Eve Arden

Eve Arden (born Eunice Mary Quedens, April 30, 1908 – November 12, 1990) was an American film, radio, stage and television actress.

Somewhat surprisingly for an actress of Arden's refinement and wit, she appeared to good effect in a number of films noir, some exceptionally high-profile, including Mildred Pierce, The Unfaithful (1947), The Arnelo Affair (1947), Whiplash (1948), and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

Later in her career, Arden moved to television, playing a sardonic but engaging high school teacher in Our Miss Brooks, for which she won the first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

[15] Her many memorable screen roles include a supporting role as Joan Crawford's wise-cracking friend in Mildred Pierce (1945), for which she received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress; as a catty cousin turned peacemaker in The Unfaithful (1947); and as James Stewart's wistful but wry secretary in Otto Preminger's mystery Anatomy of a Murder (1959) (which also featured her husband, Brooks West).

She was a regular on Danny Kaye's short-lived but memorably zany comedy-variety show in 1946, which also featured swing bandleader Harry James and gravel-voiced character actor-comedian Lionel Stander.

Except for Chandler, the entire radio cast of Arden, Gordon, Richard Crenna (Walter Denton), Robert Rockwell (Mr. Philip Boynton), Gloria McMillan (Harriet Conklin) and Jane Morgan (landlady Margaret Davis) played the same roles on TV.

[17] She won a listeners' poll by Radio Mirror magazine as the top-ranking comedienne of 1948–1949, receiving her award at the end of an Our Miss Brooks broadcast that March.

"I'm certainly going to try in the coming months to merit the honor you've bestowed upon me, because I understand that if I win this (award) two years in a row, I get to keep Mr. Boynton," she joked.

While awaiting their food at the Brown Derby, Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) argue over whether a certain portrait on a nearby wall is Shelley Winters or Judy Holliday.

Ball, according to numerous radio historians, suggested Arden for Our Miss Brooks after Shirley Booth auditioned for but failed to land the role and Ball—committed at the time to My Favorite Husband—could not.

She later costarred with Kaye Ballard as her neighbor and in-law, Eve Hubbard, in the 1967–1969 NBC situation comedy The Mothers-in-Law, produced by Arnaz after the dissolution of Desilu Productions.

[22] In 1983, Arden was cast as the leading lady in what was to be her Broadway comeback, Moose Murders, but she withdrew and was replaced with the much younger Holland Taylor after one preview performance, citing "artistic differences".

[23] Arden was married to Edward Grinnell "Ned" Bergen 1939–47 and reportedly had a long relationship with Danny Kaye through the 1940s (likely starting from their Broadway work on Let's Face It!

Anthony George and Arden in "Death by Design", Checkmate (1961)
Arden in Comrade X (1940)
Groucho Marx and Eve Arden in a scene from At the Circus (1939)
Arden with her Emmy Award for Our Miss Brooks , February 11, 1954