Laura began when Twentieth Century-Fox discovered author Vera Caspary's novel of the same name. First serialized in the popular magazine Collier's Weekly in 1942 under the title Ring Twice for Laura, the story was published the following year in book form called Laura.

The haunting suspense tale full of twists and turns about the beautiful and elusive Laura and the various men who loved her came to the attention of producer and director Otto Preminger while he was in the midst of directing one of his earliest films Margin for Error in 1943. Of all the novels and potential ideas that came through Twentieth Century-Fox at the time, it was one of only two projects that captured his immediate interest.

It is necessary in the tale of Laura's journey to the silver screen to first understand the significant rift that existed between Otto Preminger and Fox Production Chief Darryl Zanuck.

Darryl Zanuck was at Fox when Preminger was first brought over to Hollywood from Austria where he had been working as a director and actor. Preminger and Zanuck were good friends in the early days when Preminger started his film career at Fox.

After proving himself as a director on a series of small B-films at Fox, the talented Preminger was finally given his first plum assignment on an A-picture when Zanuck tapped him to direct a screen version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped (1938). Zanuck, as was his practice for the studio's biggest films, would personally produce.

Even though he was thrilled to get the assignment and appreciated what it would mean for his career, Preminger knew from the beginning that he was the wrong director for Kidnapped. He didn't like the story and could not relate to the subject matter. He turned the project down.

However, at the urging of many people around him including Gregory Ratoff, whom Preminger described as "an actor whose peculiar function was to be Zanuck's emissary to stars and directors," he eventually decided to take the assignment against his better judgment. Ratoff had told him that refusing Zanuck at this stage of his career would be like signing his own death warrant in Hollywood.

As predicted, the shoot on Kidnapped did not go well. Preminger and Zanuck got into many arguments over the direction of the film. Finally, after Preminger refused to apologize to Zanuck after a particular incident, he was taken off the picture, which was ultimately completed by someone else (and turned out to be a big flop). Even though Zanuck had to honor Preminger's contract and keep him on the payroll for the next few years, Preminger was completely shut out of Hollywood both professionally and socially after butting heads with the powerful studio chief.

After the initial setback in Hollywood, Preminger went east to New York where he was able to find success directing and acting in plays on Broadway. When Darryl Zanuck took a leave of absence from Hollywood during World War II to be a photographer in the army, he left his executive assistant William Goetz in charge of running the studio until he returned.

With Goetz now in charge and Zanuck temporarily out of the picture, Preminger was able to gradually creep his way back into Hollywood. Without Zanuck's knowledge, of course.

Preminger started working again at Fox first as an actor, and then as a director with the film Margin for Error, which he had also directed as a play in New York. Goetz ended up putting Preminger under contract to the studio for seven years as an actor, producer and director - still without Zanuck's knowledge.

It was during this time working for Goetz that Preminger decided he wanted to make a film version of the Laura novel. As he told film director Peter Bogdanovich in an interview in the late 1960s, he loved that Laura was different from other suspense stories in its big plot twist. "You see, a suspense picture depends mainly on finding a new gimmick," said Preminger according to Bogdanovich's 1997 book Who the Devil Made It. "There are very few new plots. If you can find something different, as in this case, where a girl you thought was dead automatically becomes a murder suspect by walking into her own apartment - that helps." Goetz looked over the material and gave him the green light. Preminger intended to direct it as well as produce.

It was right around this time during Laura's pre-production that Darryl Zanuck returned to his position at Fox following his military service. When he found out that Preminger was back under contract, he was "incensed" about it, along with many other decisions that Goetz had made in his absence.

When Zanuck found out about the plans for Laura he summoned Preminger to a meeting at his Santa Monica beach house. The two had not spoken in six years since the Kidnapped episode.

The meeting was tense. "A butler escorted me through the house to the garden where Zanuck was sitting in swimming trunks beside his pool," described Preminger in his autobiography. "His back was to me. He glanced around briefly and then gave me the back of his head again. He picked up a piece of paper and said, 'I see you are working on a few things. I don't think much of them except for one, Laura. I've read it, and it isn't bad. You can produce it, but as long as I am at Fox you will never direct. Good-bye.' 'Goodbye,' I said to his back and left."

Zanuck placed Otto Preminger as well as the Laura project in the B-film unit under the guidance of Bryan Foy, the head of the B-picture unit at Fox. The B-films were generally treated as routine productions with lower budgets and fast-paced production schedules. The A-films, on the other hand, had large budgets with first rate actors, writers and directors and were treated with great care by the studio.

Preminger set to work getting a suitable screenplay adaptation completed of Caspary's novel. At first he worked with a writer named Jay Dratler, but there were problems with the dialogue.

Next, Preminger hired the writing team of Samuel Hoffenstein and Betty Reinhardt. "Hoffenstein practically created the character of Waldo Lydecker for Clifton Webb," said Preminger. "He was in the habit of overwriting, but after the scenes were edited, his dialogue was brilliant." By the time the script was done, there was essentially a whole new plot. "From the original book we retained only the gimmick of Laura first appearing to be the victim of a murder and afterward, when she returns, becoming the chief suspect," said Preminger.

Author Vera Caspary was not pleased and asked Preminger why he was making a B-picture out of her novel. "I told her it would be an excellent film," he answered. "She wasn't convinced. In fact, no one liked the script but those of us who had worked on it."

Bryan Foy told Preminger that the script was awful. Preminger, however, knew that he had something special. He told Foy that he wanted Zanuck himself to take a look at the script he had helped create. "[Foy] was incredulous," recalled Preminger. "'Zanuck hates you,' he said. 'All you need is for him to read this lousy script. He'll fire you.'" With confidence, Preminger told him that he was willing to take that chance.

To address the issue, Zanuck called both Foy and Preminger into his office a few days later after he had read the script. He asked Foy why he didn't like it. Foy said that among other things, he didn't like that it was a police story that didn't have a single scene that took place in a police station. According to Preminger, Zanuck glared at Foy and said, "The fact that it doesn't have a routine scene in a police station is exactly what I like about it. I'll take over the supervision of the picture."

With that nod of support from Zanuck, it meant that Laura had been placed in the higher profile A-picture category at Fox, which was great news both for the film and for Preminger.

Even though it seemed like Preminger was slowly beginning to inch his way back into Zanuck's good graces, he had to contend with the fact that Zanuck still had no intention of allowing him to direct Laura. Instead, Zanuck sent the script off to several different directors including Lewis Milestone, but they all turned the project down. "As the refusals mounted," said Preminger, "Zanuck's position on the script became increasingly uncertain."

Zanuck advised Preminger on how to make the script better through a series of memos. He wanted Waldo's lines to be punched up to be funnier and referenced Monty Woolley's performance in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) as a guideline. The character of Laura in the early drafts Zanuck described as "a mess" and "neither interesting nor attractive." All of the characters, said Zanuck in a memo dated November 1, 1943 "should seem as if they stepped out of The Maltese Falcon [1941]--everyone a distinct, different personality. This is what made The Maltese Falcon. It wasn't the plot, it was the amazing characters. The only chance this picture has of becoming a big-time success is if these characters emerge as real outstanding personalities. Otherwise it will become nothing more than a blown-up Whodunit."

Preminger continued to hold out hope that he would eventually be allowed to direct. In the meantime, however, he occupied himself with putting the right cast in place, beginning with the role of Laura.

After both Jennifer Jones and Hedy Lamarr turned the part down, Preminger and Zanuck finally found their Laura in the beautiful actress Gene Tierney. Then in her early 20s, Tierney had a few roles under her belt in Hollywood, but was not yet a major star.

It was a rough period in Tierney's life when the opportunity to make Laura came along. She and her husband, famed fashion designer Oleg Cassini, had recently welcomed a baby daughter named Daria into the world. However, their joy soon turned to anguish when it became apparent that the baby suffered from numerous afflictions including blindness and developmental problems that came as a result of Tierney's being infected with German Measles during her pregnancy (a story that Agatha Christie famously used in her 1962 novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side). Heartbroken and bereft, Tierney was advised by her doctors to get back to work to help her focus her energies in a positive way.

"I liked the script," she said in her 1979 autobiography Self-Portrait, "but after one reading was unenthused about my role. The time on camera was less than one would like. And who wants to play a painting?" She found the story intriguing, but "unorthodox" with the shifting viewpoints of the different men in Laura's life. She wasn't sure it would work. "In truth," said Tierney, "only Otto Preminger had absolute faith in the project."

It also gave Tierney pause that a talented actress like Jennifer Jones had turned down the role. "It is possible," she said, "that I did not mind the part so much as the idea of being second choice. 'If Jennifer Jones doesn't want it,' I asked Darryl Zanuck, 'why should I?'

'The role is right for you, Gene,' Zanuck assured me. 'You'll be good in it. And, you'll see, this one will help your career.'"

Tierney decided to trust him and accepted the role. "I had a hunch he might be right," she said, "and I always tried to play my hunches. Really, I was in no position to be picky. I had not made a picture in over a year. My husband was still in the army. The extent of our baby daughter's problems was not yet known. I needed to get back to work."

For the important role of no-nonsense police detective Mark McPherson Otto Preminger took a gamble on Dana Andrews, whom Preminger described at the time as a "young Fox contract actor with only a few screen credits."

Next up was the role of Waldo Lydecker. "In my view," said Preminger, "the role of Waldo Lydecker was critical to the success of Laura. The audience should not realize that he was the villain."

Zanuck wanted Preminger to cast actor Laird Cregar as Waldo, but Preminger disagreed. While Cregar was a fine actor who could undoubtedly handle the complex role, he was also an actor associated mostly with heavies. Because of this, argued Preminger, audiences would be easily tipped off that he was probably the villain. Preminger made the case that he wanted someone for Waldo who was unfamiliar to film audiences. It was Clifton Webb who immediately came to mind.

Webb had gotten his feet wet in Hollywood during its early silent days, but had not made a film in over 15 years. At the time Laura was being assembled, he was in his mid-fifties working primarily as a respected stage actor. Preminger believed that he would be perfect for the part of Waldo and asked him to look at the Laura script one night following Webb's performance in a Los Angeles production of the play Blithe Spirit. Webb agreed.

Zanuck, however, was not keen on hiring Clifton Webb - especially since he hadn't worked in Hollywood in years. Rufus LeMaire, the head of Fox's casting department, agreed and added that Webb was far too effeminate for the role. "He doesn't walk, he flies!" said LeMaire according to Otto Preminger.

To Zanuck's credit, however, he allowed Preminger the opportunity to make a screen test with Webb playing opposite Gene Tierney "to give Webb the best possible chance." However, Webb refused to make the test. "My dear boy," he said according to Preminger, "if your Mr. Zanuck wants to see if I can act let him come to the theatre. I don't know your Miss Tierney and I don't want to make a test with her."

In response, Darryl Zanuck was just as rigid. "I don't want to see him on the stage playing Noel Coward," he told Preminger. "I want to see him on film playing the part of Waldo Lydecker."

Clifton Webb, however, maintained that he was not being a diva when he refused to make a screen test playing Waldo. "I told [Preminger] this would be quite impossible because I had a night performance and a matinee the next day, and I felt I could not learn the lines in such a short space of time, and I couldn't give any characterization to it if I were rushed into it," said Webb according to the 2011 book Sitting Pretty: The Life and Times of Clifton Webb.

Preminger came up with a plan to get what he wanted. "Without telling Zanuck, I took a film unit to the theatre where Webb was performing," explained Preminger in his autobiography. "When the audience was gone, Webb, standing on the empty stage, delivered his famous monologue from Blithe Spirit. It made a superior piece of film...The next part was tricky. I had to risk Zanuck's wrath. I confessed to him what I had done and asked him to look at the test. He was furious. But when the screening was over he behaved with the fairness that was part of his complicated nature. 'You're a son of a bitch,' he said, 'but you're right. He's very good. You can have Clifton Webb.'"

To round out the cast, Preminger tapped a young handsome Vincent Price to play Laura's rakish parasite of a fiancé Shelby Carpenter in one of his best roles. The two had worked together before in a Broadway production of Outward Bound that Preminger directed in the late 30s and got along well. Dame Judith Anderson was tapped to play Laura's wealthy and scheming aunt Ann Treadwell.

At long last Zanuck finally found a director for Laura in the form of Rouben Mamoulian (Queen Christina [1933], Golden Boy [1939]). "He didn't like the script any more than others who had turned it down," said Preminger, "but he had no other jobs in sight and needed the money."

As an added bonus, Mamoulian's wife Azadia Newman was a popular artist and painter in Hollywood at the time, and she agreed to paint an original portrait of Gene Tierney to be used in the film. The portrait was Laura's most important prop and crucial to the story.

With cameras set to roll and Mamoulian in the director's chair, everything seemed in place for Laura to begin. No one knew at the time what a classic that Laura would become or that Mamoulian's days behind the camera were numbered. Except, perhaps, for Preminger.

by Andrea Passafiume