***Actress Gene Tierney Appreciation Thread***

She had three really great films--The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Laura, and Leave Her to Heaven. The first could have been done with another actress, but the last two needed someone as unfogettably beautiful as she was.

She didn't do that many other memorable films, though. She was hard to cast, and then she had that terrible thing happen to her with the child being born with severe handicaps because of rubella (which she caught from a fan who hugged her, and which she later found out about which exacerbated her severe depression).

But beneath the beauty and the fame lurked a great darkness.

She had a sensitive nervous system, breaking out in psychosomatic illnesses , which sometimes held up movie productions.

Life in the public eye and Hollywood proved to be too much and she had a severe mental breakdown which ended her movie career.

She detailed it in her book, "Self Portrait" which was truly frightening to read at times.

She died at age 70, still having nervous problems off and on, but was taken care of by a wealthy Texan man that she married.

Her life and collapse would make one hell of a movie.

Her last starring role was The Left Hand Of God with Humphrey Bogart. He could see that there was something wrong with her and tried to help her. After the film was finished she broke down entirely and had to live with her mother.

R3 The Left Hand Of God.

[quote]She died at age 70, still having nervous problems off and on, but was taken care of by a wealthy Texan man that she married.

That wealthy Texan was Hedy Lamarr's ex-husband W. Howard Lee.

Interesting how she, Vivien L., and Hedy all suffered mental illness later in life. (Interesting in a sad way, that is.)

The stunning portrait of the mysterious "Laura".

[quote] She detailed it in her book, "Self Portrait" which was truly frightening to read at times.

Mary!

She's one of my favorites. I loved Laura.

I wonder if the Gene doll was based on her looks. Have any of you ever owned a Gene Marshall doll?

[quote] I wonder if the Gene doll was based on her looks.

It was based on Gene Hackman. He looked fabulous in tweedy drag.

R6 And Frances Farmer. By the time she made Son Of Fury with Gene Tierney she was relegated to a co-starring part because she was difficult and so far gone. It proved to be her last major movie.

Gene Tierney in later years. After her breakdown she acted sporadically but the big starring roles were gone.

Her last good role was the Perle Mesta type Washington hostess in Advise and Consent. Mixing in the party scene as anonymous extras behind Gene were both Fiddle and Faddle. It must have highly amused the producers in 1962 to show America (at least) three women JFK had fucked, and the public oblivious to the joke.

Laura is a fantastic movie. I think R1 is correct: it (and probably Leave Her To Heaven) wouldn't have worked with anyone who wasn't as arrestingly beautiful as she.

A great, elegant beauty.

R13 Gene dated John Kennedy for a time but said goodbye when he stated that he wasn't ready to get married yet.

Tierney is one of my favorite actresses based on those three films alone. Whatever it was, she HAD it!

"Laura" is perhaps my favorite Hollywood studio-era film. It is sublime, just perfect.

The low down.

R17 She was a breathtaking beauty that comes along only in a great while. The camera loved her.

Thanks for the thread OP!

Loved Tierney ever since seeing Leave Her to Heaven on TV when I was a young gayling teen - a very long time ago. Then not long after saw her in Laura - which sealed the deal.

Was reading something about her on another thread here the other day (one of the ones about great Hollywood beauties I think?) - and someone said that a) she couldn’t act and b) she was only beautiful with her mouth shut - as her smile/teeth were odd.

I was at home with a cold/flu bug - so I got into YouTube - and watched Dragonwyck and Heaven Can Wait. Enjoyed em both thoroughly. Just light, entertaining, Hollywood studio costume movies. She wasn’t given roles that required a lot of depth - but she was fine. Warm and appealing - perfectly OK. Suspect if she’d been given more roles of the same caliber as Laura and LHTH she would have acquitted herself well.

She did seem to have a slight overbite thing going on - that in some shots made her look a little chipmunk cheeked - but unless she was in full-on cheesy grin mode - she looked gorgeous.

Never seen The Razor’s Edge. How is she in that?

She is very beautiful but they should have come up with a star's name for her. Like Rebecca Fontaine or Sasha Colttrane. Gene Tierney does nothing for me.

There's an episode of "M*A*S*H" where Alan Alda goes on and on about loving her overbite. I think the studio recognized that the slight overbite made her look even more sexy, so it was never fixed on purpose. Gene's also wonderful in "The Mating Season", though Thelma Ritter steals the movie, plus there's also Miriam Hopkins for prime scenery chewing as well. She and Rex Harrison have wonderful chemistry in "Ghost and Mrs. Muir".

Both Rita Hayworth and Joan Crawford were considered for LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN.

They would have been Technicolor crapfests. Gene made the melodrama work.

Her autobiography was fascinating. I'd love a film on her. Just keep Emma Stone, J.Law, etc away from it.

Carol Burnett did a great parody (unfortunately, not on YouTube) called "Flora."

A stunner.

Omg look at those violet eyes and her double, no triple row of lashes. Have you ever seen a more perfect specimen. Her body was perfection...oh I could go on and on. Oh wait, that's the Liz Taylor Frau who posts ad nauseum about homely Liz. I will say this Gene Tierney woman was a beauty. Sort of a patrician beauty.

Didn't anyone ever mind the Liz had an unsightly mole on the side of her face which she never had removed?

r9: Yes, the doll's creator, artist Mel Odom has said that Gene Tierney was his favorite actress and the inspiration for the Gene doll.

I thought she was smashing. And seriously, "Laura" and "Leave Her to Heaven" (never seen Ghost) if you got that on your resume then you are too fabulous for words. I loved her for doing LHTH because I think it took balls to play a part like that.

I just loved her look. Such an incredibly beautiful woman. I'm sorry her life was so tough.

Dear God, I'm trying to imagine what "Leave Her to Heaven" would have been like if it'd started an aging Joan Crawford!

It's probably be considered the camp masterpiece of the century.

Tragedy in Gene's life was used in The Mirror Crack'd (1980):

"Half of the plot, the backstory that's revealed at the end, seems to be inspired by the real-life drama of Gene Tierney, and her husband Oleg Cassini. After a measles-infected fan broke quarantine and rushed up to the pregnant Tierney to kiss her, the actress gave birth to a daughter, Daria, who is still in a care facility for the profoundly brain-damaged."

How is it nobody mentioned her turn in "Tobacco Road"? She even got to seduce Ward Bond. Over time her character was transformed into the much cleaner Elly May Clampett. That's a can of motor oil in Gene's hair.

Gene on the boat in 'Leave Her to Heaven' is as iconic a film moment as any.

Which was based on the Agatha Christie story of the same name (the mirror cracked from side to side) which came out in 1962. I wonder what Gene made of it?

That said, though the book has its low points, the idea was used to very good effect.

R7, It really wasn't a painting. paint was applied to a photograph. The haunting theme "Laura", which became a hit recording, was almost not used. Otto Premier was initially going to use the Duke Ellington song "Sophisticated Lady".

Gene on The Mike Douglas Show in 1979.

*Preminger

Gene Tierney Talks About her Suicide attempt

Night and the City is another great film Tierney is in. Film noir filmed in London in 1950 starring Richard Widmark as a cheap hustler who is going for his one last big chance as a wrestling promoter. Tierney plays his girlfriend. Her part is not that big but she's very touching. Movie is a film noir classic.

Gene stated that during the making of her last 3 starring movies she could feel her mental condition getting worse and worse - she was in the process of breaking down.

She simply could no longer memorize her lines from the movie scripts but she credited her Cockney maid for saving her. The maid was extremely determined and sat with Gene and went over her lines with her over and over again until they were lodged in her mind.

Loved her in Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Supposedly the "I hate everyone" Rex Harrison adored her. TPTB originally wanted Claudette Colbert, which IMO would have been disastrous. Tierney had the beauty but also the believability to make it plausible the captain would fall in love and stick around. The Captain only departed when Mrs. Muir was being courted by a real live man (George Sanders, cheating on his character's wife). I think to protect the romantic pairing before it became a 70 year old Mrs. Muir and 44 year old Harrison.

[quote]Her life and collapse would make one hell of a movie.

There’s no competent current actress beautiful enough to play her.

I always thought Amelia Heinle on Y&R resembled Gene Tierney.

In later life, she married Texas oilman Howard Lee, and moved to a mansion in Houston's River Oaks neighborhood. She became a fixture of Houston society, writing a social column for a local newspaper, and participating in local mental health charities. When her husband died, she became a bit of a recluse and moved into a high-rise condo where she lived with a carekeeper. She would only make sporadic appearances at public events, most often about mental health issues and occasionally about her movie career. She would regularly lunch alone at her favorite restaurant, an upscale Italian spot near her condo, and go unrecognized. The owner knew her and would reserve an out-of-the-way table for her.

Gosh she was stunning. And that perfect overbite gives me LIFE

Didn't Spencer Tracy claim to have 'had' her?

R47 Spence liked macho types, like Scotty Bowers and Katharine Hepburn.

Gene in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN becomes totally sympathetic when Ellen (Gene) and Richard (Cornel) go off to Back-Of-The-Moon, Maine, and he drags the annoying Danny (Darryl Hickman) along. All Ellen wants to do is be alone and fuck her new husband , but she can't because Danny's bed is in the next room, right against Ellen & Richards bed (surprised that got through the censors) . Hard not to cheer Ellen on (looking FABULOUS in her carmine-red lipstick,. white bathrobe and tortoiseshell Foster Grants) . when she takes Danny swimming .

And no wonder she gets even MORE pissed when Richard invites her whole family up!

Gorgeous

In one of her first movies, a western called Belle Starr, the director told Gene to ride her horse to the edge of a cliff, rear the horse up and then race back. She was terrified that it was too dangerous and balked at doing it. But the director insisted, hinting strongly that she would be fired if she didn't. She did the scene in one shot and lived to tell the tale.

I think Bellamy Young from "Scandal" resembles her a teeny bit

She was so gorgeous but had a somewhat forgettable onscreen presence at the same time.

Her daughter Tina had a doll. Oleg died in 2006, leaving an estate worth $60 million. He bequeathed $1 million to Christina. But Cassini’s widow, Marianne Nestor Cassini, the executor of the estate, which was probated in Nassau County, NY, refused to pay as Christina battled ovarian cancer. Tina died in 2015.

Cassini's cunty widow was finally arrested in May. I believe the bitch is still in jail.

Gene made a suspense thriller called The Secret Of Convict Lake about a bunch of convicts who break into a cabin and terrorize the women who live there. Also starred Glenn Ford as one of the convicts.

That's Ethel Barrymore in the background holding a pistol.

It was a commercial and critical success.

Toys in the Attic

Lovely as usual in THE PLEASURE SEEKERS. She calls Carol Lynley a tramp and Joanslaps her in in the Ladies Powder Room.

Stunning.

Where's the inevitable What's My Line? clip?

R60 Here you go, doll.

She enters at 18:10

R61 Sad!

Good Lord, R55, Cassini’s widow sounds truly vile.

R62, Sad? Bennett Cerf says in the closing minutes that Gene was one of the most beautiful women to ever appear on WML?.

She's pretty much lost her looks by the time of that WML appearance. Same with Hedy Lamarr on hers. Compare Ava Gardner's WML appearance and you'll see a beauty that lasted longer. Though, to be fair, maybe Ava's appearance was a few years earlier than the other two.

I loved her in Laura she was perfect for the role.

R65, Gene's "What's My Line?" appearance was in 1957, when she was 37. But by then she had already suffered several nervous breakdowns and endured electroshock treatments at Harkness. Later that year (1957), she climbed out on a ledge in her mother's apartment and threatened to jump. Police were called and her family shipped her off to Menninger for treatment. So, what you see in that What's My Line? episode is clearly a troubled woman, and it shows on her face.

Hedy's appearance was also in 1957, when she was 43, over-the-hill in those days. But her hair and makeup made her look even older. Hedy would appear on To Tell the Truth nearly ten years later, and her long hair and simple dress, and likely plastic surgery, made her look remarkably younger.

Ava's appearance was in 1953, when she was 31, and getting ready to shoot Mogambo. So she was still in her prime.

Check out Linda Darnell on WML? in 1956, when she would have been 32 and her film career basically behind her. Even on a vintage kinescope recording, she looks incredibly beautiful and she played the game wonderfully. That's what actresses did then when film offers ceased, they turned to theatre. It still happens today. The mystery guest segment begins at 16:20.

What happened to Gene’s daughter?

R69, Both of Gene's daughters are deceased, Tina and Daria, the one born mentally retarded.

Daria Cassini died in 2010, Tina Cassini in 2015.

Thanks r70

Oleg didn't design one goddam thing for ME!

Gene Tierney died on November 6, 1991 at 70 years of age.

Linda Darnell is gorgeous and absolutely charming in that WML clip. Thanks for posting, r68.

Though it's so hard to believe she was just 32 there. In spite of being impeccably groomed, the severe hair styling, makeup and gown make her look 20 years older.

She matured early, r75. If I recall correctly, she was underage when she started but was cast as older and more....well....

Linda was 15 years old (goin goin 16) when she made "Day-Time Wife" with Tyrone Power. She replaced Loretta Young (who had left Fox).

R76, Similar to Betty Grable, whose pushy mother added three years to 12 year old Betty and a film studio hired her thinking she was 15, then fired her. In keeping with the WML? vein, here's Betty as the mystery guest in 1965 at age 48. Betty comes on at 15:20.

I just viewed the Gene Tierney WML today. What a coincidence!

I find her honesty with regard to her mental illness to be quite admirable.

I saw Oleg Cassini on the number 1 train in NYC in 1982. I'd seen him on tv, I know it was him!

John Sandford has a mystery series about Det. Lucas Davenport ([italic]Sudden Prey, Chosen Prey[/italic], etc.). In more than one novel, Davenport discusses TV newswomen with overbites, that women with overbites make straight guys think about blow jobs. Every time it comes up, I think about Hawkeye going on about Tierney's overbite.

Interesting factoid - as mentioned Gene Tierney's daughter Daria was born with serious disabilities and her lifelong medical treatment and care was paid for by Howard Hughes.

Back in 2001, when Jackie Kennedy's gowns were touring the USA, Oleg Cassini appeared on a Larry King Show devoted to them. He was in a really pissy mood and even though he was introduced as her main White House designer, he seemed to want to be given total credit for her look during the Camelot years and he was rude and argumentative with the other guests on the broadcast. Can't find it on YT, but it was an awkward and uncomfortable hour.

R83, Hughes died in 1976, Daria Cassini in 2010. I doubt if her care was underwritten by his estate after his death, especially with all the chaos surrounding his estate after his death and the various wills that kept surfacing.

Gene definitely got her looks from her mother, Belle.

Another good Tierney film noir is Whirlpool. Gene back with Otto Preminger again though with the hambone Jose Ferrer.

Gene was the ONLY American female movie star invited to the Beisteigui ball. She came as a very modish eighteenth-century French peasant girl carrying a basket of vegetables. Her dress cost under $50. (Photo of Gene at link)

"One of the largest and most extravagant bashes of the 20th Century, 'Le Bal Oriental' l was a masked costume ball hosted by Count Carlos de Beistegui, a wealthy, eccentric, and flamboyant art collector and interior designer. It’s an exceptional party when guests need six months to plan their outfits. It’s even more exceptional when the uninvited travel by yacht—taking several days for the journey—to stake out the Lido, Venice’s famous sandbar, and try to catch the host’s attention—Yoo-hoo! I’m in town!— and snag a last-minute invitation. Rarer still? When everyone from the wife of Britain’s prime minister to the youngest of the stylish but scandalous Mitford sisters writes of the event in breathless terms. The former, Clarissa Eden, marveled at the desperation surrounding the invitations; the latter, Deborah, marveled at her luck in receiving one......Simply put, Le Bal Oriental was a super-hot ticket. Among the 1,000 guests who attended were the Aga Khan, American heiresses Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke, Orson Welles, the glamorous American actress Gene Tierney, French society beauty Jacqueline de Ribes, and a host of other artists and aristocrats."

Thanks, r88. I'd never heard of this before.

R88, Big whoop! I don't recall seeing Gene at Truman's 1966 Black and White Ball, where I looked resplendent on the arm of my beloved husband Stash.

Black Widow

R91, "Black Widow" contains the absolute worst performance ever placed on celluloid by Ginger Rogers.

But she sure got some swell ensembles, r92!

It was indeed wretched, R91. Rogers was embarrassing playing a Talullah Bankhead type.

I don't know who this dame is....

Gene Tierney at le Bal oriental

Why does Miss Simmons' lack of chin work and Miss Kilgallen's......

R37, thanks for posting the Merv Griffin interview. For all she went through she was still sharp in the mind and beautiful.

Thank you, r68. Gene and Linda were two of Hollywoods greatest and most underrated beauties.

Gene was engaged to Prince Aly Khan while he was still married to Rita Hayworth. His father strongly opposed the union and after a year, the engagement was called off.

Supposedly Rita was very frigid and uncomfortable with sex (no surprise as she was probably molested by her father), but Aly reportedly said that Gene was VERY hot in bed.

They may have been underrated as actresses r99, but they were NEVER underrated as beauties.

Gene Tierney in The Egyptian (with Victor Mature), and probably not a real Egyptian in sight.

Walk Like An Egyptian!

Got cha!!

r101: I dunno...It seems whenever one hears about classic Hollywood beauties, it's a depressingly small list: Liz, Marilyn, Audrey , Ava and maybe Rita. Gene sometimes gets mentioned, but Linda less so. Just from what I can see!

I'd add 1930s Loretta Young to that list of classic Hollywood Beauties.

She certainly aged the best, r104.

Where is Ava's WML clip?? I remember her being truly ravishing in it.

At 15:50, r106.....

You're the best, r107! And so prompt.

R43 you’re right about that. The Hollywood beauty seems to be a thing of the past. Another movie to watch if you like beauty is “The Razor’s Edge” with Gene and Tyrone Power-maybe the best looking film duo ever, although for even more beauty throw in “Son of Fury” with Gene, Tyrone and Frances Farmer.

JFK really loved her and wanted to marry her. But Daddy Joe said no. They were both crushed.

R110, Papa Joe was grooming JFK to run for POTUS and Gene being a divorcee killed any chance to be his wife.

She was so beautiful in The Razor’s Edge.

R110 - but probably for the best!

Can you imagine how her already fragile mental health would have dealt with JFK and his insatiable need for pussy - that made Oleg look like a innocent choirboy in comparison?

And when she did inevitably go into breakdown mode - well, we all know how the Kennedy clan treated those with mental health issues (see JFK sibling Rosemary!).

And do you think the country would have been sympathetic or understanding - or even permit! - a First Lady with serious mental health problems? Doubt even now that most would be comfortable with it! (tho the deplorables do love the Cheeto - so who knows?)

I honestly think Gene dodged a bullet there.

which was more then JFK could say.

So, so wrong , r114.

I love the scene in LHTH when she throws herself down the stairs rather than carry her unborn child to term...what got me though, the fact that she glammed up befor she did the deed. The sexy negligee, high heeled slippers and applying lipstick and perfume...it had to be one of the most twisted scenes of any 1940s film. How did it get past the censors?

So fucking fabulous.

R116 Because she gets punished by to prison at the end of the film (or does she die? ).

by GOING to prison**

Just for you, r116.

She dies, but frames Jeanne Crain for the crime. But Cornel Wilde goes to jail for withholding information from the court (huh?) for a bit, but when he gets out, he meets Jeanne on the dock of Back-Of-The-Moon. Big kiss. The End.

"Leave Her to Heaven" was Gene's only Oscar nomination, losing to Joan Crawford.

I’m so surprised that no one in this thread mentioned the film Pinky, in which Tierney played a mulatta passing as white. The film was highly controversial at the time, with many claiming that playing a negress would tarnish Tierney’s career forever. It’s truly a must see, if you’re into pre-Civil Rights Movement race films, as they were called back then.

R122, Pinky was with Jeanne Crain, not Gene Tierney.

In 1969 Gene Tierney appeared in a suspense thriller called "Daughter Of The Mind", one of the first high quality made for TV movies for ABC.

THANK YOU, EVERYONE for this wonderful thread. Gene is my favorite. I must have seen Leave Her to Heaven, Laura and Mrs. Muir 100 times and I have great admiration for her courage talking about mental illness openly. Her incredible beauty and poise gave me many moments of joy. I hope she's at peace wherever she is.

I have the rose named after her growing in my garden. It's fucking gorg!

R125 Gene was a classic beauty. She passed away in 1991 at 70 years of age. Her memoir is among the best I've ever read.

R126 I never knew until now that there is a Gene Tierney rose. Gorgeous yellow.

Gene is a BOY'S name it's a contraction of euGENE.

What the fuck? Does she think she's a boy?