Linda Darnell

Linda Darnell had many ups and downs in her long career… but mostly downs. Cursed with a keen intelligence and sense of independence, she was perhaps doomed from the start to a tragic end.




The world first noticed her opposite Tyrone Powers in The Mark of Zorro (1940), but she first started gaining critical accolades with the terrific Blood and Sand, in 1941. Despite her success, good roles were not forthcoming, and her next personal success didn’t happen until 1944’s Summer Storm, in which she played a sexy peasant girl who seduces several men before winding up murdered. Linda loved the role, and it lead in 1945to the brilliant noir, Fallen Angel, starring Dana Andrews and directed by Otto Preminger. Noir fans also know Linda from 1950’s No Way Out, which also featured Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier.




But booze, bad relationships and straight-out bad luck plagued Linda from the start. She bucked constantly against the Hollywood system, and finding work was always a struggle.




She died tragically in a house fire, in 1964.