Ida Lupino

by William Donati

Ida Lupino was more than a gorgeous image of American film noir of the forties and fifties. Although her talent before the lights made her a major star in classics such as They Drive By Night, High Sierra, and Road House, Lupino evolved into one of Hollywood's earliest female directors, one its most prolific, substantive, and innovative artists behind the camera. Drama spilled from the stage into Lupino's personal life. William Donati chronicles the conflicts of her three important failed marriages that helped forge this determined and fearless maker of films, the spectre of communism that swept Hollywood, the obstacles that she encountered as a lone woman film director. That she considered herself "a poor man's Bette Davis" belies her vast talents: from The Light That Failed (1939) to her exceptional performance in Sam Peckinpah's Junior Bonner (1972), she lit up the silver screen for over thirty years. Cast opposite many of the greatest American stars - Ronald Colman, Joan Crawford,