1. Linda Darnell co-starred with Tyrone Power in four films, including the classic The Mark of Zorro.
62 Facts About Linda Darnell
1. 2.
Linda Darnell was born in Dallas, Texas, as one of four children to postal clerk Calvin Roy Linda Darnell and the former Margaret "Pearl" Brown.
3.
Linda Darnell was the younger sister of Undeen and the older sister of Monte Maloya and Calvin Roy, Jr.
4.
Linda Darnell's parents were not happily married, and she grew up as a shy and reserved girl in a house of domestic turmoil.
5.
Linda Darnell believed that Linda was her only child with potential as an actress and ignored the rearing of her other children.
6.
Linda Darnell was a model by the age of 11 and was acting on the stage by the age of 13.
7.
Linda Darnell initially started modeling to earn money for the household and performed mostly in beauty contests.
8.
Linda Darnell did not have a lot in common with her peers and usually spent her time at home as a teen, working under the guidance of her mother.
9.
When 20th Century-Fox offered her a part, Linda Darnell wanted to accept, but RKO was unwilling to release her.
10.
Linda Darnell was later replaced because the studio felt her role was not important enough.
11.
Since the beginning of her career at 20th Century-Fox, Linda Darnell had been very positive about her frequent co-star Tyrone Power.
12.
Linda Darnell was assigned to the female lead opposite Power in the light romantic comedy Day-Time Wife.
13.
Nevertheless, Linda Darnell later claimed that her downfall began after Blood and Sand.
14.
In early 1942, Linda Darnell filmed The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe, another film that would not do much to advance her career.
15.
Linda Darnell complained that the studio lacked recognition of her, which prodded Zanuck to cast her in Hangover Square, wherein she played a role she personally had chosen.
16.
The film became a great success, and with Linda Darnell's triumph assured, she was allowed to abandon her upcoming film, Don Juan Quilligan, which would have been another low point in her career.
17.
In 1946, Linda Darnell filmed two pictures simultaneously, the expensively budgeted Anna and the King of Siam and Preminger's Centennial Summer.
18.
Linda Darnell was assigned to a negligible role by Zanuck, which displeased Ford, who felt that she was not suitable.
19.
In 1946, Linda Darnell won the starring role in the highly anticipated movie Forever Amber, based on a bestselling historical novel that was denounced as being immoral at that time.
20.
Linda Darnell replaced British actress Peggy Cummins in July 1946 at a cost of $350,000.
21.
Linda Darnell's casting was a result of a campaign for stronger roles.
22.
Linda Darnell was again put on a diet and was assigned to a voice coach to learn how to speak with an English accent.
23.
Linda Darnell was certain that Forever Amber would be her ticket to stardom, and she told reporters:.
24.
Linda Darnell worked long hours at the studio during filming, and according to her older sister she started loathing Preminger, which did not ease production.
25.
Linda Darnell's shooting schedule lasted until March 1947, and she collapsed on the set twice.
26.
Linda Darnell was disappointed in the film's reception; it did not gain her the recognition she desired.
27.
Linda Darnell's hard-edged performance in the latter won her unanimous acclaim and the best reviews of her career.
28.
Linda Darnell became one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood, and she now had the freedom to select her own roles.
29.
Linda Darnell longed for the leading role in the controversial film Pinky, but Zanuck feared that her character would be compared to Amber by the audience, and A Letter to Three Wives co-star Jeanne Crain was cast instead.
30.
Linda Darnell had been widely expected to win an Academy Award nomination for A Letter to Three Wives.
31.
Linda Darnell was cast opposite Richard Widmark and Veronica Lake in Slattery's Hurricane, which she perceived as a step down from the level she had reached with A Letter to Three Wives, though it did well at the box office.
32.
Linda Darnell's next film was a Western, Two Flags West.
33.
Linda Darnell was even less enthusiastic about her next film, The 13th Letter, which reunited her with Preminger, and she only took the role because it was an unglamorous one.
34.
On March 21,1951, Linda Darnell signed a new contract with 20th Century Fox that allowed her to become a freelance actress.
35.
Linda Darnell was responsible for putting the film behind schedule because on the fifth day of shooting she learned that Ivan Kahn, the man responsible for her breakthrough, had died.
36.
Linda Darnell soon realized, though, that the ease and protection enjoyed under contract was gone, and she came to resent 20th Century-Fox and Zanuck:.
37.
Linda Darnell arrived in Italy in August 1952 and started filming Angels of Darkness in February of the next year.
38.
Linda Darnell returned to 20th Century-Fox in August 1955, by which time the studio had entered the television field.
39.
Linda Darnell was eager to appear on Ronald Reagan's General Electric Theater.
40.
In 1958, Linda Darnell appeared in the episode "Kid on a Calico Horse" of NBC's Cimarron City along with a cast of other guest stars, including Edgar Buchanan.
41.
Since Linda Darnell was underage when she arrived in Hollywood, she was tutored on set.
42.
Linda Darnell planned on attending graduation ceremonies at Sunset High School, but she was excluded from them and instead graduated from University High School in 1941.
43.
Linda Darnell is a member of the Sunset High School Hall of Fame.
44.
Linda Darnell was very negative about the Hollywood social scene, finding it "nauseating".
45.
Linda Darnell's mother was an unpopular figure on the lot because of her overbearing and possessive behavior.
46.
When Hughes announced that he had no desire to marry her, Linda Darnell returned to her husband and cancelled divorce proceedings.
47.
Linda Darnell planned to adopt a boy within a few years, but nothing ever came of it.
48.
When he left in late 1949 for on-location shooting of All About Eve, Linda Darnell fell into a depression and almost committed suicide.
49.
Linda Darnell continued to meet with him occasionally until production of The Barefoot Contessa started.
50.
On January 25,1949, Linda Darnell went to court to sue her former business manager, Cy Tanner, for fraud.
51.
Linda Darnell testified that he stole $7,250 from her between 1946 and 1947, and Tanner was eventually sent to prison.
52.
On July 19,1950, Linda Darnell reportedly separated from her husband.
53.
Linda Darnell married brewery heir Philip Liebmann in February 1954.
54.
Linda Darnell was married to pilot Merle Roy Robertson from 1957 to 1963.
55.
In 1963, Linda Darnell was granted a divorce from Robertson following an outburst in the courtroom, where she accused her third husband of fathering the baby of a Polish actress.
56.
Linda Darnell was promised alimony of $350 monthly until July 15,1964, and then $250 until September 15,1967.
57.
Linda Darnell died on April 10,1965, from burns that she had received in a house fire in Glenview, Illinois, early the day before.
58.
Linda Darnell had been staying at the home of her former secretary and the secretary's daughter and had just received notice from her agent of three possible movie contracts.
59.
Linda Darnell was trapped on the second floor of the home by heat and smoke after the fire had started in the living room.
60.
Linda Darnell had lost track of Darnell and insisted that the firefighters rescue Darnell before she was taken from the window ledge.
61.
Linda Darnell's body was cremated; she had wanted her ashes scattered over a ranch in New Mexico, but because of a dispute with the landowners that was not possible.
62.
Linda Darnell has a star at 1631 Vine Street in the Motion Pictures section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.