Priscilla Lane
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Priscilla Lane | |
---|---|
Born | Priscilla Mullican June 12, 1915 Indianola, Iowa, U.S. |
Died | April 4, 1995 Andover, Massachusetts, U.S. | (aged 79)
Years active | 1937–1948, 1958 |
Height | 5 ft 2+1⁄2 in (159 cm) |
Spouses | Oren W. Haglund
(m. 1939; div. 1941)Joseph A. Howard
(m. 1942; died 1976) |
Children | 4 |
Priscilla Lane (born Priscilla Mullican, June 12, 1915 – April 4, 1995) was an American actress, and the youngest sibling in the Lane Sisters' family of singers and actresses. She is best remembered for her roles in the films The Roaring Twenties (1939) co-starring with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart; Saboteur (1942), an Alfred Hitchcock film in which she plays the heroine; and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), in which she portrays Cary Grant's fiancée and bride.[1]
Early years
Priscilla Mullican was born on June 12, 1915, in Indianola, Iowa,[2] a small college town south of Des Moines. She was the youngest of five daughters of Lorenzo Mullican and his wife, Cora Bell Hicks. Dr. Mullican had a dental practice in Indianola. The family owned a large house with 22 rooms, some of which they rented to students attending nearby Simpson College.
Priscilla and one of her sisters, Rosemary, traveled to Des Moines every weekend to study dancing with Rose Lorenz, a renowned dance teacher[3] at the time. The girls made their first professional appearance September 30, 1930, at Des Moines' Paramount Theater. Priscilla, then 15, performed on stage as part of the entertainment accompanying the release of her sister Lola's Hollywood movie Good News (1930).
After graduating from high school, Priscilla was permitted to travel to New York to visit a third sister, Leota (the eldest of the five Mullican sisters), then appearing in a musical revue in Manhattan. Priscilla enrolled at the nearby Fagen School of Dramatics, and Leota paid the fee. At this time, talent agent Al Altman saw Priscilla performing in one of Fagen's school plays and invited her to
In 1932, Cora and Rosemary arrived in New York. Cora immediately went to work pushing her two young daughters into attending auditions for various prospective Broadway productions, without success. During a tryout at a music publishing office, orchestra leader and radio personality Fred Waring heard them harmonizing. He found them attractive and talented and soon signed them to a radio contract. Priscilla, who at this time adopted the surname Lane, quickly became known as the comedienne of the group. Rosemary sang the ballads, while Priscilla performed the swing numbers and wisecracked with Waring and various guests. Back in Iowa, Dr. Mullican instituted divorce proceedings against his wife on the grounds of desertion, and the divorce was granted in 1933.
Film career
Rosemary and Priscilla remained with Fred Waring for almost five years. In 1937, Waring was engaged by Warner Bros. in Hollywood to appear with his entire band in Varsity Show, a musical starring Dick Powell. Both Rosemary and Priscilla were tested and awarded feature roles in the film. Rosemary shared the romantic passages with Powell, while Priscilla played a high-spirited college girl.
Warner Bros. purchased Priscilla and Rosemary's contract from Fred Waring and signed them to seven-year pacts.
Also in 1938, Priscilla, Rosemary and third sister Lola Lane appeared as three of four sisters (the fourth being Gale Page) in Four Daughters, the similarly themed Daughters Courageous the following year, and two sequels to Four Daughters a few years later, Four Wives and Four Mothers.
Priscilla was next assigned the lead in Brother Rat, which had been a very successful Broadway play. Again she played opposite Wayne Morris, and among the cast were newcomers Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, Jane Bryan, and Eddie Albert. The film, when released in October 1938, was a big success for all the young players. At this time of professional success, the sisters were informed that Dr. Mullican had died in Iowa.
After winning her raise, Priscilla returned to work, but the films assigned to her were no better than those she had turned down. Brother Rat and a Baby (aka, Baby Be Good, 1940) was an inferior sequel and Three Cheers for the Irish (also 1940) gave her little to do.
The British Picturegoer magazine, always a supporter of the Lane Sisters, stated that all was not right with Priscilla Lane. In its June 15, 1940 issue, they wondered why "Priscilla was still knocking at the door of major stardom". They felt Warner Bros. was casting her as stooge to such actors as John Garfield and James Cagney. They went on to say Priscilla had great charm and while not a really great dramatic actress, deserved much larger and more important roles than she was getting. The same magazine, two years later on August 22, 1942, referred to their 1940 article and once again expressed disappointment at Warners' treatment of the star. They were unaware that she had already left the studio.
On April 28, 1941, she was heard on
Frank Capra requested her for the lead opposite Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace. The comedy film was completed in early 1942, but was not released until 1944; it was held up by contractual agreement not to distribute the film until the play's long Broadway run was over. It was Priscilla's last Warner film. Her contract was terminated by mutual agreement after five years with the studio.
She freelanced next, signing a one-picture deal with
(1942). The director did not want either Cummings or Lane for their roles. Hitchcock felt Lane was too much the girl next door. Universal insisted that they play the leads, and when the film was released, her acting was praised while some criticism was focused on Hitchcock for reworking so much from his earlier films into this wartime spy drama.She had commitments for two more films. The first was Silver Queen (1942) for producer Harry Sherman in which she co-starred with George Brent. She played the owner of a gambling house in 1870s San Francisco. The other film was a Jack Benny comedy, The Meanest Man in the World, released in January 1943. Lane then retired from films. For the duration of the war, she followed her husband across America as he moved from one military base to another. She was generous with her talents and often performed at camp shows.
While living in
Lane accepted the offer of the lead role opposite
In January 1951, Cora Mullican died at the
Personal life
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Lane dated assistant director and screenwriter Oren W. Haglund, later the production manager of eleven
In early 1942, the engagement to Barry ended after she met Joseph Howard, a 27-year-old Army Air Corps lieutenant, at a
At the war's end in 1945, Lane and Howard were living in
Outside her family, Priscilla remained busy. She was devoutly religious, having converted to
Lane was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1994. She moved to a nursing home, Wingate, in Andover near her son Joe and his family. She died there at 7:30 a.m. on April 4, 1995, from lung cancer and chronic heart failure, aged 79.[2] A funeral mass was celebrated at St. Matthew's Church in Windham, New Hampshire. She was laid to rest beside her husband.[citation needed]
Filmography
References
- ^ a b Shipman, David (April 10, 1995). "Obituary: Priscilla Lane". The Independent. London. Retrieved February 9, 2014.
- ^ a b c Erickson, Hal. "Priscilla Lane". AllMovie. Retrieved February 9, 2014.
- ^ "The Era of Miss Betty: 1955 to 1975". Betty Hill Dance. Retrieved April 1, 2020.
- ^ .
- .
- '^ Motion Picture and Television Magazine, November 1952, page 33, Ideal Publishers
- ISBN 978-0813159515. Retrieved January 7, 2019 – via Google Books.
External links
- Priscilla Lane at IMDb