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She was born Gene Eliza Tierney in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavina Taylor. Her elder brother was Howard Sherwood "Butch" Tierney, Jr., and her younger sister was Patricia "Pat" Tierney. Her father was a prosperous insurance broker of Irish decent, her mother a former gym teacher.
Gene attended St. Margaret School, Waterbury, Connecticut, and the Unquowa School in Bridgeport. Along with her studies, she learned horseback riding. Her first poem, titled Night, was published in the school magazine, and writing verse became an occasional pastime during the rest of her life. She then spent two years in Europe and attended the Brillantmont Finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she learned to speak fluent French.
She returned to the U.S. in 1938 and attended Miss Porter's School. On a trip to the West Coast, she visited Warner Bros. and was told by Anatole Litvak she should become an actress. Her coming out party as a debutante was September 24, but she soon became bored with society life and decided to pursue a career in acting. Warners wanted to sign her to a contract, but her parents advised against it because of the low salary.
 In her first part on Broadway, she carried a bucket of water across the stage in What a Life! (1938). That next year, she appeared in the role as Molly O'Day in the Broadway production Mrs. O'Brien Entertains (1939), and also played Peggy Carr in Ring Two (1939).
Tierney also worked as a photographic model in between her appearances on the Broadway stage . Photos of her appeared in Life, Harper's Bazaar, and Collier's Weekly.
Her father set up a corporation, Belle-Tier, to fund and promote her acting career (he went on to steal all of her money), and Columbia offered her a six-month contract, which she signed. She also met Howard Hughes, who tried unsuccessfully to seduce her, before becoming a lifelong friend. A cameraman advised her to lose a little weight, saying "a thinner face is more seductive." She then wrote to Harper's Bazaar for a slimming diet, which she followed for the next twenty years.
The studio failed to find her a project, however, so she returned to New York and starred as Patricia Stanley to critical success in The Male Animal (1940) she was the toast of Broadway. All this success came before Gene's twentieth birthday.
 Tierney was offered the lead in MGM's National Velvet, but when the production was delayed she signed with 20th Century Fox. Her motion picture debut was in the starring role as Eleanor Stone in Fritz Lang's western The Return of Frank James (1940) opposite Henry Fonda. A small role as Barbara Hall in Hudson's Bay with Paul Muni followed, released that same year.
1941 was a busy year for the actress, as she starred in the role as Ellie May Lester in John Ford's drama Tobacco Road, the title role in Belle Starr, as Zia in Sundown, and as Victoria Charteris AKA Poppy Smith in The Shanghai Gesture (img left with Victor Mature). In 1942, she played Eve in Son of Fury, the dual role as Susan Miller and Linda Worthington in Rings on Her Fingers, the role as Kay Saunders in Thunder Birds (1942), and Miss Young in China Girl (1942).
Top billing in Ernst Lubitsch's classic 1943 comedy Heaven Can Wait, in which she played Martha Strabel Van Cleve, signaled an upward turn in Tierney's career as her popularity increased.
In 1944, she starred in what became her most famous role as the intended murder victim, Laura Hunt, in Otto Preminger's mystery Laura.
After playing Tina Tomasino in A Bell for Adano (1945), she played the jealous, narcissistic femme fatale Ellen Berent Harland, opposite Cornel Wilde, in the film version of the best-selling book Leave Her to Heaven—a performance that won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress (1945). Leave Her To Heaven was Fox's most successful film of the 1940s.
Tierney starred in the role as Miranda Wells in Dragonwyck (1946). That same year, she played Isabel Bradley opposite Tyrone Power, with John Payne, Anne Baxter, and Clifton Webb, in The Razor's Edge, an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel. She followed that with her role as Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) opposite Rex Harrison, with George Sanders, Anna Lee, and Natalie Wood. As the decade came to a close Tierney reunited with her Laura director Preminger to star in the classic film noir Whirlpool co-starring Richard Conte and Jose Ferrer (1949).
Tierney gave memorable performances in two classic film noirs, Jules Dassin's Night and the City co-starring Richard Widmark and Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends reunited with her Laura co-star Dana Andrews (both in 1950).
In 1951 she was loaned out to Paramount Pictures and gave a memorable comic turn in Mitchell Leisen's classic screwball comedy The Mating Season with her co-stars John Lund, Thelma Ritter and Miriam Hopkins.This was also the year Gene Tierney gave a tender performance as Midge Sheridan opposite Ray Milland in Close to my Heart (1951) (Warner Bros.). The film is about a couple trying to adopt. Gene felt this was her best role in a half dozen years which touched the chords of her own experience. The film adresses the isssue of "nature vs nurture" and opened a early conversation about the adoption process. Later in her career she would be reunited with Milland in Daughter of the Mind (1969), which has a cult following.
After appearing opposite Rory Calhoun in The Way of the Gaucho (1952), which was filmed on location in Argentina, her contract at 20th Century Fox expired. That same year, she starred as Dorothy Bradford in Plymouth Adventure opposite Spencer Tracy at MGM, which was followed by her role as Marya Lamarkina Sutherland opposite Clark Gable in Never Let Me Go (1953). Gene thought Gable patient and considerate, but lonely and vulnerable, still missing Carole Lombard. She remained at the studio to play Kay Barlow in Personal Affair (1953), which was released that same year. During 1953 Tierney's mental health problems were becoming harder for her to hide, consequently she dropped out of Mogambo and was replaced by Grace Kelly.
While Tierney was in Europe, she began an affair with Prince Aly Khan, but their marriage plans met with fierce opposition from his father, the Aga Khan. She returned to the U.S., where she played Iris Denver in Black Widow (1954), co-starring Ginger Rogers, Van Heflin, George Raft, with Peggy Ann Garner.
While playing Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God (1955) opposite Humphrey Bogart, Tierney's long string of personal troubles finally took their toll. She said that Bogart could tell that she was mentally unstable. During the production he fed Gene her lines, and encouraged her to seek help.
Worried about her mental health, she consulted a psychiatrist, and was admitted to Harkness Pavilion in New York. Later she went to the The Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut. After some 27 shock treatments, she attempted to flee, but was caught and reinstitutionalized. (She was an outspoken opponent of shock treatment therapy, claiming that it had destroyed significant portions of her memory.)
In 1957, Tierney was seen by a neighbor as she was about to jump from a ledge. The police were called, and she was admitted to the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas on December 25. She was released from Menninger the following year, after a treatment that included, in its final stages, working as a sales girl in a large department store (where she was recognized by a customer, resulting in sensational newspaper headlines).
20th Century Fox offered her a lead role in Holiday for Lovers (1957), but the stress proved too great. Days into production, she was forced to drop out of the film and was readmitted to Menninger.
Tierney had two husbands, costume and fashion designer Oleg Cassini (married July 11, 1941, divorced February 28, 1952), and Texas oilman W. Howard Lee (married July 11, 1960 until his death on February 17, 1991).
She and Cassini had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (born October 15, 1943) and Christina "Tina" Cassini (born November 19, 1948).
Cassini served as a a second lieutenant in the Army in World War II, and Tierney was accorded the honor of pinning the regulation gold bars on his uniform. In June 1943, while pregnant with her first daughter, she came down with German measles, contracted during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen. The baby, Daria, was born prematurely in Washington, D.C., weighing only 3 pounds, 2 ounces, and requiring a total blood transfusion. Because of Tierney's exposure to German measles, Daria was also deaf, partially blind with cataracts, and severely retarded. Tierney's grief over the tragedy led to many years of depression and bi-polar disorder.
Tierney separated from Oleg Cassini, challenged by the marital stress of Daria's condition, but they later reconciled and had a second daughter, Tina. During her marriage to Cassini, Tierney had a romance with actor Tyrone Power (her co-star in The Razor's Edge (1946). That came to an end in the spring of 1946. During the filming of Dragonwyck, she met the young John F. Kennedy, who was visiting the set that day. They began an affair that ended the following year when Kennedy told her he could never marry her because of his political ambitions.
In 1958 she met Texas oil baron W. Howard Lee; they were married in Aspen in 1960 and moved to Houston. Tierney loved life in Texas with Lee and became an expert bridge player. In 1962, 20th Century Fox announced she would play the lead role in Return to Peyton Place, but she became pregnant and dropped out of the project. (She later miscarried the baby).
Her comeback to the screen was as Dolly Harrison in Advise and Consent (1962), co-starring Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon, Charles Laughton, Don Murray, Peter Lawford, and Burgess Meredith. A year later she played Albertine Prine in Toys in the Attic, starring Dean Martin and Geraldine Page, she received overall critical praise for her performances.
Tierney played Jane Barton in The Pleasure Seekers (1964), starring Ann-Margret, Anthony Franciosa, and Carol Lynley, then again retired.
She played Lenore Constable, however, in the television movie Daughter of the Mind (1969), with Don Murray and Ray Milland.
Her autobiography, Self-Portrait, in which she candidly discussed her life, career and mental illness, was published in 1979.
Tierney's final show business performance was as Harriet Toppingham in the TV mini-series Scruples (1980), starring Lindsay Wagner. In 1981 she was widowed by the death of Howard Lee after a long and supportive marriage.
Tierney died in 1991 at age 71 of emphysema in Houston, Texas, and is interred, beside Lee, in Section E-1 of Glenwood Cemetery (Houston, Texas). She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6125 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
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