User Reviews

It's sometimes unbelievable how on the outside, someone can look like they have it all - but not. No matter how many times that seems to be the case, one never seems to be able to get used to it.

Gene Tierney was one such person - a beautiful woman from a wealthy family who became a top movie star, had an affair with a future President, married a man who became a top designer, and had two children. It all sounds great, except the marriage was a volatile one, one daughter was born severely retarded and sensory deprived, which Tierney blamed on her own fame. Riddled with guilt, she ultimately had a severe breakdown.

You would never have known it to see this goddess in "Laura," for which she is perhaps best remembered, and "Leave Her to Heaven," in which in my opinion she was at her most beautiful, and as the manipulative, hard Isabel in "The Razor's Edge." Gene Tierney was a dream movie star. But when a WAC quarantined with German measles escaped from her barracks to meet her favorite actress, the result was Tierney's damaged daughter, Daria, and that one action by a fan changed Tierney's life forever. There's even a movie based on it - "The Mirror Cracked." Tierney never forgave herself. At one point, her second daughter came home from school to find the apartment building surrounded by people as her mother stood on a ledge.

As mentioned above, Tierney was able to have another child and find true love in her next marriage. Although wonderful and beautiful in her small part in "Advise and Consent" in the '60s, she found herself too nervous in front of the camera and did less and less until her death from emphysema - the smoking was to lower her high-pitched voice, something the studios recommended.

The stories on "Biography" are usually very interesting and fascinating. They're also often very sad. Angela Lansbury once said when performers are working, they truly do wear a mask. Tierney's was a most beautiful one, hiding a good deal of sorrow.

GENE TIERNEY was a girl with sculptured high cheekbones, full lips, a sultry air of glamor and exotic cat-like green eyes. She photographed gorgeously in Technicolor (as her studio soon found out), but it was in a couple of B&W classics that she really made her mark (LAURA and THE RAZOR'S EDGE).

She was the girl of everyone's dreams for awhile in the '40s, especially after she played the title role in LAURA, a sophisticated film noir co-starring her with tight-lipped detective DANA ANDREWS who seemed to be the perfect partner for her in a film noir sort of mystery. After LAURA, she was the toast of the town and Fox used her in some of her most widely known films--notably LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN in which her stunning beauty was fittingly captured in Technicolor and she had a role that gave her some acting to do. She received her first and only Oscar nomination, but from then on there were some hard knocks ahead.

The story of how an unknown woman with German measles at a military outpost left her barracks in order to see and shake hands with Gene during a personal appearance tour, became fodder for an Agatha Christie story in which the motive for murder was a woman who caused the actress to catch the disease and bear a mentally retarded child. Strange how sometimes art imitates life.

That and other unfortunate incidents involving a poor choice of men, gave way to severe mental illness requiring hospitalization and electric shock therapy which obliterated many things from Tierney's mind. Ironically, she was under contract to a studio that almost certainly must have considered her for the leading role in THE SNAKE PIT about a woman with a guilt complex who is committed to a state hospital and undergoes just such treatments.

Among the contributors, Oleg Cassini gives perhaps the frankest observations on his wife and his rocky marriage to her during the height of her career. But overall, it's a sad commentary on a woman who was too fragile to face the pressures of a Hollywood career and the fame and responsibilities that went with it, along with the heartbreaking pregnancy that resulted in a severely retarded child for which she felt guilt.

Interesting, informative and illuminating study of a movie star who should have had it all--but is fondly remembered today as one of Hollywood's loveliest legends.

Well, the first reviewer certainly captures the essence of this episode, which focuses a great deal upon many negative aspects working against this lovely star, who delivers many fine performances throughout her career at 20th Century Fox Studios, so I'll just fill in a few additional details....

Peter Graves narrates this account of the life and career of actress Gene Tierney, from her 1920 birth, in Brooklyn, New York, through her career on stage and in film, and the many obstacles which challenge her well-being along the way.

After attending Saint Margaret's School in Waterbury, Connecticut, and Unquowa School in Bridgeport, Gene attends Brillantmont Finishing School in Lausanne, Switzerland, learning French. She returns to the States to complete her education at Miss Porter's School and has her débutante coming out party in 1938.

Gene decides upon an acting career and travels to Hollywood to test for Warner Bros. Studios, but her family declines Warner's offer, and so she studies theatre and appears on Broadway, receiving favorable reviews in "Mrs. O' Brien Entertains," especially for her graceful beauty.

Howard, Sr. assists his daughter in establishing her film acting contract with Columbia Studios, but she would have no roles with them other than as an unrequited object of Howard Hughes' attentions. She returns to Broadway for "The Male Animal" (1940), which Darryl F. Zanuck attends and signs her to a contract with 20th.

Gene soon marries Costume Designer Oleg Cassini, in 1941, and stars throughout the 1940's opposite many headlining stars of the day. During a break in her marriage, Gene shares a romance with John F. Kennedy, who curtails things, as he chooses instead to run for the U.S. House of Representatives, and later the Senate, with designs on the Presidency, because involvement with any married actress may prove a political liability.

But while Gene's star rises, her emotional well-being becomes threatened by depression and disorientation, reportedly stemming from the handicaps of newborn daughter Daria, in 1943, after which Gene undergoes a series of 27 shock treatments at two institutions, climaxing with a 1957 climb onto the ledge of the 14th floor of her apartment building, after which she is admitted to Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, to begin her recovery process.

After leaving Oleg, Gene remains in Topeka and accepts a position as a sales clerk in a dress shoppe, dealing with customers and the press alike, amid much-publicized newspaper items regarding her downward spiral, which Gene openly discusses at the time, as well as in her 1979 autobiography, "Self-Portrait," a title reminiscent of her film "Laura," which also reflects the sub-title of this episode.

Gene marries again, sharing some twenty years of happiness with W. Howard Lee, as they establish residence in Houston, Texas, where Gene is said to enjoy a quiet life around family and friends, making a few films during the 1960's and also television appearances along the way, until losing Howard, in 1981.

(To avoid confusion, Gene's father and brother are named Howard, her second husband also Howard, and then there's Howard Hughes, who fails to win Gene, but assists her with some of Daria's medical expenses after the fact becomes known that a Marine Corps servicewoman had spread Rubella infection to Gene's unborn child while Gene was serving at the Hollywood Canteen, in 1943.)

Gene's marriages are with Oleg Cassini (1941–52) and W. Howard Lee (1960–81). Gene and Oleg welcome daughters, Daria and Christina.

Interview Guests for this episode consist of Pat Byrne (Sister), Christina Cassini (Daughter), Kay Adell Stork (Stand-In), Jeanine Basinger (Wesleyan University Cinema Archives Director), Oleg Cassini (former Husband), David Raksin (Composer: "Laura"), and Richard Widmark (Actor), with Peter Graves (Host and Narrator).

Still Photographs include Gene Tierney (Self), Belle Taylor Tierney (Mother), Howard Tierney, Sr. (Father), Patricia Tierney (Sister), Howard Tierney, Jr. (Brother), Howard Hughes (Producer), Darryl F. Zanuck (Studio Chief), Daria Cassini (Daughter), Christina Cassini (Daughter), W. Howard Lee (Husband), and Otto Preminger (Director).

Archive film footage includes Gene Tierney, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Cornel Wilde, Tyrone Power, Richard Widmark, Prince Ali Khan, Humphrey Bogart, John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley, and Brian Keith, as well as various unidentified co-stars.

Film Clips include a screen glimpse of Gene Tierney in scenes from The Return of Frank James (1940), Laura (1944), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), The Razor's Edge (1946), Night and the City (1950), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), Way of a Gaucho (1952), The Egyptian (1954), The Left Hand of God (1955), Advise & Consent (1962), and The Pleasure Seekers (1964), as well as footage from several home movies.

This documentary on Gene Tierney describes her as an exotic débutante, an early Grace Kelly, battered by destiny, the unluckiest luckiest girl in the world, and someone who had everything but ended up in stark misery and despair. It is aided immeasurably by the hilarious comments by her former husband Oleg Cassini, and features interviews, make-up and wardrobe tests, home movies, and film clips. The sketch portrait of Gene and her retarded daughter Daria is even more haunting than the Laura painting. There is also a photograph of Gene with a soldier that is possibly the woman that infected the pregnant Gene with measles that led to Daria's condition. Much is made of Gene's beauty. Cassini says she was an extraordinary genetic marvel that he wanted to possess, though soon when his career suffered when he married the younger Gene, he is resentful being Mr Gene Tierney. When she gives him an ultimatum to join him in Argentina during production of a film, he refuses because he claims his career as at the point where he is about to become the man she wanted him to be. How's that for irony? But there is more when Oleg becomes the designer of Jackie Kennedy's personal wardrobe, after Gene had had an affair with Jack Kennedy who had refused to marry her, because she would have needed to divorce Oleg. It is said that Gene had a remarkable gift for mimicry and that she watched movies all night when she first came to Hollywood to learn - but it is not said who she mimicked. It is also said that her role in The Ghost and Mrs Muir mimics Gene's doomed affair with Kennedy. Apart from Daria, Gene's career was affected by her father stealing all her finances, a failed romance with Aly Khan who demanded that she abandon her family to marry her, a mental breakdown in the 1950's which led to a difficult shoot of The Left Hand of God, electric shock treatment and admission to 3 hospitals, severe depression and medication. In 1959 during her mental recovery she worked as a part time dress store clerk. When she returned to Hollywood, she suffered dry mouth from fear, so then was happy to retire from movies and be a Texas housewife, until the death of her husband.

Born into a repressive family in Connecticut, Gene Tierney achieved the impossible dream of most would-be performers when she landed a major Broadway role in THE MALE ANIMAL before her twentieth year had elapsed. Catching the attention of movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck, she was rapidly signed to a long-term contract at Twentieth Century- Fox and rapidly ascended the ladder to stardom by the early Forties.

Highly attractive as a screen presence, with a desire to perpetually improve herself, Tierney shared the screen with most of Fox's leading males including Randolph Scott, Tyrone Power, and Henry Fonda. The world, it seemed, was her oyster.

In private, however, Tierney's life was far more complicated. She married the designer Oleg Cassini - who forged out a movie career in his own right as a costume designer - and together they produced their first child. What Tierney did not know is that during her pregnancy she had come into contact with a fan who had German measles, as a result, Tierney's daughter was born with mental issues, as well as being half-blind and deaf. The couple tried to look after her, but the task eventually proved too, and the daughter was eventually confined permanently to an institution.

The experience profoundly affected Tierney. Although she later produced another child with no problems, her mind became more and more disturbed. Things were not helped by Cassini's infidelities. By the end of the Forties Tierney was still a major star, but on the verge of cracking up mentally. In the middle of the next decade she was confined to a variety of sanatoriums, where she received electric shock therapy as well as less extreme forms of cure.

She managed to find another husband, the tycoon Howard Lee, and the two of them lived quietly in Houston, Texas - Tierney having given up her career by the mid-Sixties. She enjoyed living the quotidian life of a homemaker, an experience she had never previously savored. She died aged seventy in 1991 of emphysema.

With reminiscences from Cassini, her daughter, sister, and others (including Richard Widmark), this was an unusually intimate portrait of a screen legend, focusing more on her off-screen personality.