Biographies of Paramount Players and Directors (1936)

IDA LUPINO (Paramount Player) Ida Lupino, (pronounced Lu-peen-o) comes of & theatrical family that goes back 250 years. Her father, Stanley Lupino, is famous both in Europe and in the United States as a comedian end dancer on the stage. Her mother, Connie Emerald, also is a noted LCtrcss,. having fppeared opposite Stanley Lupino in many of his plays. They were together for two years in "Naughty Riquette" at the Oosmopolitan Theatre, New York. Cousins art Lupino Lane, film comedy star who is well-known to /merican audiences, and Wallrcc Lupino, an English favorite. Earry Lupino is an uncle . But don't give up. There is still a lot more to Ida's theatrical family heritage. Her grandfather, George Lupino, was celebrated as a pantomimist and dancer, as was his grandfather, George. Lupino, Sr., before him. Her mother, who is here in Hcllyvood with her, has five sisters and two brothers on the stage . It v.as, therefore, the most natural thing in the world that when Ida was a child, her thoughts turned to acting, end she was encouraged i^ every way by her talented parents, uncles, aunts end cou8ins. Her father, Stanley, began to train her for the stage and screen when she was seven. He built a small but fully equipped theatre at the bottom of his large London garden and there put Ida snd her younger sister, Rita, now thirteen, through the acting mill. He allowed them to play no child parts whatsoever, a sharp reversal of the usual practice of training children as thespians. He expressly forbade any of the elocution and poetry recitals characteristic of children of their ages. Instt-ed, they were cast in this little nursery theatre as Juliet, Ctmille end other ftmous women of draractic literature. They w^re sherply criticized and sparingly praised by their