BIOGRAPHY OF STARS

Chronicle (Levin), 5 October 1946, Page 6

BIOGRAPHY OF STARS

IDA LUPINO A BORN ACTRESS The Lupinos- have been actors for some three hundred years now. They originally started as eircus clowns in Italy and toured all over the continent, flnally landing in England, to settle and stay, a little over two hundred years ago. Ida's father, Staiiley, was the last of the Lupinos to star in London pantomime. His starring career was cut short when he was killed in the London "blitz" of 1942. Miss Lupino, who is a born actress, can look back with considerable satisfaction on a number of cinematic achievements. Possibly the chief of these is the reason for Miss Lupino's arrival. in Hollywood. She made her film debut in England at the tender age of 13-i-. She, her sister and her brother had had a tiny theatre in the Lupino home from the time that all of them had been able to toddle. Acting — with the natural influence of her father and her mother, had belpn natural with them. Ida decided she was ready for actual work and got a job in a picture that had John Loder in the leading male role. Despite her youth, Ida played Loder's inamorata, and played it well. After that she found work only here and there until William A. Wellman announced that he was going to film "The Light that Failed." The part of "Bessie" was one she long had yearned to play. She stormed the Wellman offiee. Ida knew she could play this part. "Make me believe it" said the terse Wellman. And with as fine a slice of drama as one could wish for she delivered a reading. She got the part. "Then," she said, "all of a sudden every studio in Hollywood found out I could do drama." Her success in such pictures as "High Sierra," "Sea Wolf," "Ladies in Retirement" and "The Hard Way"

has served a double duty in proving Ida capable and the producers right. Miss Lupino has written songs, poems, essays, stories, screen plays and stage plays. Drama still claims her in "In our Time," and in "Devotion," the story of the Bronte sisters, she has her most powerful dramatic role. In private life Ida is the wife of Louis Hayward, well known Hollywood film figure.