All About Eve… and Me

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on August 10, 2007

The dark lady of my sonnets

I sometimes imagine I’m a film noir antihero, brooding and mad at the world, and how I’d be un-seducible by the likes of Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner or Veronica Lake. Yes, they’re all stunningly attractive women, they smolder like smoldering is going out of style, they can turn the strongest, most lantern-jawed men into puddles of Joe Louis Pomade and their beauty is deservedly the stuff of legend – but I’d never be fooled into believing these tigers could love a chump such as I. I’m clearly out of their league, so no bullets in the back for me. I’m immune to seduction… unless they send Eve Arden.

The bewitching Eve Arden I get a little shiver just typing that name. It’s an alias, you know… her real name was Eunice Quedens… so already she can’t be trusted, which is exciting. Eve Arden, I’m sure TCM regulars know, was forever cast as a towering, pillbox hatted motormouth with a quick wit and sharp tongue. Probably the best example of this is in Mildred Pierce (1946), where she's Joan Crawford's wisecracking gal pal. She cuts through that movie like a cool breeze that slaps you awake. I also like her as Loretta Young’s buddy in Eternally Yours (1939) and who could resist her in Russian uniform in The Doughgirls (1944)? In a word… woof!

Comrade Ardenski

I’m probably in the minority, but Eve Arden sends me. That long, slightly horsy face and prominent nose, those imperious eyes and that bewitching mouth from which would fly the most withering retorts. (I’ve always gone for retorty women.) I've tried to imagined that kissing her would have carried a hint of her last cordial… intoxicating. She could have driven me to murder, gotten secrets out of me, bade me give my life for the cause… anything. I would have bashed Cecil Kellaway over the head for her, I would have bashed him good for the forbidden love of Eve Arden… and I love Cecil Kellaway. Just not as much as I love Eve Arden.

The funny thing is that I grew up watching Arden on shows like The Mothers-in-Law (1969-1971) with Kay Ballard and in Grease (1978). She was older then, obviously, grandmotherish. Although her rapier wit was intact, she didn’t quite have the same praying mantis sexuality of her roles pre-Our Miss Brooks (which I’ve never seen). And to look at pictures of her from early in her career she looked vastly different than she did in her heyday. In those early studio portraits, she looks willowy, still pretty but somehow insubstantial. Well, some looks take some growing into.

The young Eve Arden

There’s a little featurette on the life and career of Eve Arden running between movies on TCM these days, narrated by Joan Cusack, who I suppose is somebody’s idea of a young Eve Arden. That's how programmers think — "let's get one unconventionally attractive actress to sing the praises of another." Oh, whatever. Don’t get me wrong—Joan Cusack is a funny lady, a talented actress and not at all unattractive… but she’s no Eunice Quedens.

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12 Responses All About Eve… and Me

Posted By Medusa : August 10, 2007 4:42 pm

You're not alone in being fond of Eve Arden. She's wonderful, and I think you'd like Our Miss Brooks if you saw some episodes. Of course she's portrayed as single and enamored with the science teacher, but she was an independent gal — could Eve Arden played anything less? — and as sardonic and zingy as ever.One interesting aspect to Eve Arden I love is that allegedly (we have to say, I guess) she and her frequent co-star Danny Kaye had a "thing" going on during the 1940s. They had starred together on Broadway in "Let's Face It" starting in 1941, then he went to Hollywood. She was in one of his films, plus she co-starred on Danny's radio series with him during 1945. Evidently it was a well-kept secret yet fairly widely known in show business circles, but eventually fizzled out around the beginning of the 1950s. Hubba Hubba!

Posted By mjryan : August 11, 2007 1:37 pm

As I was watching Anatomy of Murder the other day I found myself anticipating the scenes with Arden in them. She always gets the best lines, "If that refrigerator gets any more fish in it it's going to swim upstream and spawn all by itself" and "I've been around, you know." My favorite scene of hers in that movie was in the courtroom when she's anticipating Jimmy Stewart needing a light for his cigar and the withering, knowing and amused look she gives when he takes Lee Remick's light. Has she ever been a Star of the Month?

Posted By missewon : August 11, 2007 9:20 pm

Hey.. you're the greatest! More people should realize how great Ev… errr.. Eunice was in films!Thanks for a wonderful lil piece on an often overlooked actress. :)erin

Posted By missewon : August 11, 2007 9:20 pm

Hey.. you're the greatest! More people should realize how great Ev… errr.. Eunice was in films!Thanks for a wonderful lil piece on an often overlooked actress. :)erin

Posted By Ynot : August 11, 2007 9:36 pm

Eunice Quedens/Eve Arden! I have always liked Eve Arden. As I grow older I appreciate more and more her roles in so many movies. And yes, I do remember Our Miss Brooks. I was a kid then and the shows were in reruns at the time. I felt, instinctively then and more so later on, that she was constrained in the role of a teacher who was eternally and shyly in love with fellow teacher Robert Rockwell. It was a situation comedy which allowed the early comic talents of Richard Crenna emerge. When I saw the show many years later in a retrospective 'tribute' type broadcast, I felt that Eve Arden's talents had been curtailed and diluted to fit the role of her small screen character. I don't think Eve Arden ever received, during her best years, all the credit she deserved. Thankfully, stations like TCM allow us to view the movies of an era now faded but with still lots of attraction for those of us who predate vcrs and dvds and Iphones. Thank you, so much, TCM for being there.

Posted By ohmegah : August 12, 2007 10:57 am

I enjoyed Eve Arden in Our Miss Brookson radio in the fifties.Only movies thanks to TCM.

Posted By Jene : August 12, 2007 7:11 pm

I hope TCM will consider Eve Arden for their next Summer Under the Stars (let me sneak in a vote for Joseph Cotten while I'm at it.) I'd gladly sacrifice a "sick day" to watch 12 hours of Arden.

Posted By Jack : August 13, 2007 12:07 pm

I am definitely an Eve Arden fan too. Our Miss Brooks was my first exposure to the lady Eve. I loved her in that and I've enjoyed her in her many movie roles. I've always found her attractive.

Posted By RHS : August 13, 2007 12:15 pm

I think an Eve Arden Day for Summer Under the Stars 2008 is a great idea… so start writing those letters to your TCM programmers! After all, they want to program what you want to see, and Eve Arden certainly has the body of work to make a big fuss over.

Posted By Shawna : August 16, 2007 7:30 pm

Check out the book "All about Thelma and Eve: Sidekicks and Third Wheels" by Judith Roof which is about female secondary characters as embodied by the likes of Eve Arden and Thelma Ritter, also Mary Wickes and others.It's a little academic, but a very interesting analysis of how that type of character actress role changed over the years in Hollywood

Posted By Jayne : August 20, 2007 12:42 am

Thank you RHS for singing the praises of the incomparable Eve. I also grew up watching her on The Mothers-in-Law and Grease, and then became familiar with her in the great old movies she co-starred in. I began to notice her in my teens because my best friend's mother sounded like her in the way she enunciated her words. I love everything about her: the way she talked, her snappy sense of fashion, her command of any situation. When she was onscreen, everyone else faded into the background. She certainly merits her own special day on TCM.

Posted By Joe Regan Jr : January 5, 2012 8:48 pm

Let us not forget she introduced in a Broadway show “I Can’t Get Started With You.”

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