Gene Eliza Tierney (November 19, 1920 - November 6, 1991) was an American film actress.

Born in Brooklyn, New York and schooled in Switzerland, she was acclaimed as one of the beauties of her day. By 1939, she was on Broadway; her wealthy father set up a corporation to help fund her pursuit of an acting career. Her first movie was in 1940 in Hudson's Bay , and later that year, she starred in The Return of Frank James . The following year she was extremely busy, making The Shanghai Gesture, Sundown , Tobacco Road and Belle Starr .

Her popularity began to peak with her role in 1943's Heaven Can Wait. In 1944 she appeared in what became her most famous role, that of the murder victim and title character in Laura. Tierney was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the following year's Leave Her to Heaven, and later starred in Dragonwyck , The Razor's Edge (both 1946), and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947).

By 1955, Tierney was in a hospital, being treated for depression. A failed marriage to fashion designer Oleg Cassini , the premature birth of a partially blind and mentally retarded daughter (Tierney had contracted German measles on a USO tour while pregnant), and several failed love affairs -- the men included John F. Kennedy, Howard Hughes, and Prince Aly Khan -- had taken their toll. She returned to the screen in 1962 in Advise and Consent.

Gene Tierney died from emphysema in Houston, Texas at age 70. She is interred in the Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, next to her second husband, oilman W. Howard Lee, whom she married in 1963. His previous wife had been the film star Hedy Lamarr.

She had two daughters by Oleg Cassini -- Daria, who was born mentally handicapped, and Christina -- and miscarried one child while married to W. Howard Lee.

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6125 Hollywood Blvd.

External link