Background
Linda Darnell was born on 16 October 1921 in Dallas, Texas, United States.
Linda Darnell was born on 16 October 1921 in Dallas, Texas, United States.
Her best work was done for Preminger, and she exists imaginatively as the loose-living sister of Gene Tierney, a girl bruised by experience but still making up her lips till they bulge with prospects. After working as a model, she made her debut in Gregory' Ratoff’s Hotel for Women (39), then Day-Time Wife (39, Ratoff), and she is a splendid female object in Hathaways Brigham Young (40); as Lolita in Mamoulian’s The Mark ofZorro (40); King's Chad Hanna (40); and Mamoulian’s Blood and Sand (41)—all made while still in her teens. She w'as still not quite a star and played supporting parts: Rise and Shine (41, Allan Dwan); as the Virgin Mary (uncredited) in The Song of Bernadette (43, Henry King); as an Indian girl. Dawn Starlight, in Buffalo Bill (44, William Wellman); René Clair’s It Happened Tomorrow (44); Sirk’s Summer Storm (44); and Archie Mayo’s Sweet and Lowdown (44). Upon encountering Otto Preminger, she made four films: Fallen Angel (45); Centennial Summer (46); blonde in Forever Amber (47); and The 13th Letter (51). This counts as her best work, but she is also good in John Brahms Hangover Scpiare (45); The Great John L. (45, Frank Tuttle); “I’m Chi¬huahua” in Ford’s My Darling Clementine (46); as Algeria Wedge in John Stahl’s The Walls of Jericho
(48); as the wife in Preston Sturgess Unfaithfully Yours (48), subtly different in Hex Harrison’s several daydreams for disposing ol her; in Slattery’s Hurricane (49, André tie Toth); and in two Joseph Mankiewicz films, A Letter to Three Wives (48) and No Way Out (50). Her success did not cany over into the 1950s and, after Robert Wises Two Flas West (50); Stuart Heisler’s Saturday Island (51); Raoul Walshs Blackboard the Pirate (52); Rudolph Mates Second Chance (53); This Is My Love (54, Ileisler); and Zero Hour (57, Hall Bartlett), she worked only intermittently.
She died in a fire that started while she was watching one of her own movies on TV.
A dark-eyed, sultry actress, Darnell was one of the sirens of the 1940s whose rose-at-twilight looks seemed to stimulate every Fox cameraman.
One of her husbands was photographer Peverell Marley.