movie theater at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It is on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame.The Chinese Theatre was commissioned following the success of the nearby Grauman's Egyptian Theatre which opened in 1922...
resumed cement handprints and footprints after World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
ended in 1945, Tierney was the first actress asked to continue the tradition. - A tribute to her popularity was a famous skit referring to Tierney. Dean MartinDean MartinDean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
and Jerry LewisJerry LewisJerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
performed a comedy routine in which Lewis (in boxing shorts and gear) states he's fighting Gene Tierney. Martin corrects Lewis and suggests that he must mean Gene TunneyGene TunneyJames Joseph "Gene" Tunney was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1926-1928 who defeated Jack Dempsey twice, first in 1926 and then in 1927. Tunney's successful title defense against Dempsey is one of the most famous bouts in boxing history and is known as The Long Count Fight...
(the heavyweight boxing champion). Lewis then quips, "You fight who you wanna fight, I'm fight'n who I wanna fight; I'm fight'n Gene Tierney." - Contrary to some published reports, Gene's birth nameEugene (given name)Eugene is a common first name that comes from the Greek εὐγενής , "noble", literally "well-born". Gene is a common shortened form...
was never "JeanJean (female given name)Jean is a common female given name in English-speaking countries. It is the Scottish form of Jane . It is sometimes spelt Jeaine...
." Tierney was named after a beloved uncle, who died young as told in her autobiography, Self-Portrait. - In House ArrestHouse arrestIn justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
, a third-season episode of M*A*S*H*, Henry Blake remarks while watching Leave Her to HeavenLeave Her to HeavenLeave Her to Heaven is a 1945 American 20th Century Fox Technicolor film noir motion picture starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, with Vincent Price, Darryl Hickman, and Chill Wills...
that "Cornel WildeCornel WildeCornel Wilde was an American actor and film director.-Early life:Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary , although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City...
just kissed Gene Tierney." Hawkeye Pierce replies, "If he's straightened out that overbite, I'll kill him." - Tierney was the heroine of a novel, Gene Tierney and the Invisible Wedding Gift, written by Kathryn Heisenfelt, published by Whitman Publishing Company in 1947. While the heroine is identified as a famous actress, the stories are entirely fictitious. The story was probably written for a young teenage audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy DrewNancy DrewNancy Drew is a fictional young amateur detective in various mystery series for all ages. She was created by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of the Stratemeyer Syndicate book packaging firm. The character first appeared in 1930. The books have been ghostwritten by a number of authors and are published...
. It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions," 16 books published between 1941 and 1947 that featured a film actress as heroine. - Tierney negotiated a unique contract with a raise every six months, and she was to be given half a year off—with written notice to the studio—to appear on Broadway.
External links
- Gene Tierney: the Official Web Site
- Gene Tierney at The Biography Channel
- Gene Tierney: A Biography by Michelle VogelMichelle VogelMichelle Vogel is an Australian-born film historian and author. Vogel has written biographies on Gene Tierney, Marjorie Main and Olive Thomas. She has also written two books on Joan Crawford.-Books:*Gene Tierney: A Biography...