Ida Lupino (born February 4, 1918, London, England—died August 3, 1995, Burbank, California, U.S.) was an English-born American film and television actress, director, and screenwriter who first gained fame through her portrayals of strong, worldly-wise characters and went on to become one of the first women to direct films in Hollywood.

Early life and work

Lupino was born into one of England’s most-celebrated theatrical families. As a child, she acted in a model theater built by her father, and she entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at age 13. After her film debut in Her First Affaire (1932), she appeared in several inconsequential roles before being cast as a vengeful prostitute in The Light That Failed (1939). That led to weighty roles in such films as They Drive by Night (1940), in which the actress gave perhaps her best performance, playing an unstable wife who is in love with one of her husband’s employees; High Sierra (1941), a classic crime drama starring Humphrey Bogart; and The Sea Wolf (1941), an adaptation of a Jack London novel, with Lupino cast as a fugitive and Edward G. Robinson as a brutal sea captain. In the thriller Ladies in Retirement (1941) she played a murderous maid, and in The Hard Way (1943) she gave an acclaimed performance as a ruthless woman who pushes her sister to pursue an entertainment career in order to escape their small town.

Directing

With her second husband, Collier Young (her first husband was actor Louis Hayward), Lupino founded a production company in 1949 and began writing scripts, tackling such controversial topics as rape, illegitimacy, and bigamy. Their first project was the unwed-mother drama Not Wanted (1949), which Lupino produced and coscripted with Paul Jarrico. Director Elmer Clifton fell ill midway through the production, and Lupino stepped in and completed it; her work was not credited, however. She made her official directing debut with Never Fear (1949; also known as The Young Lovers), a low-budget drama in which Not Wanted star Sally Forrest played a young dancer stricken with polio. With that film Lupino became Hollywood’s first credited female director since the retirement of Dorothy Arzner in 1943. In 1950 Lupino also became the second woman admitted to the Directors Guild of America.

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Lupino’s production company signed an agreement with RKO to be its distribution arm. Their first joint venture was Outrage (1950), a socially conscious tale about the devastating aftereffects of a rape on a young woman (played by Mala Powers); Lupino, Young, and Malvin Wald cowrote the script. Although Lupino and Young divorced in 1951, they continued their professional relationship. Their next venture was Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951), a drama about a teenaged tennis star (Forrest) shamelessly exploited by her mother (Claire Trevor). Lupino’s direction was deft, but the picture suffered from a weak script. Lupino, who continued to act, was then cast as a lonely blind woman who helps heal the psychic wounds of a police detective (Robert Ryan) in the potent crime yarn On Dangerous Ground (1951). But she again found herself behind the camera (in an uncredited capacity) when director Nicholas Ray suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1953 Lupino directed her masterpiece, the grim film noir The Hitch-Hiker, which was 71 minutes of unabated tension. It centres on two friends (Frank Lovejoy and Edmond O’Brien) who, while on a fishing trip, pick up a stranded man (William Talman) only to discover that he is a psychopath wanted for murder. The film earned acclaim, and it is considered to be the only noir made by a woman. After Lupino and Young parted ways with RKO, she directed and starred in The Bigamist (1953), an occasionally maudlin but not unaffecting melodrama with O’Brien as a businessman who marries two women (Lupino and Joan Fontaine).

Later work

Although Lupino did not helm another theatrical film for 13 years, she remained busy. In 1956 she began directing episodes of television shows, and she eventually worked on more than 40 programs, including The Donna Reed Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Have Gun—Will Travel, The Fugitive, Dr. Kildare, The Twilight Zone, Bewitched, and Gilligan’s Island. In addition, she also directed several made-for-TV movies.

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During that time Lupino continued to act, and her notable acting credits included Women’s Prison (1955), in which she played a sadistic warden; The Big Knife (1955), an adaptation of Clifford Odets’s play, with Lupino as the wife of a cheating actor; and While the City Sleeps (1956), Fritz Lang’s crime drama about a serial killer. Lupino was a star (1953–56) of the dramatic television anthology Four Star Playhouse and appeared with her third husband, Howard Duff, in the television sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve (1957–58); she also was cast in countless television shows as a guest star. In 1966 she directed her last motion picture, the innocuous but pleasant comedy The Trouble with Angels; it centers on a rebellious teen (Hayley Mills) who makes life difficult for the mother superior (Rosalind Russell) at a convent school in Pennsylvania. Lupino then helmed several television shows before retiring from directing in 1968.

Lupino subsequently focused on her acting career, and many of her later roles were on TV series, including The Streets of San Francisco, Columbo, Ellery Queen, and Charlie’s Angels. The most notable of her later motion-picture performances came in Sam Peckinpah’s Junior Bonner (1972), a drama in which she portrayed the mother of an aging rodeo star (Steve McQueen). From 1975 a series of health problems impaired her ability to work, and she was forced to retire after starring in My Boys Are Good Boys (1978). Her memoir Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera (cowritten with Mary Ann Anderson) was published posthumously in 2011.