The luminous star of a number of key film noirs and melodramas of the 1940s, Tierney’s personal life was highly dramatic and heartbreakingly tragic. In the first trimester of her first pregnancy, Tierney contracted German measles from a fan whilst volunteering at the Hollywood Canteen. Her baby was born with severe birth defects, and had to be institutionalized — care which was paid for by Tierney’s sometime lover, Howard Hughes. In addition to her romance with Hughes, Tierney was married to fashion designer Oleg Cassini, who later wooed Grace Kelly, and created the bulk of Jackie Kennedy’s clothes as first lady. Tierney herself had a tortured affair with John. F. Kennedy.
Show notes!
This episode is technically a cross-over between our Star Wars series and our most long-running series, The Many Loves of Howard Hughes. I haven’t found a Hughes biographer who categorizes Tierney as one of the aviator’s great loves, but like Ida Lupino, Tierney was a woman who moved in and out of Hughes’ life over the course of a couple of decades. And, like Lupino, Tierney was a sometime lover who benefitted from Hughes’ largesse, but also saw it get in the way of a marriage.
But this episode had to be told from Gene Tierney’s perspective, and not Howard Hughes’ — or Oleg Cassini’s, or John F. Kennedy’s — and so while there are plenty of books one could read about Gene’s various lovers, my primary source was Tierney’s own autobiography, Self-Portrait. Are all celebrity autobiographies inherently suspect and probably at least partially fiction? Of course! But Tierney’s book is so compelling, and her story so inherently tragic, that it almost seems like bad form to fact-check her version of it.
Special thanks to Noah Segan, who reprised his role as Howard Hughes.
Discography:
Wonder Cycle by Chris Zabriskie
Tikopia by Kevin MacLeod
Ghost Dance by Kevin MacLeod
Take Good Care of it by Spiritualized
Will Be War Soon? by Kosta T
Undercover Vampire Policeman by Chris Zabriskie
Honestly Now by Joan of Arc
Glamorous Glue by Morrissey
Cylinder One by Chris Zabriskie
This is a Low by Blur