Elissa Landi

Elissa Landi has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Motion Pictures, at 1615 Vine St. She died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 81. She died from cancer in Kingston, New York. They are located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Blvd. She became a United States Citizen in 1943, and dedicted herself to writing, producing six novels and a series of poems. The second woman to be admitted to the Director's Guild (Dorothy Arzner was first), Ida Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the fields of television and motion pictures. After only two more films she retired, in 1943. These all ended in divorce.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed her to a contract and after a couple of romantic dramas she played the cousin of Myrna Loy in the very popular After the Thin Man (1936). Lupino was married three times: to actor Howard Duff with whom she had one daughter, as well as producer Collier Young and actor Louis Hayward. Her contract with Fox was abruptly cancelled in 1936 as a result of her refusal to accept a particular role. After guest starring in TV shows such as Charlie's Angels and Barnaby Jones, she made her final film appearance in 1978 and retired. She was paired successfully with some of the major leading men, such as David Manners, Warner Baxter, and Ronald Colman in romantic dramas, before appearing in the box office hit The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) with Robert Donat. She continued acting throughout the '50s, '60s and '70s and her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, and Bewitched. De Mille's The Sign of the Cross (1932), but was overshadowed by Claudette Colbert who played the flashier role of the temptress. She directed Outrage in 1950 and tackled the contraversial subject of rape.

She played the heroine in Cecil B. From the early '50s she began directing films, mostly melodramas and was one of the few women of her era to achieve success in this field. She was signed to a contact by 20th Century Fox in 1931. Lupino often joked that if she had been the "poor man's Bette Davis", then she had become the "poor man's Don Siegel". During the 1920s she appeared in British, French, and German films before travelling to the United States to appear in a Broadway production of A Farewell to Arms. Her first directing job came when Elmer Clifton became ill during Not Wanted, a 1949 movie which she co-wrote. She would return to writing during lulls in her acting career. It was during a suspension in the late '40s that she began studying the processes behind the camera.

Her first ambition was to be a writer, and she wrote her first novel at the age of twenty. In 1947, Lupino left Warner Brothers to become a freelance actress. Born Elizabeth Marie Christine Kühnelt in Venice, Italy, Landi was raised in Austria and educated in England. She acted regularly and was in demand throughout the 40s without becoming a major star. Rumoured to be a descendant of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, she was noted for her aristocratic bearing. During this period she became known for her hard boiled roles and appeared in such films as They Drive By Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941). Elissa Landi (December 6, 1904 – October 21, 1948) was an Italian born actress who was popular in Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s. While working for Warner Brothers, she would also refuse parts that Davis had rejected, and earned herself suspensions.

Her parts improved during the '40s and she began to describe herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis". It was after her appearance in The Light That Failed in 1939 that she was taken seriously as a dramatic actress. Encouraged to enter show business by both her parents, Lupino made her first film appearance in 1933, in Her First Affaire and worked for several years playing unsubstantial roles. She was born in London, England, (allegedly under a table during a World War I zeppelin raid), the daughter of music hall entertainer Stanley Lupino.

Ida Lupino (February 4, 1914 – August 3, 1995) was a film actress and director, widely considered a pioneer in the field of women filmmakers.