Source: Futility Closet
At the height of her fame in 1943, movie star Gene Tierney contracted German measles during pregnancy and bore a daughter with severe birth defects. The strain ended her marriage to Oleg Cassini and sent her into a breakdown that lasted years. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe Tierney’s years of heartbreak and the revelation that compounded them.
We’ll also visit some Japanese cats and puzzle over a disarranged corpse.
Intro:
The indexes of two mathematics textbooks contain hidden jokes.
In 1973 Stanford statistician Herman Chernoff proposed using cartoon faces to encode information.
Sources for our feature on Gene Tierney:
Gene Tierney, Self-Portrait, 1979.
Oleg Cassini, In My Own Fashion, 1990.
Steven Rybin, Gestures of Love: Romancing Performance in Classical Hollywood Cinema, 2017.
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry, Femme Noir: Bad Girls of Film, 2013.
Agatha Christie, The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side, 1962.
Dan Callahan, “Only a Dream,” Sight & Sound 22:3 (March 2012), 50-53.
Maureen Orth, “Cassini Royale,” Vanity Fair 52:9 (September 2010), 302.
Amy Davidson Sorkin, “Wakefield’s Vaccine Follies,” New Yorker, May 26, 2010.
“Gene Tierney,” Variety, Nov. 10, 1991.
“Welcome for a Troubled Beauty,” Life, Sept. 29, 1958, 87-92.
“Debutante Gene Tierney Makes Her Entrance in a Broadway Success,” Life, Feb. 19, 1940, 35-40.
Donald G. McNeil Jr., “Rubella Has Been Eliminated From the Americas, Health Officials Say,” New York Times, April 29, 2015.
Patti S. Spencer, “60-Year-Old Divorce Agreement Put to the Test,” [Lancaster, Pa.] Intelligencer Journal, Sept. 24, 2012, B.8.
“Oleg Cassini,” Times, March 21, 2006, 63.
Richard Severo and Ruth La Ferla, “Oleg Cassini, Designer for the Stars and Jacqueline Kennedy, Dies at 92,” New York Times, March 19, 2006.
Donald P. Myers, “Call Him Casanova,” Newsday, Aug. 16, 2001, B06.
Alex Witchel, “At Home With: Oleg Cassini; Ducking the Hunters,” New York Times, Nov. 16, 1995.
Frank Rizzo, “Glimpses of a Troubled Life: Gene Tierney Was More Than Just a Beautiful Vision,” Hartford Courant, July 3, 1994, G1.
Richard Severo, “Gene Tierney, 70, Star of ‘Laura’ And ‘Leave Her to Heaven,’ Dies,” New York Times, Nov. 8, 1991.
“Actress Gene Tierney, Screen Beauty of 1940s,” Chicago Tribune, Nov. 8, 1991, 10.
“Gene Tierney, Acclaimed as Star of ‘Laura,’ Dies at 70,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8, 1991.
“Actress Gene Tierney Dies at 70,” Washington Post, Nov. 8, 1991, D4.
Carrie Rickey, “Gene Tierney, Famed for Her Roles in ‘Laura’ and ‘Heaven Can Wait,’” Philadelphia Inquirer,…
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