|
(born Irene Luther on October 13,
1891 in Buffalo, New York; died April 22, 1988 in Santa Barbara,
California) was an elegant, melodramatic heroine of the silent
screen.
 Rich
was a particular favorite of Will Rogers, who used her in eight
pictures including Water Water Everywhere (1920), The Strange
Boarder (1920), Jes' Call Me Jim (1920), Boys Will Be Boys (1921),
and The Ropin' Fool (1921). Not a young woman when she entered
pictures her attractively mature looks suited her to play
experienced society women who had "Been there, done that". Her
finest role of this type was in the 1925 adaption of "Lady
Windermere's Fan". She played Sadie in Queen Of The Yukon
In two of her last films she played a frontier wife and mother. She
was the mother of Gail Russell's character 'Penelope Worth', in John
Wayne's Angel And The Bad Man as well as in John Ford's epic cavalry
story Fort Apache in which she portrayed Mrs. O'Rourke, the wife of
Sergeant O'Rourke (played by Ward Bond). Both strong and resilient
roles that were played very believably by this experienced actress.
In the 1930s, Rich enjoyed a spectacular new career on radio. From
1933 to 1944, she hosted a nationwide anthology program of
serialized mini-dramas entitled Dear John (also called The Irene
Rich Show). Her leading man was actor Gale Gordon, who later played
Lucille Ball's apoplectic boss "Mr. Mooney" on TV.
Rich also had some success on stage in such productions as Seven
Keys to Baldpate (1935) which starred George M. Cohan and As the
Girls Go in 1948. |
