Ida Lupino

A friend and I were talking about They Drive by Night and High Sierra, which got me thinking about the great Ida Lupino. She started her career as an actress and is still known as "just" an actress by many, but she also enjoyed groundbreaking success as a writer, producer, and director.

When Elmer Clifton suffered a heart attack helming 1949's Not Wanted, co-producer and co-writer Lupino stepped in to finish the job. She wasn't credited for the movie, but six months later came Never Fear, which she directed from start to finish (and again co-produced and co-wrote).

In 1950, she directed Outrage, which tackled the subject of rape; and that same year, she became just the second woman to be admitted to the Director's Guild. More movies followed: Hard, Fast & Beautiful; The Hitch-Hiker; The Bigamist. And she also threw in an uncredited assist on Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground.

With the demise of her production company in the mid-50s, Lupino's feature directing career essentially ended. This led her to television, where she worked successfully behind the camera for more than a decade on shows such as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Have Gun - Will Travel", "The Untouchables", "The Fugitive" and "Gilligan's Island".

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