Gene Tierney



American actress (1920 - 1991) and major contract star for Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s and early 1950s. Considered one of the all-time great screen beauties, she is best remembered as the title character in 1944's Laura (in which she was quite believably cast as a woman so beautiful the detective investigating her murder falls in love with her portrait) and for 1945's Leave Her to Heaven (Fox's highest grossing movie of the decade, which tells you something about how cinema has changed). Her chilling performance in the latter earned her her only Academy Award nomination, for Best Actress.

She was married to fashion designer Oleg Cassini from 1941 to 1952. He designed most of the outfits she wore in her movies. During a brief separation she had an affair with John F. Kennedy. Howard Hughes was also a lifelong friend. She married Texas oilman W. Howard Lee in 1960 (shortly after his divorce from Hedy Lamarr; some guys have all the luck) and remained with him until his death in 1981.

Her beauty was matched only by the tragedy of her personal life. While pregnant with her first child, Daria Cassini, in 1943, Tierney contracted rubella. Daria was subsequently born premature, deaf, partially blind, and severely retarded. These problems contributed to (or, perhaps, outright caused) Tierney's own depression and bipolar disorder. Years later a woman approached her at a party and said that she had sneaked out of a rubella quarantine to meet her when Tierney appeared at the Hollywood Canteen, a wartime club that catered to soldiers and sailors on leave where Hollywood stars would appear. Tierney simply stared at the woman, then turned and walked away. She later wrote, "After that I didn't care whether ever again I was anyone's favorite actress." It is generally accepted (though unconfirmed) that this was the basis for Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. Tierney's health problems led her to largely leave acting after 1955's The Left Hand of God; she appeared only sporadically after that.

Roles include:

 * Belle Starr
 * Heaven Can Wait
 * Laura
 * Leave Her to Heaven (one of Martin Scorsese's all-time favorite films)
 * Dragonwyck
 * The Razors Edge
 * The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
 * Whirlpool
 * Night And The City
 * Where the Sidewalk Ends
 * The Mating Season
 * Plymouth Adventure
 * The Left Hand of God