Background
Arden, Eve was born on April 30, 1912 in Mill Valley, California, United States.
Arden, Eve was born on April 30, 1912 in Mill Valley, California, United States.
Student pub schools.
At sixteen she was in traveling theatre in northern California, and by the age of twenty she was in the Ziegfeld Follies. She made a couple of pictures under her real name—The Song of Love (29, Earle C. Kenton) and Dancing Lady (33, Robert Z. Leonard)—before she came up with her new name (Joan Crawford, briefly, had been Joan Arden).
She was several years on Broadway, doing Very Warm for May and Two for the Show, but by the late thirties her movie identity was established—knowing eyes, sarcastic voice, in roles slightly off to the side which enlivened any picture: Oh, Doctor (37, Ray McCarey); handling Hepburn’s loftiness in Stage Door (37, Gregory La Cava); Cocoanut Grove (38, Alfred Santell); Letter of Introduction (38, John M. Stahl); Having Wonderful Time (38, Santell): Woman in the Wind (39, John Farmer); Big Town Czar (39, Arthur Lubin); The Forgotten Woman (39, Harold Young); Eternally Yours (39, Tay Garnett); At the Circus (39, Edward L. Buzzell); A Child Is Born (40. Lloyd Bacon); Slightly Honorable (40, Garnett); Comrade X (40, King Vidor); No, No Nanette (40, Herbert Wilcox); Ziegfeld Girl (41. Leonard); That Uncertain Feeling (41, Ernst Lubitsch); She Knew All the Answers (41, Richard Wallace); San Antonio Rose (41, Charles Lamont); Manpower (41, Raoul Walsh); and Bedtime Story (41, Alexander Hall).
She was in Cover Girl (44, Charles Vidor); she got a supporting actress nomination as Ida in Mildred Pierce (45, Michael Curtiz); Mi/ Reputation (46, Curtis Bernhardt); The Kid from Brooklyn (46, Norman Z. McLeod); Night and Day (46, Curtiz); Song of Scheherazade (47, Walter Reisch); The Anielo Affair (47, Arch Oboler); The Unfaithful (47, Vincent Sherman); The Voice of the Turtle (47, living Rapper); One Touch of Venus (48, William A. Seiter); My Dream Is Yours (49, Curtiz); The Lady Takes a Sailor (49, Curtiz); Paid in Full (50, William Dieterle); Tea for Two (50, David Butler); Goodbye My Fancy (51, Sherman); and We're Not Married (52, Edmund Coulding).
Branching out, in 1948, she had created the character of the wisecracking teacher, Connie Brooks, on radio in Our Miss Brooks. It ran on CBS until 1956, and in 1952 a TV series began—a big hit—that lasted until 1956 and won Arden an Emmy. Finally, there was a movie, Our Miss Brooks (56, Al Lewis).
That was her peak, but she was a very droll secretary in Anatomy of a Murder (59, Otto Preminger); The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (60, Delbert Mann); Sergeant Deadhead (65, Norman Taurog); nicely cast as the school principal in Grease (78, Randal Kleiser) and Grease II (82, Patricia Birch).
Essential, one of the great deliverers of sour lines, capable of decking Katharine Hepburn or Groucho, a model of disbelieving yet enduring intelligence.
Daughter of Charles Peter and Lucille {Frank} Quedens. M Edward G Bergen {divorced 1948}. Adopted children: Liza Constance.
Married Brooks West, Aug 24, 1951 {deceased 1984}. 1 child, Douglas Brooks. 1 adopted child, Duncan Paris.