The Best of I
Ice Follies of 1939 • I Live My Life • Imperial House • Audrey Inman • Innocent Eyes • The Innocents (unmade film) •
John Ireland • Irene • I Saw What You Did • It's a Great Feeling • I've Got a Secret
Ice
Follies of 1939. MGM. Directed by Reinhold Schunzel, 82 minutes. Joan stars
as "Mary McKay," part of a husband-wife-friend ice show. When Mary gets
a film contract, the marriage and the show are threatened. James Stewart and Lew Ayres
co-star. The real purpose of the film was to hype the latest MGM find, "The
International Ice Follies" show; a black-and-white ice show takes up 15
minutes or so in the middle of the film, and an equally long sequence at the end
features a technicolor ice extravaganza, with Joan and Jimmy sitting in the
audience making comments in color. Joan sings two numbers--"It's All So New to Me" and "Something's
Gotta Happen Soon"; the latter was cut from the film.
Says Joan in CWJC: Christ. Everyone was out of their collective minds when they made "Ice Follies." Me, Jimmy Stewart and Lew Ayres as skaters--preposterous. A dancer I am, a skater I'm not; whenever I couldn't fake it or use a double I skated on my ankles. Nice music and costumes, and the Shipstad ice people helped, but it was a catastrophe. The public thought so, too.
I
Live My Life. MGM, 1935. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, 85 minutes. Joan stars
as "Kay," a society girl who falls in love with a serious-minded archaeologist
(Brian
Aherne)
while on vacation. Says Joan in CWJC: ...the
only thing I want to remember is the costumes by Adrian. Formula stuff, but
I guess by then I had an audience that wanted me to do the same things over
and over again. Or at least Metro thought so.
Imperial House. Joan's NYC home from 1967 until her death in 1977.
The Imperial House was built in 1960 on the former site of the New York Foundling Hospital. It has 30 floors and 378 apartments. It was converted to a co-op in 1971.
Joan lived in the 9-room apartment 22-G from 1967 to September 1973. The apartment cost @ $500,000.
Click here to see interior shots and to read Joan's description from My Way of Life and designer Carleton Varney's description.
Also included on this page is a floor plan of the apartment and color photos of how it looked when put on the market for $5.5 million in 2007.
From September 1973 until her death in May 1977, Joan lived in the 5-room apartment 22-H, which cost $85,000.
Click here to see interior shots and to read the accompanying Architectural Digest text, as well as Joan's reaction to the 1976 magazine article and designer Carleton Varney's description of the apartment and the magazine shoot.
Inman, Audrey Davenport. Helped Joan write her 1971 book My Way of Life. In the book, Joan thanks Inman, "who for several months kept hitting me over my head to make me sit down at my tape recorder and finish dictating this book... My head is still sore. I appreciate her expertise in organizing it and her persistence in making me edit it."
Innocent Eyes.
Joan made her Broadway debut at the Winter
Garden Theatre in this J.J.
Shubert-produced musical revue. The play ran from 5/20/24 to 8/30/24,
for 126 performances. After that, it went on tour, without Joan, who opted to
stay in NYC to perform in the next Shubert production, The
Passing Show of 1924, which
opened that September.
Internet Broadway Database info.
Innocents, The. Unmade film for which Joan was in negotiations with producer Charles Isenberg at various points during 1963-64. (Not to be confused with the 1961 film of same name starring Deborah Kerr.) Click here to read 5 pieces of communication re the film between Joan and Isenberg.
Ireland, John. (1/30/14 - 3/21/92)
Joan's co-star in Queen Bee ('55) and I Saw What You Did ('65). According to "QB" co-star Betsy Palmer, he and Joan "whooped it up" a bit on that set and on occasion couldn't be filmed because they'd been up so late the night before "boozing and balling."
IMDb info. Excerpt re Joan from Ireland's unpublished bio.
Irene.
(12/08/1901 - 11/15/1962)
Costume designer Irene (born "Irene Lentz" in Montana), began her professional career as an ingenue actress in silent Mack Sennett films. After opening a successful small dress shop in Los Angeles featuring her own creations, she was subsequently offered a job designing for the luxe Bullocks (Wilshire) department store in LA, where she came to the attention of actresses in the film community.
Irene's designing film debut came in 1933's Goldie Gets Along (for Lili Damita); her "big break" was considered to be 1937's Shall We Dance (for Ginger Rogers). After designing independently for various studios and major leading ladies, she was hired by MGM in 1941 (to replace the departing Adrian) and became the studio's Costume Supervisor in 1943. She left MGM in 1950 to open her own fashion house. (In late 1962, she committed suicide by jumping out of a window at LA's Knickerbocker Hotel.)
For Joan purposes here: Irene designed costumes and/or gowns for 1942's They All Kissed the Bride and Reunion in France, and for 1943's Above Suspicion. (Click here or on the picture at right to see a larger photo of Above Suspicion outfits.)
Irene was nominated for two Academy Awards: 1949, Best Costume Design, B&W, for B.F.'s Daughter; and 1961, Best Costume Design, Color, for Midnight Lace. In 2005, she was inducted into the Costume Designers Guild Hall of Fame.
IMDb page. Wikipedia page. Hollywood Reporter article (2013).
I
Saw What You Did. Universal, 1965. Directed by William Castle, 82 minutes.
Joan has a small part in her second Castle film as "Amy Nelson," a
possessive older woman who
gets bumped off early in the film by her eeevil lover (John Ireland), who in turn is tormented
by teenage girls playing phone pranks. Said the Saturday Review: Unfortunately,
there is little for eye, ear, or mind in William Castle's egregiously low-budgeted
I Saw What You Did, an attempt at terror...
It's
a Great Feeling. Warner Brothers, 1949. Directed by David Butler, 85 minutes.
Joan makes a brief cameo as herself, berating stars Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan
and slapping them (as co-star Doris Day looks on) because, "I do that in all my pictures!"
She then briskly walks away with a snappy salute. Says Joan in CWJC: ...one of my favorites...The
first comedy I'd done in ages, and I loved every minute of it. Marvelous therapy,
after doing all those heavy parts, one after another, starting with "Mildred."
I've Got a Secret. Joan appeared on this CBS game show in October 1961 and May 1963. See this site's TV: 1960s page for more info.