Gene Tierney: Star of Hollywood’s Home Front

Scheibel (American Stranger: Modernisms, Hollywood, and the Cinema of Nicholas Ray) believes actress Gene Tierney did not fit into just one Hollywood archetype. Unlike other actresses such as Lana Turner, Betty Grable, or Rita Hayworth, who represented femme fatale or pinup ideals of that era, Tierney was able to personify a variety of archetypes, including “the mother,” “the dream girl,” and “the war bride.” Too often reviewers focused on her beauty and overlooked her acting prowess. During World War II, Tierney’s marketing malleability was used for the war effort as a showcase of “home-front modernity.” It is this label that is the center of Scheibel’s engrossing book. The author states early on that this is not a biography per se, though it does cover Tierney’s two marriages, debilitating struggles with mental illness, and an attempt to die by suicide. Scheibel is avowedly more interested in the wartime use of Tierney’s manufactured public personas, but the book also recognizes her as a talented performer.