Today is Gene Tierney's birthday. She is one of my favorite actresses of Old Hollywood. The symmetry of her face is flawless perfection.
Gene Tierney (November 19, 1920 – November 6, 1991) was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her all time, she is best-remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura (1944) and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).
Tierney was born Gene Eliza Tierney in Brooklyn, New York. Tierney attended St. Margaret's School in Waterbury, Connecticut and the Unquowa School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her first poem, titled "Night," was published in the school magazine, and writing verse became an occasional pastime during the rest of her life. She then spent two years in Europe and attended the Brillantmont finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she learned to speak fluent French.
Tierney returned to the U.S. in 1938 and attended Miss Porter's School. On a trip to the West Coast, she visited Warner Bros. studios. Anatole Litvak, who was so taken by her beauty, told her that she should become an actress. Warner Bros. wanted to sign her to a contract, but her parents advised against it because of the low salary.
Tierney's coming-out party as a debutante occurred on September 24, 1938, when she was 17 years old. She was bored with society life and decided to pursue a career in acting. Her father felt "If Gene is to be an actress, it should be in the legitimate theatre.". Tierney auditioned for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and was accepted.
In 1944, she starred in what became her most famous role - the intended murder victim, Laura Hunt, in Otto Preminger's mystery film Laura, opposite Dana Andrews.
In "Laura", New York police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigates the murder of a beautiful advertising director named Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). He interviews acerbic newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), who relates how he met Laura. Lydecker became her mentor and used his considerable influence and fame to advance her career. McPherson also questions Laura's fiancé, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), her wealthy aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), and Laura's loyal housekeeper, Bessie Clary (Dorothy Adams).
Through the testimony of her friends and the reading of her letters, McPherson comes to know Laura and slowly falls in love with her. He becomes obsessed -- using the excuse of trying to solve the murder, he hangs around her apartment and is at one point accused by Lydecker of falling in love with a dead woman.
'Laura' is hardly just a murder mystery; it's a meditation on the brute force of a beautiful face.
Later, she played the jealous, narcissistic femme fatale Ellen Berent Harland, opposite Cornel Wilde, in the film version of the best-selling book Leave Her to Heaven, a performance that won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress (1945). Leave Her To Heaven was 20th Century Fox's most successful film of the 1940s.
