Gene Tierney


Actor
Gene Tierney

About

Also Known As
Gene Eliza Tierney
Birth Place
Brooklyn, New York, USA
Born
November 19, 1920
Died
November 06, 1991
Cause of Death
Emphysema

Biography

When Paramount Pictures fumbled Gene Tierney’s proposed film debut in its aborted adaptation of "National Velvet," 20th Century Fox saw promise in the gimlet-eyed beauty with the regal cheekbones and curiously beguiling overbite. Honing her craft under extreme conditions – she brooked the tempers of such autocratic émigrés as Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch and Otto Preminger – Tierney emerge...

Photos & Videos

Laura - Lobby Card Set
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Movie Posters
Leave Her to Heaven - Movie Posters

Family & Companions

Oleg Cassini
Husband
Fashion designer. Eloped and married on June 1, 1941; had stormy marriage with frequent separations; separated in the late 1940s; reconciled briefly; divorced on February 28, 1952; had come to Hollywood in early 1940s to deisgn clothes at Paramount; worked as costume designer for Fox at Tierney's suggestion.
Howard Hughes
Companion
Producer, financier. Hughes reportedly proposed marriage.
John F Kennedy
Companion
Politician. US Senator from Massachusetts and later President of USA; together in the late 1940s when Tierney was separated from Cassini.
Aly Khan
Companion
Playboy. Former husband of Rita Hayworth; involved from c. 1953 to 1954; reportedly proposed to Tierney but then broke off relationship; died in an automobile accident in May 1960.

Bibliography

"Self Portrait"
Gene Tierney (1979)

Notes

"Unlike her other contemporaries at Fox, Gene demanded and obtained a unique contract. The terms provided that she would not be kept idle between film assignments, that she would be allowed to return to Broadway each year to appear in plays, that she would not have to alter the length or color of her hair, and that her slightly crooked teeth could remain unfixed." --James Robert Parish writing in "The RKO Girls"

"Joe Schenck [a top 20th Century-Fox executive] once said to me that he really believed I had a future, and that was because I was the only girl who could survive so many bad pictures." --Gene Tierney quoted in "The RKO Girls"

Biography

When Paramount Pictures fumbled Gene Tierney’s proposed film debut in its aborted adaptation of "National Velvet," 20th Century Fox saw promise in the gimlet-eyed beauty with the regal cheekbones and curiously beguiling overbite. Honing her craft under extreme conditions – she brooked the tempers of such autocratic émigrés as Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch and Otto Preminger – Tierney emerged as a leading lady of equal beauty and depth. Gliding seamlessly from smoldering sensuality in Preminger’s "Laura" (1944), to sang froid psychopathy in John M. Stahl’s "Leave Her to Heaven" (1945), to a maturity and grace far beyond her years in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947), Tierney attained a strata of celebrity that put her on par with fellow sirens Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. Her personal life was no less dramatic, punctuated by a controversial marriage to designer Oleg Cassini, the traumatic birth of her first child, whose severe mental retardation resulted in lifelong institutionalization, love affairs with several leading men and a future U.S. president, and a devastating bipolar disorder that effectively quashed her career. Tierney’s 1979 memoirs laid bare the devastation wrought by her inner demons while allowing the troubled actress to emerge on the far side of her troubles at some measure of peace with her legacy as "the most beautiful woman in film history."

Gene Eliza Tierney was born on Nov. 19, 1920, in Brooklyn, NY. The second of three children of insurance broker Howard Sherwood Tierney and the former Belle Lavina Taylor, Tierney was named after a maternal uncle who had died from diabetes at age 17. When Tierney was five, the family traded Brooklyn for a modest country home in Green’s Farms, CT. Over the years, Howard Tierney would buy up increasing amounts of the surrounding land, ultimately building a more ostentatious family manor in the meadow across the street and filling it with servants and a German nanny for his three children. Educated first at the all girls’ St. Margaret’s School in Waterbury, which her mother had attended as a child, Tierney continued her studies at the arts-centered Unquowa School in Fairfield. A budding poet, she had her first works published in the school newspaper and played Jo in a student production of "Little Women." At her own insistence, Tierney was packed off to finishing school in Switzerland, to the Brillantmont International School in Lausanne.

At Brillantmont, Tierney spoke only French and spent Christmas holidays with fellow students in England and Norway. Returning to the United States a more mature, albeit pudgier young woman, Tierney topped off her education at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, where the rigorous academic and athletic regime helped her shave 20 pounds off of her 5’ 4" frame. Upon graduation in 1938, Tierney was sent with her mother and siblings on vacation to California. Through a connection at Warner Brothers, Howard Tierney got his family onto the lot to watch the shooting of "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939) and meet with star Bette Davis. According to the legend, director Anatole Litvak spotted Tierney on the sidelines and exclaimed "Young woman, you ought to be in pictures!" Her screen test was scheduled for the next day, at which time she was asked to read a Dorothy Parker monologue. That evening, she was offered a studio contract.

Feeling that his underage daughter would be better served by returning home to make her society debut, Howard Tierney called his daughter back to Connecticut. She had her coming out party at the Fairfield Country Club in September 1938, in a dress copied from one Bette Davis wore in "Jezebel" (1938). Despite this concession to propriety, Tierney had no interest in the life of a debutante. If Hollywood was denied her, she would try her luck on Broadway. Success was not immediately forthcoming and she was offered more jobs as a model than as an actress. Between assignments, Tierney studied acting with Broadway director Benno Schneider while becoming a protégée of esteemed producer-director George Abbott. Abbott gave the newcomer a walk-on in his production of "What a Life!" in 1938 and hired her as an understudy for "Primrose Path" the following year. Tierney made her Broadway debut for Abbott in "Miss O’Brien Entertains" at the Lyceum Theater in February 1939.

Graced with gimlet green eyes, imperious cheekbones, and a pronounced overbite that often made her closed lips appear to be in perpetual pucker, Tierney’s beauty never failed to attract critical attention no matter how small the role, prompting The New York Herald Tribune to suggest that she had a bright future in theatre unless she were kidnapped for pictures. That very thing occurred when Tierney was offered a limited contract by Paramount. Having acquired rights to Enid Bagnold’s 1933 novel National Velvet, the studio thought Tierney a perfect fit to play an English schoolgirl who poses as a male jockey to enter the Grand National Steeplechase. When Paramount passed the property to MGM – who made it in 1944 with a 12 year-old Elizabeth Taylor – Tierney returned to Broadway, scoring a critical coup in the James Thurber-Elliot Nugent comedy "The Male Animal." During the play’s seven month run, Tierney was photographed by Vogue, Life and Colliers Weekly, which caught the eye of 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck. He was quick to offer an exclusive contract to Tierney, whom he would later characterize as "unquestionably the most beautiful woman in movie history."

Tierney made her film debut for Fox in "The Return of Frank James" (1940), directed by German émigré Fritz Lang. The autocratic Lang clashed mightily on set with stars Henry Fonda and Jackie Cooper and spared Tierney little of his trademark ire. To her credit, Tierney took Lang’s often cruel criticisms to heart, gleaning from his insults pearls of practical advice for film acting. With the success of the Lang picture, additional roles followed for Tierney, who was paired with Paul Muni in Irving Pichel’s historic drama "Hudson’s Bay" (1941) and joined the ensemble cast of John Ford’s "Tobacco Road" (1941), the studio’s highly-anticipated adaptation of the novel by Erskine Caldwell. Just as "Tobacco Road" had been Fox’s bid to capitalize on the success of Ford’s "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939), so the popularity of "Gone with the Wind" (1939), which Selznick had produced with MGM, was channeled into another Technicolor costumer. Tierney received star billing for playing "Belle Starr" (1941), a highly sanitized take on the short life and troubled times of the Wild West outlaw.

Despite starring in her first Hollywood film, Tierney was still considered a minor in the eyes of the law. Though her parents had by this point separated, Howard and Belle Tierney continued to exert influence over their daughter’s career, for which they had set up the Belle-Tier Corporation. With her self-confidence undermined by her parents' rapidly dissolving marriage, Tierney suffered from a host of anxiety-related gastrointestinal ailments and an ocular disability that held up production of "Belle Starr." During her convalescence, she sought refuge in the arms of boyfriend Oleg Cassini, the Paris-born son of an Italian countess and Edith Head’s assistant in the Paramount costume department. In June 1941, Tierney and Cassini flew to Las Vegas to be married in a civil ceremony. The controversial marriage worsened Tierney's relationship with her parents while alarming Hollywood executives to the degree that Cassini was fired by Paramount. Tierney also discovered that her father has siphoned off her Hollywood earnings via the Bel-Tier Corporation.

At this point in her career, Tierney could at least count on a wealth of work offers. In addition, the appreciation of her Hollywood stock enabled her to retain Cassini as her personal costumer. She was given a plum role in Ernst Lubitsch’s Technicolor comedy "Heaven Can Wait" (1943), as doomed rogue Don Ameche’s long suffering wife. Tierney locked antlers often with Lubitsch during production while also attempting to conceal from her coworkers the fact that she was pregnant. The joy to which Tierney and Cassini (then fulfilling his wartime military service with the United States Army at Fort Riley in Kansas) looked forward was cruelly dashed when the actress contracted rubella after making an appearance at The Hollywood Canteen. Their first child, daughter Antoinette Daria Cassini, was born two months prematurely and suffered from severe mental retardation, ultimately requiring lifelong institutionalization. She would later learn that it was her own stardom that impacted the child’s health when a fan later told her she had broken quarantine for rubella to meet her at the Canteen. The tragedy caused a strain on the Tierney-Cassini marriage, leading to a separation. The pair reconciled and their second child, Tina, was born without complications in 1948.

Tierney was kept out of the picture for most of Otto Preminger’s seminal film noir "Laura" (1944), in the role of a presumed murder victim whose haunting portrait inspires detective Dana Andrews to track down her killer. A multiple Academy Award nominee (and Oscar winner for Best Black & White Cinematography), "Laura" urged Tierney on to a larger role in an even darker psychological thriller. As the femme fatale of "Leave Her to Heaven" (1945), Tierney was nominated for an Academy Award as an icy beauty so venal she allows a handicapped boy to drown so that she might maintain an emotional stranglehold on leading man Cornel Wilde. The film was Fox’s most successful of the decade and marked Tierney’s entre to the A-list while also securing her a measure of cult notoriety on par with Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity" (1944), Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" (1946) and Lana Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946). While filming "Dragonwyck" (1946) during her separation from Cassini, Tierney enjoyed a dalliance with war hero John F. Kennedy, then pointed towards a brilliant political career.

Persuasive as a spoiled rich girl who cannot share Tyrone Power’s spiritual interests in "The Razor’s Edge" (1946), Tierney offered moviegoers a dramatic about-face in her next film, as the widowed heroine of Mankiewicz’s "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947). Tierney’s heartfelt performance as a single mother who accepts companionship and a second chance at love from spectral sea captain Rex Harrison, was a hit with moviegoers. She reteamed with Otto Preminger for the thrillers "Whirlpool" (1949) and "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (1950), and traveled to England for a choice role opposite Richard Widmark in blacklisted director Jules Dassin’s "Night and the City" (1950). On loan to other studios, Tierney showed a lighter side in the Paramount screwball comedy "The Mating Season" (1951) while playing it straight in the adoption drama Close to My Heart" (1951), with Ray Milland. Divorced from Oleg Cassini in 1952, she had relationships with Spencer Tracy while shooting "Plymouth Adventure" (1952) and with Clark Gable between takes on "Never Let Me Go" (1953).

Due in large part to the guilt and sadness related to her daughter’s institutionalization, Tierney began to suffer from an undiagnosed bipolar disorder which took a toll on her work. She excused herself from John Ford’s "Mogambo" (1953), for which she was replaced by Grace Kelly, and sought psychiatric help after wrapping Edward Dmytryk’s "The Left Hand of God" (1955). Tierney’s treatments would drag on for years, comprising nearly 30 sessions of shock therapy and days wrapped in icy sheets to control her wild mood swings. Released from one East Coast clinic, Tierney’s suicidal ideations drove her to the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, KS. During a hiatus from treatment, she worked briefly as a store clerk in at Talmage’s Ladies Apparel Shop in nearby Westboro, until the press got wind of her situation and forced Tierney to go public with her humbling personal history. In 1958, Tierney met Texas oilman Howard Lee, then the estranged husband of actress Hedy Lamarr. Tierney and Lee married in 1960 and settled in Houston, where the former actress wrote a newspaper column and became an expert at contract bridge.

Despite her self-imposed exile in Texas, Tierney received work offers from Hollywood, prompting her to mull a comeback. She tested the waters by appearing in a November 1960 broadcast of "General Electric Theater" (CBS, 1953-1962), during which time she discovered that she was again pregnant. Slated to appear in Fox’s "Return to Peyton Place" (1961), she withdrew from the production after suffering a miscarriage. She contributed a small role as the catty Washington mistress of Senate Majority Leader Walter Pidgeon in Otto Preminger’s "Advise and Consent" (1962) and appeared as Dean Martin’s domineering mother-in-law in "Toys in the Attic" (1963), George Roy Hill’s film adaptation of the stage play by Lillian Hellman. She made her final feature film appearance in "The Pleasure Seekers" (1963), opposite Ann-Margret and Brian Keith. At the distance of several years, she returned to television in "Daughter of the Mind" (1969), reuniting with old co-star Ray Milland in the chilling tale of a scientist haunted by the specter of his long-dead daughter.

In 1979, Tierney published her memoirs, detailing her cherished childhood memories, her schoolgirl years abroad, her triumphs on Broadway and in Hollywood, and the nightmare years of her descent into mental illness. Lured out of retirement yet again, she signed on to play lesbian magazine publisher Harriet Toppingham in the CBS miniseries "Scruples" (1980), based on the best-selling novel by Judith Krantz. The following year, Howard Lee died. Tierney remained in Houston for the next decade, during which time she was diagnosed with emphysema, which she developed from a lifelong cigarette habit adopted in Hollywood as a means of lowering the timbre of her speaking voice. Gene Tierney died on Nov. 6, 1991, two weeks shy of what would have been her 71st birthday.

By Richard Harland Smith

Filmography

 

Cast (Feature Film)

The Pleasure Seekers (1964)
Jane Barton
Toys in the Attic (1963)
Albertine Prine
Advise & Consent (1962)
Dolly Harrison
The Left Hand of God (1955)
Anne "Scotty" Scott
The Egyptian (1954)
Baketamon
Black Widow (1954)
Iris Denver
Never Let Me Go (1953)
Marya Lamarkina
Personal Affair (1953)
Kay Barlow
Way of a Gaucho (1952)
Teresa Chavez
Plymouth Adventure (1952)
Dorothy Bradford
The Mating Season (1951)
Maggie Carleton [McNulty]
The Secret of Convict Lake (1951)
Marcia Stoddard
Close to My Heart (1951)
Midge Sheridan
On the Riviera (1951)
Lilli Duran
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
Morgan Taylor
Night and the City (1950)
Mary Bristol
That Wonderful Urge (1949)
Sara Farley
Whirlpool (1949)
Ann Sutton
The Iron Curtain (1948)
Anna Gouzenko
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
Lucy Muir
The Razor's Edge (1946)
Isabel Bradley
Dragonwyck (1946)
Miranda Wells
Leave Her to Heaven (1946)
Ellen Berent Harland
A Bell for Adano (1945)
Tina
Laura (1944)
Laura Hunt
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Martha Strabel Van Cleve
China Girl (1943)
Haoli Young
Son of Fury (1942)
Eve
Rings on Her Fingers (1942)
Susan Miller [also known as] Linda Worthington
The Shanghai Gesture (1942)
[Victoria Charteris, also known as] Poppy Smith
Thunder Birds (1942)
Kay Saunders
Hudson's Bay (1941)
Barbara Hall
Belle Starr (1941)
Belle Starr
Sundown (1941)
Zia
Tobacco Road (1941)
Ellie May [Lester]
The Return of Frank James (1940)
Eleanor Stone

Misc. Crew (Short)

The Costume Designer (1950)
Archival Footage

Cast (TV Mini-Series)

Scruples (1980)

Life Events

1926

Family moved from NYC to Connecticut

1938

During faily vacation in California, spotted by Anatole Litvak and screen tested; offered studio contract which was rejected by parents

1938

Made society debut on September 24

1939

First Broadway appearance in George Abbott's production, "Mrs O'Brien Entertains" (February)

1940

Film debut in "The Return of Frank James"

1940

Broadway stage break in the James Thurber-Elliot Nugent comedy, "The Male Animal"; seen in show by Darryl F Zanuck who signed her to 20th Century-Fox contract

1941

Starred in screen version of "Tobacco Road"

1944

Delivered a fine performance as the mysterious "Laura", directed by Otto Preminger

1945

Received Best Actress Academy Award nomination as a cold-blooded murderer in "Leave Her to Heaven"

1946

Co-starred with Tyrone Power and Herbert Marshall in "The Razor's Edge"; costumed by then-husband Oleg Cassini

1947

TV debut on Sir Charles Mendl's live program

1947

Appeared opposite Rex Harrison in the romantic fantasy "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir"

1951

During filming of "Way of a Gaucho" (1952), began to experience memory lapses and depression

1954

Fled Hollywood; went on suspension from 20th Century-Fox

1955

Last film for seven years, "The Left Hand of God"

1958

Briefly returned to Hollywood but returned to Menninger Clinic for treatment

1959

As part of her therapy as an out-patient at Menninger, worked in a Topeka, Kansas dress shop

1962

After seven-year absence returned to Hollywood in Otto Preminger's "Advise and Consent"

1964

Last film, "The Pleasure Seekers"

1969

Returned to TV in movie, "Daughter of the Mind"

1980

Made final small screen appearance in the CBS miniseries "Scruples"

Photo Collections

Laura - Lobby Card Set
Laura - Lobby Card Set
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Movie Posters
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Movie Posters
Leave Her to Heaven - Movie Posters
Here are a few original-release movie posters from Fox's Leave Her to Heaven (1946), starring Gene Tierney. This is an Insert poster, measuring 14 x 36 inches.
Dragonwyck - Lobby Cards
Here are a few Lobby Cards from Dragonwyck (1946), starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price. Lobby Cards were 11" x 14" posters that came in sets of 8. As the name implies, they were most often displayed in movie theater lobbies, to advertise current or coming attractions.
Sundown - Scene Stills
Here are several scene stills from Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), starring Gene Tierney, Bruce Cabot, and George Sanders.
Sundown - Behind-the-Scenes Stills
Here are a few photos taken behind-the-scenes during production of Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Gene Tierney and Bruce Cabot.
Sundown - Lobby Cards
Here are some Lobby Cards from Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), from the original 1941 release as well as a 1948 reissue. Lobby Cards were 11" x 14" posters that came in sets of 8. As the name implies, they were most often displayed in movie theater lobbies, to advertise current or coming attractions.
Sundown - Movie Posters
Here are a few movie posters from Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), starring Gene Tierney and Bruce Cabot. Posters on view include a few from the original release as well as from later reissues.
Sundown - Pressbook
Here is the campaign book (pressbook) for the 1948 reissue of Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941). Pressbooks were sent to exhibitors and theater owners to aid them in publicizing the film's run in their theater.
Dragonwyck - Movie Poster
Here is the American one-sheet movie poster for 20th Century Fox's Dragonwyck (1946), starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price. One-sheets measured 27x41 inches, and were the poster style most commonly used in theaters.
Sundown - Publicity Stills
Here are some photos taken to help publicize Walter Wanger's Sundown (1941), starring Gene Tierney and Bruce Cabot. Publicity stills were specially-posed photos, usually taken off the set, for purposes of publicity or reference for promotional artwork.

Videos

Movie Clip

Plymouth Adventure (1952) -- (Movie Clip) 132 Rutting Beasts Busted by first mate Coppin (Lloyd Bridges) for wasting water, youthful Pilgrim wife Dorothy Bradford (Gene Tierney), who’s already been nearly assaulted by captain Jones (Spencer Tracy), earns a real rude talking-to, in MGM’s Plymouth Adventure, 1952.
Plymouth Adventure (1952) -- (Movie Clip) We Be Loaded Deep Exhaustive exposition from producer Dore Schary, focused on introducing Leo Genn and Gene Tierney as the Bradfords, Kathleen Lockhart as Mrs. Brewster, John Dehner as Winslow, Van Johnson as Alden, finally Spencer Tracy as Jones, Lloyd Bridges as Coppin, in MGM's Plymouth Adventure, 1952.
Plymouth Adventure (1952) -- (Movie Clip) Hymns And Prayers Should have seen this coming, Captain Jones (Spencer Tracy) has been warning of the ways of sailors, comes home to the Mayflower drunk one evening, finding Dorothy Bradford (Gene Tierney), rescued by her husband (Leo Genn), still in port in England, in Plymouth Adventure, 1952.
Advise & Consent (1962) -- (Movie Clip) A Vice President Shouldn't Ask First scene for Washington hostess Dolly (Gene Tierney), joining senator Munson (Walter Pidgeon), who's managing a nomination fight, making time for anxious colleague Van Ackerman (George Grizzard), and visiting the timid Vice President (Lew Ayres), in Otto Preminger's Advise & Consent, 1962.
Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950) -- (Movie Clip) I'm Getting Richer Consulting with just-demoted cop Dixon (Dana Andrews) and Klein (Bert Freed) ex-con Willie (Don Appell) leads us to the casino run by Scalise (Gary Merrill), where Texan Morrison (Harry von Zell), is entertained by Morgan (Gene Tierney) and her almost-ex husband Paine (Craig Stevens), in Otto Preminger's Where The Sidewalk Ends, 1950.
Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950) -- (Movie Clip) Worst Food In Town Cop Dixon (Dana Andrews) with witness Morgan (Gene Tierney), getting acquainted at the restaurant run by Martha (Ruth Donnelly), then taking a call from colleagues (Bert Freed, Karl Malden), in Otto Preminger's Where The Sidewalk Ends, 1950.
Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950) -- (Movie Clip) Sinking Pretty Low Bruised model Morgan (Gene Tierney) at work with a designer (Tierney's husband Oleg Cassini!), with a friend (Peggy O'Connor), then visited by cops Dixon (Dana Andrews) and Klein (Bert Freed), in Otto Preminger's Where The Sidewalk Ends, 1950.
Left Hand Of God, The (1955) -- (Movie Clip) His Immortal Soul We know only that Humphrey Bogart is packing a gun and dressed as a priest, as he arrives at a mission in China, 1947, greeted by the Sigman's (E.G. Marshall, Agnes Moorehead) and nurse "Scotty" (Gene Tierney), early in The Left Hand Of God, 1955, also starring Lee J. Cobb.
Left Hand Of God, The (1955) -- (Movie Clip) I Wasn't Born A Priest Humphrey Bogart, going by "Father O'Shea" though we suspect he may not be the real thing, being shown around the post-WWII Chinese mission by fellow American, nurse "Scotty" (Gene Tierney), early in Edward Dmytryk's The Left Hand Of God, 1955, from the novel by William Edmund Barrett.
Left Hand Of God, The (1955) -- (Movie Clip) To Abstain From Carnal Desires First service by new priest O’Shea (Humphrey Bogart), in post-WWII China, Gene Tierney as “Scotty” and Agnes Moorehead as Beryl among those noticing something odd about him, but impressed with his Chinese, then puzzled by his encounter with an interloper (Leon Lontok), in The Left Hand Of God, 1955.
Laura (1944) -- (Movie Clip) I'm A Natural Born Suspect Betrothed Shelby (Vincent Price), whom we've just met, and snooty columnist friend Waldo (Clifton Webb) are composed as they visit, with cop McPherson (Dana Andrews), the home of the murdered title character (Gene Tierney), with the famous theme introduced, in Otto Preminger's Laura, 1944.
Laura (1944) -- (Movie Clip) She Had Something About Her Beginning his debriefing of cop McPherson (Dana Andrews) about his relations with the victim, prissy columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) describes his first meeting with the murdered title character (Gene Tierney), her first appearance on screen, in Otto Preminger's Laura, 1944.

Trailer

Laura - (Re-issue Trailer) A police detective (Dana Andrews) falls in love with the woman (Gene Tierney) whose murder he's investigating in Laura (1944), directed by Otto Preminger.
Egyptian, The (1954) Original Trailer Original trailer for the 20th Century-Fox early CinemaScope epic The Egyptian, 1954, from producer Darryl Zanuck, with Jean Simmons, Michael Wilding, Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Edmund Purdom, Peter Ustinov and Bella Darvi.
Mating Season, The - (Original Trailer) Thelma Ritter pretends to be a cleaning lady to get to know her son's high-society in-laws in The Mating Season, 1951, also starring Gene Tierney and John Lund, directed by Mitchell Leisen.
Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The - (Original Trailer) A spirited widow (Gene Tierney) rents a haunted cottage and builds an emotional bond with the resident ghost (Rex Harrison) in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Dragonwyck - (Original Trailer) A farm girl (Gene Tierney) signs on as governess in a gloomy mansion in Dragonwyck (1946).
Black Widow (1954) - (Original Trailer) A young stage hopeful (Peggy Ann Gardner), is murdered and suspicion falls on her mentor, a Broadway producer (Van Heflin) in Black Widow (1954).
Plymouth Adventure - (Original Trailer) Spencer Tracy and Gene Tierney star in Plymouth Adventure (1952), an epic dramatization of the Pilgrams' journey to the new world on the Mayflower.
Night and the City - (Original Trailer) A London hustler (Richard Widmark) has ambitious plans that never work out in Night and the City (1950).
On The Riviera - (Original Trailer) A nightclub entertainer (Danny Kaye) temporarily replaces a tycoon he's famous for impersonating in On The Riviera (1951).

Family

Howard S Tierney
Father
Insurance broker. Formed Belle-Tier, family corporation which contractually owned part of Gene Tierney's cinema income; sued daughter for breach of the family corporation in early 1940s; estranged from daughter over business matters and divorce from Tierney's mother in the 1940s.
Belle Tierney
Mother
Press agent. Hired by Fox as a press agent in Manhattan at daughter's suggestion in early 1940s; divorced from Tierney's father.
Howard Tierney Jr
Brother
Older.
Patricia Byrne
Sister
Survived her.
Daria Cassini
Daughter
Born on October 15, 1943; born blind and with brain damage due to Tierney contracting German measles during pregnancy; father, Oleg Cassini; institutionalized.
Christina Belmont
Daughter
Born on November 20, 1948; father, Oleg Cassini.

Companions

Oleg Cassini
Husband
Fashion designer. Eloped and married on June 1, 1941; had stormy marriage with frequent separations; separated in the late 1940s; reconciled briefly; divorced on February 28, 1952; had come to Hollywood in early 1940s to deisgn clothes at Paramount; worked as costume designer for Fox at Tierney's suggestion.
Howard Hughes
Companion
Producer, financier. Hughes reportedly proposed marriage.
John F Kennedy
Companion
Politician. US Senator from Massachusetts and later President of USA; together in the late 1940s when Tierney was separated from Cassini.
Aly Khan
Companion
Playboy. Former husband of Rita Hayworth; involved from c. 1953 to 1954; reportedly proposed to Tierney but then broke off relationship; died in an automobile accident in May 1960.
W Howard Lee
Husband
Oilman. Married from July 11, 1960 until his death in 1981; formerly married to Hedy Lamarr.

Bibliography

"Self Portrait"
Gene Tierney (1979)

Notes

"Unlike her other contemporaries at Fox, Gene demanded and obtained a unique contract. The terms provided that she would not be kept idle between film assignments, that she would be allowed to return to Broadway each year to appear in plays, that she would not have to alter the length or color of her hair, and that her slightly crooked teeth could remain unfixed." --James Robert Parish writing in "The RKO Girls"

"Joe Schenck [a top 20th Century-Fox executive] once said to me that he really believed I had a future, and that was because I was the only girl who could survive so many bad pictures." --Gene Tierney quoted in "The RKO Girls"

"During the 1950s, she was in and out of mental hospitals as she battled depression, which nearly made her take her own life in 1958, by jumping from a window in her mother's Sutton Place apartment. She spent some six years in institutions, and had 32 shock treatments." --Patricia O'Haire from Tierney's obituary in Daily News, November 8, 1991.