Sorting out the Lane Sisters is always a bit tricky, but Joe always likes to give it a try. First, this brief introduction:
The sisterly trio lit up the screens for Warners brothers for a few years in the late 1930s. There were three of them, naturally, and we’re hoping pay an informal homage to each.
We begin today with the youngest and most famous of the trio — Priscilla Lane (left above, next to sisters Lola in the middle and Rosemary to the right).
Priscilla made several important pictures, and starred opposite James Cagney, Cary Grant and Robert Cummings. That’s them below in an Alfred Hitchcock thriller.
Enough said that Priscilla (nee Priscilla Mullican) was born in 1915 in the middle of America: Indianola, Indiana, to be exact. She spent her relatively brief — 22 movies in all from 1937 through 1948 — playing variations on the themes of girlfriends, daughters and fiancees. She also appeared with her siblings in several pictures.
For some reason, Priscilla had a big following in England. A British trade journal at the time wrote favorably about all three Lane sisters, but criticized out Warner Bros. for not giving Priscilla meatier roles. The trade journal editors may have been on to something.
Of the three Lane sisters, Lola Lane (above) had the longest film career. Rosemary the shortest. They both starred in Hollywood Hotel with a young Dick Powell.
But Rosemary, who had a fine voice, was given little else at the studio.
This may drive you nuts but there were actually FIVE Lane sisters.
Besides Lola, Rosemary and Priscilla Lane, there were Martha, who never got involved in show business, and Leota, who did but never enjoyed even the limited big screen successes of either Priscilla, Lola or Rosemary.
That’s Leota (above), the oldest of the performing Lane sisters and the only only who didn’t have a film career.
As mentioned, Lola had the longest career of any of the women. Her best movie is probably the 1937 crime drama Marked Woman starring Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis. She portrayed a showgirl working at a mob run clip joint.
Rosemary, Lola and Priscilla Lane costarred together in four movies: 1938’s Four Daughters, 1939’s Four Wives and Daughters Courageous and 1941’s Four Mothers.
Four Daughters–good stuff and a surprise that it was a major deal, with Michael Curtiz at the helm.
The daughters were fine but the four sons-in-law, Jeffrey Lynn, Frank McHugh, John Garfield and Dick Foran were a really fun mix of styles, from brooding to comic.
I just love “Saboteur” with Priscilla and “Love That Bob” Cummings. She came early in the pantheon of Hitchcock blondes. An amazing group of ladies.
Not much to add to Joe & Frank’s fine piece and DAN’s comment…
But PRISCILLA LANE’s one day marriage to Oren Haglund most hold the record for the shortest marriage in HOLLYWOOD history..
In January 1939, the couple hastily wed in Yuma, Arizona, and she left Haglund the next day and had the marriage annulled. Lane never revealed her view of what caused the breakup.
But they must have met sometime at Warner Brothers as Haglund was the assistant director on such films as THE GREAT JEWEL ROBBER (1950), ALONG THE GREAT DIVIDE and RATON PASS (both 1951), THE IRON MISTRESS (1952), SO THIS IS LOVE and SHE’S BACK ON BROADWAY, (both 1953), and KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS and THE BOY FROM OKLAHOMA (both 1954).
And Haglund moved right into early television at Warner’s, being production manager on CHEYENNE, MAVERICK, BRONCO, 77 SUNSET STRIP and many other WB shows.
A native of Michigan, Haglund was already involved in filmmaking prior to the advent of World War II. He enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps through the First Motion Picture Unit, which also included Ronald W. Reagan, Clark Gable, and William Holden. He rose from the rank of corporal to that of captain. He won both Purple Heart and Bronze Star medals. He died at the age of sixty-six in San Bernardino, California, and is interred in the veterans’ section of Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California, just down the street from where I live.
Not finding a movie that Lane and Haglund ever worked on, maybe it was in the studio commissary over lunch… But then , none of this really matters!