When the 58-year-old Gene Tierney sat for a chat on The Mike Douglas Show in 1979, she bore little resemblance to the beautiful, tres elegant femme fatale she played in Otto Preminger ‘s Laura (‘44).

The Douglas interview was 35 years later, of course, so why the shade? Because Tierney seemed altered by more than time.

She looked and sounded Lucille Ball-ish, to be honest — like someone who’d been smoking unfiltered cigarettes for decades and enjoying her nightly cocktails.

And she spoke with a slightly coarse accent that didn’t exactly scream “finishing school,” which was how she sounded in Laura. She pronounced “awards” as “awauhds”, Warner Bros. as Wauhnuh Brothuhs” and father as “fahthuh”.

Plus Tierney had sadly been grappling with mental issues off and on since the ‘50s, and given my own younger sister’s decades of battling schizophrenia I know what that shit looked like.

All to say that for those who’ve been blessed with good genes and have revelled in their youth and the fair-weather life that often results when people can’t stop talking about how ravishing your green eyes are, they don’t know what they’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

Tierney and her well-to-do family (her father, Howard Sherwood Tierney, was a flush insurance broker) began living in nearby Westport in the mid 1930s. Their home was in the Greens Farms region, and is located at 2 Tierney Lane, presumably christened in honor of her dad. (I’m wondering if Howard’s middle name was somehow connected in a family way to nearby Sherwood Island.)

I’ve been meaning to visit the Tierney homestead since moving here in the spring of ‘22. One of these days.

Gene Tierney made it to age 70. She died on 11.6.91.