#bridget duff

A Fourth For TV

IDA LUPINO JOINS TRIO OF STARS IN FILM SERIES

Ida Lupino, who this season is the fourth permanent star--with Dick Powell, Charles Boyer and David Niven--on CBS’ Four Star Playhouse, likes to refer to herself as “the guest who came to dinner.” 

She did a one-shot for Four Star two years ago. Then she did another. Then another. “I just stuck around,” she says laconically, “and I’m still here.” This season she is doing eight half-hour dramas for the program.

At her admitted 35, Ida Lupino retains a remarkably trim “figgah,” as her British relatives like to call it, although she bewails the fact that she currently weighs 122 pounds. Frank Lloyd Wright himself, however, couldn’t have arranged them better. The “figgah” is topped by an equally trim mind that, at least in the ways of business, works like a man’s. Which is also why she works as a regular on Four Star.

“A dame,” says outspoken Dick Powell, “can stop to powder her nose at the wrong time and $3000 goes down the drain. ‘Lupe’ knows when to powder and when not to powder.”

Lupey, in fact, knows just about everything there is to know, as far as the making of pictures is concerned, and this includes an acute understanding of the budget.

“Miss Lupino,” states Four Star director Roy Kellino in clipped British tones, “is a professional. She is a trouper. She is never late. She always knows her lines. She knows how to improvise. And she will stand all day on a recently broken ankle because she knows that if the picture goes into another day of shooting, it will cost more money. I admire Miss Lupino tremendously.”

So, in point of fact, do a number of other people. Her former husband, Collier Young, is her partner in Arc Productions, an independent movie company. He also produced and helped write the pilot of her proposed TV film series, Mr. Adams and Eve. Her present husband, actor Howard Duff, is also her partner in Arc Productions and her co-star in Mr. Adams and Eve. Joan Fontaine, Young’s present wife, recently starred in a picture which was directed by Miss Lupino. The four are jolly good friend as well as business associates.

Ida Lupino is probably the only actress in Hollywood, if not in the entire world, whose theatrical geneology [sic] can be traced back some 500 years to the days when jugglers and strolling players were all the rage in England. Many of them were named Lupino. Her parents, Stanley Lupino and Connie Emerald, were performers of no little note in England, and little Ida’s backyard playhouse was literally that--a miniature theater.

Despite the Lupino history of stage activity, however, little Ida made her public debut as a bit player in a movie back in 1932. This was somewhat to the consternation of the older members of the Lupino clan, but with the hearty approval of her father. She has been appearing in or directing or writing films ever since.

Lupey fell into directing back in 1949, when she and Collier Young were producing their first picture together, “Not Wanted.” The director became ill on the first day of shooting and Lupey, who had had a hand in the script, was rushed into the breach.

“Directing is much easier than acting,” she explains. “The actor deals in false emotions, produced on cue. The director has his problems, but they’re all normal. He doesn’t have to smile into a camera while suffering through an early morning grouch.”

Lupey dismisses live TV with characteristic frankness: “I don’t want to get into Forest Lawn cemetery before my time.”

Duff lost eight pounds while doing his first live TV show on Climax! last season and the memory of his skeletonize figure continues to serve her as a horrible example.

IDA’ LUPINO’S 18-month-old DAUGHTER VISTS FATHER ON FILM SET

Bridge Duff, 18-month-old daughter of Ida Lupino, shown above, and Howard Duff, is shown visiting her actor-daddy on the set of Universal-International’s “Tanganyika.”  The photo, taken last week, is the most recent of the film stars and their baby.

Bridget Mirella Duff, 9-months-old daughter of screen stars Howard Duff and Ida Lupino, today has been christened by the Rev. Walter A. Mueller at the Hollywood Congregational Church. Collier Young, Miss Lupino's former husband, and screen star Joan Fontaine, participated in the ceremony as God-parents.