Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508070107
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BURBANK, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
With her dark, narrow face and violet eyes, she excelled at playing the vicious, the world-weary and the crazy. Her roles included Humphrey Bogart's girlfriend in ``High Sierra'' (1941) and an escaped convict in ``The Sea Wolf'' with Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield that same year.
She died at home Thursday of colon cancer. She was 77 and had recently suffered a stroke.
As one of Hollywood's first women directors, she found some traditional techniques helped her handle the men she worked with.
``Often I pretend to know less than I do. That way you get more cooperation,'' she said in 1965.
She noted that keeping cool was crucial. ``A woman can't afford to blow - they're just waiting for you to do it.''
Lupino was born in London to a music hall comedian and an actress. She once said of her most frequent type role, ``My father once said to me, `You're born to be bad.' And it was true. I made eight films in England before I came to America, and I played a tramp or a slut in all of them.''
Paramount brought her to Hollywood in the early 1930s to play Alice in Wonderland, but she was wrong for the part: ``I would have played her as a hooker and danced on the table tops.''
Originally given ingenue parts, Lupino gave up a $1,500-a-week contract in 1937 to pursue more substantial roles.
She was named best actress in 1943 by the New York Film Critics for the role of a domineering sister in ``The Hard Way.'' Her other films include ``The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'' (1939) with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and ``Devotion'' (1946), in which she plays Emily Bronte to Olivia de Havilland's Charlotte Bronte.
She began directing in the 1950s. She produced, wrote or directed low-budget melodramas on such topics as rape and bigamy and went on to direct TV shows, including ``The Untouchables'' and ``Have Gun Will Travel.'' She returned to acting in the 1960s. Her last role was a 1976 episode of ``Charlie's Angels.''
She was married three times. She and her last husband, actor Howard Duff, divorced in 1983.
by CNB