Ida Lupino: A Biography

I have been a fan of Ida Lupino's eversince I was a teenager and saw her in High Sierra. Ida Lupino was a golden girl of the Warner Brothers lot in the 1940's. Having come from a family of entertainers, Lupino worked hard to get where she got, whilst yearning to do more. This more came in the form of movie directing. Lupino's talents, I believe, are overlooked nowadays, given that she was one of the first female movie directors to come out of Hollwood, paving the way for other female directors to surface in later years. Donati's book offers a good insight into the career of Ida Lupino (the actress and the filmaker). The writer also provides an adequate insight into Ida Lupino the person and the neurosis that motivated her for so many years. It surprises me that there are not more writings dedicated to the career of Ida Lupino. It seems these days that very few people know who she is, let alone what she managed to achieve in an industry that was very much ruled by men. Donati has given us a book that is easy to read. A recommended read for all film buffs!

William Donati's book, Ida Lupino, a biography, was very interesting and well written. Some of the data is in line with the A and E biography, but some is not. I have to agree with just one of the other reviewers in the fact that very little is said about Ms. Lupino's daughter, Bridget Duff as a grown woman. It came out very strongly that Ms.Lupino had a never ending concern about what her father thought. Ms. Lupino's roles on the screen were that of woman who, while flawed, were very interesting. One could not help to think about what would have happened if she was given better roles. Her constant feuds with Warner Bros. and many suspensions for not accepting lousy parts were outlined in the book. Another thing that the book does not go into is, why after 60 plus movies as an actress, 6 as a directors and 100+ as a TV director, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and sciences and the Emmy Awards has completely overlooked Lupino. Overall, I liked the book very much.

This book provides a concise and in-depth investigation on what drove Ida Lupino, not only as an actress but to become Hollywood's first female director. Starting off with a background look at the Lupino family the author, William Donati, gives us at the foundation upon which Ida was driven to carry on in the family business, and would eventually lead her to Hollywood. Here we are given a real life look at what actors had to endure during the studios contract days, in which they controlled not only the lives of their stars, but their careers as well. We learn of the battles Ida had to put up with, both artistically and physically, and how the glamorous life of a star could be anything but. This treatment would eventually lead her to split from the studios and strike out on her own, as an independent. Here we learn of her first foray into directing, and the constant struggle to finance and put out quality films. This is paralleled with the conflict between her career and personal life, as we are given a clear glimpse at her failed marriages, and her battle with herself. The author gives us a real fans eye look at this great actress come director. Truly a must book for any fan of Hollywood's golden age.

William Donati, also author of an excellent book on Errol Flynn, chooses to write about stars in a way they--and the reader--can appreciate: with a careful balance between what is fiction and what really happened. Thus is his approact to Ida Lupino. She is could be called one of Hollywood's first women power elite--and she had a turbulent and accomplished career to prove it. Donati should be applauded for not stooping to sacrificing fact, always more interesting (and riskier and harder) to write than empty speculative sensationalism.

In the best cigarette-stained vernacular of 1940's film noir, Ida Lupino was one "tough dame." With steely eyes, a husky voice, and a tongue quickened by candor, the woman earned her celluloid stripes by rarely backing down. And judging by William Donati's well- researched work, Ida Lupino: A Biography, the actress's headstrong screen persona matched her real-life manners. Like a downtown train, Lupino had moxie. When Lupino died two years ago at age seventy-seven, interested readers were still waiting for the star's definitive biography. Donati's book fills that void. The author offers up a linear, plainspoken account of Lupino's long career as a film and television actress, and, more important, her maverick role as one of Hollywood's first female directors. British-born, and reared in a famous, theatrical family, Lupino landed in Hollywood in 1933, determined to succeed. Her ambition, however, bordered on arrogance. Despite a generous $600 a week salary from Paramount, the young actress opposed the studio's plan to cast her as an ingénue. Donati recounts how Lupino upset the applecart by refusing to appear in Cleopatra, where "she was given five lines and expected to stand behind Claudette Colbert waving a large palm frond." Lupino's defiance led to a suspension, her first scrap in a lifelong tangle with studio heads. Her early frustration with "shallow roles and mediocre films" hastened both a break with Paramount and a shrewd, propitious makeover. Gone was the blond, Kewpie Doll look modeled after Jean Harlow. In its place, Lupino reverted to her natural brown hair, while fashioning a dark, hard-boiled mien that became her stock in trade. By the early 1940s she was working at Warner Brothers, winning acclaim in They Drive by Night, Out of the Fog, The Sea Wolf, and her benchmark film, High Sierra, where she earned top billing over a still unheralded Humphrey Bogart. Donati examines the full Lupino canon - performances consisting mostly of a woman gone bad, gone mad, or, if nothing else, a woman dangerously out of kilter. Still, he fails to note the irony in a fiercely independent Lupino, who, having once rebelled against typecasting, being typecast just the same. In one melodrama after another, Lupino played femme fatales, prone to anger, hysteria, and ill fortune. The actress herself liked to say that she made her money as "a poor man's Bette Davis." It's no wonder that Lupino's roles rattled the Motion Picture Producers and Distributers of America, or MPA - a watchdog group headed by Joseph Breen. In one example, Donati cites the MPA's Production Code taking exception to Lupino's "bad girl" portrayal in The Sea Wolf: "Before filming, the Breen Office informed Warner Brothers that Ida's character could not be a prostitute nor could she be referred to as a slut. A revised script made her `a fugitive of justice.'" Acting chores aside, the more trenchant sections of Donati's Ida Lupino: A Biography center on the