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She was born in Camberwell, London, England, the daughter of actress Connie O'Shea (aka: Connie Emerald) and Stanley Lupino, one of the Lupino family. Her father was a famous dance hall performer in England, and her mother was known as the fastest tap dancer alive. She began performing at 10, entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at 13, and first appeared on film at 15.
Encouraged to enter show business by both her parents and an uncle, Lupino Lane, Ida Lupino made her first film appearance in 1931, in The Love Race and worked for several years playing unsubstantial roles.
Ida, a bleached blonde, came to Hollywood in 1934 and played small and insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she was finally regarded as a dramatic actress.
Her parts improved during the 1940s and she began to describe herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis". While working for Warner Brothers, she would also refuse parts that Davis had rejected, and earned herself suspensions.
During this period she became known for her hard boiled roles and appeared in such films as They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941). She acted regularly and was in demand throughout the '40s without becoming a major star.
In 1947, Lupino left Warner Brothers to become a freelance actress. Notable films around that time include Road House and On Dangerous Ground.
Ida would often refuse to play a Davis hand-me-down role and was often suspended by Warner Bros. for doing so. It was during those breaks that she would go on movie sets, chum around with the male directors and learned the craft of directing. Blazing new trails, she became the only notable and respected female filmmaker of her era in Hollywood.
It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson.
When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer.
She later turned to Television where she directed episodes in shows such as "The Untouchables" (1959) and "The Fugitive" (1963). In the seventies, she did guest appearances on various television show and small parts in a few movies.
It was during a suspension in the late 1940s that she began studying the processes behind the camera. Her first directing job came when Elmer Clifton became ill during Not Wanted, a 1949 movie which she co-wrote.
Lupino often joked that if she had been the "poor man's Bette Davis" as an actress, then she had become the "poor man's Don Siegel" as a director. From the early '50s she began directing films, mostly melodramas and was one of the few women of her era to achieve success in this field.
She directed Outrage in 1950, and tackled the extremely controversial subject (at that time) of rape. In addition to acting in many films noir, she also directed The Hitch-Hiker (1953). The film was the first film noir directed by a woman.
She continued acting throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Rifleman, Bonanza, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, and Bewitched.
After guest starring in popular TV shows, she retired after making her final film appearance in 1978.
 She married and divorced three times:
Louis Hayward, actor (November 1938 – 11 May 1945)
Collier Young, producer (1948 London–1951)
Howard Duff, actor, (October 1951 – 1984) [img left]
one daughter, Bridget Duff (b. April 23, 1952)
Ida Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles, California. She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
The second woman to be admitted to the Director's Guild (following Dorothy Arzner), Ida Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the fields of television and motion pictures. They are located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.
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