Irene Rich

Irene Rich
Born	Irene Frances Luther (1891-10-13)October 13, 1891 Buffalo, New York, U.S.
Died	Hope Ranch, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1918-1949
Spouse(s)	Elvo Deffenbaugh (1909-1911; divorced) 1 child (Frances) Charles Rich (1912-1916; divorced) 1 child (Jane) David F. Blankenhorn (1927-1931) (divorced) George Henry Clifford (1950-1959; his death)

Irene Rich (October 13, 1891 - April 22, 1988) was an American actress who worked in both silent films and talkies, as well as radio.

Early life

Born Irene Frances Luther in Buffalo, New York, to Mabel A. (née Robinson) and William Martin Luther. Luther was raised in the Buffalo area and then Stites, Idaho, and Spokane, Washington with her older half-brother Edwin Darius Luther (1884-1961) and younger brother, Richard Robinson Luther.

She married Elvo Elcourt Deffenbaugh at All Saints' Cathedral in Spokane, Washington on February 17, 1909, after her parents talked about sending her to boarding school. Irene and Elvo had one child, Frances Rich, who became a stage and film actress in the 1930s before becoming a noted sculptor. Elvo was a salesman who traveled a lot. The young family moved to the Bay Area of San Francisco, where the marriage ended after two years.

Next she married Charles Henry Rich, who was then a lieutenant in the United States Army (became a major during World War I and was later a lieutenant colonel), in Portland, Oregon on January 9, 1912. The two had met when he was stationed with the 25th Infantry at Fort George Wright in Spokane. They had one daughter Martha Jane (b.December 13, 1916 in San Francisco). The marriage ended after four years. Luther went into real estate to feed herself and her two daughters. She then went to Hollywood in 1918 and got work as an extra.

Career

Rich with Will Rogers and Theodore Lodi in Down to Earth, 1932

Rich worked for Will Rogers, who used her in eight pictures, including Water Water Everywhere (1920), The Strange Boarder (1920), Jes' Call Me Jim (1920), Boys Will Be Boys (1921) and The Ropin' Fool (1921). She often portrayed society women, such as in the 1925 adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan and also in Queen of the Yukon (1940).

In two of her last films she played a frontier wife and mother. She was the mother of Gail Russell's character 'Penelope Worth', in John Wayne's Angel and the Badman as well as in John Ford's cavalry story Fort Apache in which she portrayed Mrs. O'Rourke, the wife of Sergeant O'Rourke (Ward Bond).

In the 1930s, Rich did much work in radio. From 1933 to 1944, she hosted a nationwide anthology program of serialized mini-dramas, Dear John (aka The Irene Rich Show). Her leading man was actor Gale Gordon, (who later played Lucille Ball's apoplectic boss "Mr. Mooney" on TV). In the early 1940s, Rich starred in Glorious One on NBC Blue.

Rich appeared in stage productions, including Seven Keys to Baldpate (1935) which starred George M. Cohan, the creator of the play, and later As the Girls Go in 1948.

Personal life, death, and tribute

Rich married for the third time on April 6, 1927, in Del Monte, California, to real estate mogul David Ferguson Blankenhorn (1886-1969), at the home of William May Garland. Blankenhorn was well known in the Los Angeles real estate market, was a longtime resident of Pasadena and San Francisco, and handled the transaction of William Wrigley, Jr. purchasing Catalina Island in 1919. Rich and Blankenhorn separated at least three times in the summer and fall of 1931, they filed for divorce on October 30, 1931, they were divorced that November.

She became involved in a deadly love triangle in 1949 when Agnes Elizabeth Garnier shot and killed wealthy businessman John Edwin Owen (1881-1949). Owen, formerly a businessman and politician from Michigan, was president of the National Apartment House Owner's Association, among other business interests, including cattle and horse ranching in Gunnison, Colorado and Riverside, California. The Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigator said that Garnier killed Owen (who was married, but estranged and separated from his wife) and blamed Rich for coming between them. Garnier, Owen's personal secretary, told the district attorney that the gun went off accidentally and she took the gun from an intoxicated Owen as he was going to bed. Rich said that she was not in love with Owen and that they were just friends. Garnier, plead innocent, the prosecutor decided not to try for first degree murder, and she was found guilty of manslaughter, and received a sentence of "one-to-ten" years. Garnier, after losing her appeal in January 1950, was released from Tehachapi Prison after serving less than a year-and-a-half, in May 1951. She died in San Diego in 1990 at the age of 93.

On February 28, 1950, Rich married George Henry Clifford (1881-1959), a public utilities executive, at the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel in New York City. He was president of Stone & Webster Service Corporation. The couple bought a ranch at Hope, near Santa Barbara, in 1956, where they lived out the remainder of their lives.

Rich was married four times. She had two daughters, Frances and Jane.

On April 22, 1988, Rich died at age 96 of heart failure in Hope Ranch, California.

Rich has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for her contribution to the motion picture industry at 6225 Hollywood Boulevard and one for her contributions to the radio industry at 6150 Hollywood Boulevard.

Filmography

Film
Year	Film	Role	Notes
1918	A Desert Wooing	Bit Role (uncredited)	print survives
	The Girl in His House	Betty Burlingham	lost
	A Law Unto Herself	Stephanie	print survives
1919	Todd of the Times	Janet Milton	lost
	A Man in the Open	Kate	lost
	The Silver Girl	Julia Raymond	print survives
	Castles in the Air	Mrs. Owen Pauncefort	lost
	The Lone Star Ranger	Mrs. Laramie	lost
	The Blue Bonnet	Martha Drake	lost
	The Sneak	Enid Granley	lost
	Wolves of the Night	Juanita	lost
	Her Purchase Price	Marda	lost
	The Spite Bride	Eileen Moore	print survives
1920	The Street Called Straight	Drusilla Fane	lost
	Water, Water, Everywhere	Hope Beecher	lost
	The Strange Boarder	Jane Ingraham	lost
	Jes' Call Me Jim	Miss Butterworth	print survives
	Stop Thief	Madge Carr	print survives
	Godless Men	Black Pawl's Wife	print survives
	Just Out of College	Miss Jones	lost
1921	Sunset Jones	Marion Rand	lost
	One Man in a Million	Madame Maureveau	lost
	Boys Will Be Boys	Lucy	lost
	A Tale of Two Worlds	Mrs. Carmichael	print survives
	Desperate Trails	Mrs. Walker	lost
	A Voice in the Dark	Blanche Walton	print survives
	The Invisible Power	Laura Chadwick	lost
	The Poverty of Riches	Mrs. Holt	lost
1922	The Call of Home	Alix Lansing	lost
	Strength of the Pines	Linda	lost
	One Clear Call	Maggie Thornton	print survives
	The Trap	The Teacher	print survives
	A Fool There Was	Mrs. Schuyler	lost
	The Yosemite Trail	Eve Marsham	lost
	The Ropin' Fool (short)	The Girl	?
	Brawn of the North	Marion Wells	lost
	While Justice Waits	Nell Hunt	lost
	The Marriage Chance	Mary Douglas	lost
	Fruits of Faith (short)	Larry's Wife
1923	Dangerous Trails	Grace Alderson	print survives; Lobster Films
	Brass	Mrs. Grotenberg/ aka Mrs. G	print survives
	Snowdrift	Kitty	lost
	Michael O'Halloran	Nellie Minturn	lost
	Yesterday's Wife	Megan Daye	lost
	Rosita	The Queen	print survives
	Defying Destiny	Beth Alden	print survives
	Lucretia Lombard	Lucretia Lombard	print survives
	Boy of Mine	Ruth Latimer	lost
1924	Pal o' Mine	Julia Montfort	print survives
	Beau Brummel	Frederica Charlotte, Duchess of York	print survives
	Cytherea	Fanny Randon	lost
	Being Respectable	Suzanne Schuyler	lost
	Captain January	Isabelle Morton	print survives
	A Woman Who Sinned	Mrs. Ransdell	lost
	Behold This Woman	Louise Maurel	private collector; abridged version
	What the Butler Saw	Mrs. Barrington	? (*this is a British by Gaumont)
	This Woman	Carol Drayton	print survives; Lobster Films
	A Lost Lady	Marian Forrester	lost
1925	My Wife and I	Mrs. James Borden	lost
	The Man Without a Conscience	Shirley Graves	print survives
	Eve's Lover	Eva Burnside	lost
	The Wife Who Wasn't Wanted	Mrs. John Mannering	lost
	Compromise	Joan Trevore	lost
	Pleasure Buyers	Joan Wiswell	print held; Museum of Modern Art, New York
	Lady Windermere's Fan	Mrs. Erlynne	print survives
1926	Silken Shackles	Denise Lake	lost
	The Honeymoon Express	Mary Lambert	lost
	My Official Wife	Helene, Countess Orloff	lost
1927	Don't Tell the Wife	Mrs. Cartier	lost
	The Climbers	Duchess of Arrogan	lost
	Dearie	Sylvia Darling/aka "Dearie"	lost
	The Desired Woman	Diana Maxwell	lost
	The Silver Slave	Bernice Randall	lost
1928	Beware of Married Men	Myra Martin	print survives, incomplete (1 reel only)
	Across the Atlantic	?undetermined	lost
	Powder My Back	Fritzi Foy	lost
	Craig's Wife	Mrs. Craig	lost
	The Perfect Crime	Stella	lost...*first Irene Rich film to have dialogue, a part-talkie from FBO.
	Women They Talk About	Irene Mervin Hughes	lost
	Ned McCobb's Daughter	Carol	lost
1929	Daughters of Desire	?
	The Exalted Flapper	Queen Charlotte of Capra	lost
	They Had to See Paris	Idy Peters
	Shanghai Rose	Shanghai Rose	*final pure silent film;including versions with Movietone or Vitaphone
1930	So This Is London	Mrs. Hiram Draper
	On Your Back	Julianne
	Check and Double Check	Mrs. Blair
1931	Beau Ideal	Lady Brandon
	Father's Son	Ruth Emory
	Strangers May Kiss	Celia
	Five and Ten	Jenny Rarick
	The Mad Parade	Mrs. Schuyler
	Wicked	Mrs. Luther
	The Champ	Linda
1932	Down to Earth	Idy Peters
	Her Mad Night	Joan Manners
	Manhattan Tower	Ann Burns
1934	Spitfire	Woman	Uncredited(scenes cut)
1938	Hollywood Handicap	Woman at Racetrack	uncredited ; (short)
	That Certain Age	Dorothy Fullerton
1939	The Right Way	Mrs. Martin	short
	Everybody's Hobby	Mrs. Myra Leslie
1940	The Mortal Storm	Amelie Roth
	The Lady in Question	Michele Morestan
	The Queen of the Yukon	Sadie Martin
	Keeping Company	Mrs. Thomas
1941	Three Sons o' Guns	Mrs. Margaret Patterson
1942	This Time for Keeps	Mrs. Bryant	Alternative title: Over the Waves
1947	Calendar Girl	Lulu Varden	Alternative title: Star Dust and Sweet Music
	Angel and the Badman	Mrs. Worth
	New Orleans	Mrs. Rutledge Smith
1948	Joan of Arc	Catherine le Royer
	Fort Apache	Mary O'Rourke
Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1949	The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre		1 episode

External links

• Irene Rich at the Internet Movie Database
• Irene Rich at the Internet Broadway Database
• Irene Rich at AllMovie
• Irene Rich at Virtual History
• Actress Loses Weight By Using Sponsor
• Irene Rich at Find a Grave
• Irene Rich(aveleyman)