The Women of Warner Brothers by Daniel Bubbeo

Author:Daniel Bubbeo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2013-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

Priscilla Lane:

“Warners’ Blonde Sweetheart”

Good things come in threes, and Warner Bros. was indeed fortunate in the late 1930s to have a trio of Lane Sisters—Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola—under contract at the same time. Together they made a potent attraction in films such as Four Daughters and Daughters Courageous. Separately, only Priscilla really commanded attention on the screen.

A bubbly personality, striking blonde hair and an uncanny resemblance to Ginger Rogers, to whom she was sometimes compared, proved to be the attractions that made Priscilla so popular with audiences. From her first film, she revealed a delightful flair for comedy and an appealing way with a song that helped give a lift to many of Warners’ lighter screen entries. Too often, though, she was wasted in inferior films. She eventually lost interest in making movies, instead preferring to devote herself full-time to her husband and four children, and she never looked back.

Priscilla Mullican was born on June 12, 1915, in Indianola, Iowa, a small college town south of Des Moines. Pat, as she came to be called by her family and friends, was the fifth and youngest daughter of Lorenzo A. Mullican, a local dentist, and his wife, Cora Bell Hicks.

Prior to marrying Lorenzo, Cora had worked as a reporter with a local newspaper in Macy, Indiana. However, her real love was acting, and she always harbored a desire to perform on the stage. Unfortunately, her parents were strict Methodists who looked upon show business as an undignified profession.

When Lorenzo and Cora were first married they settled in Macy, which was the birthplace of their three eldest daughters, Leota, Martha and Dorothy, who were born, respectively, in 1904, 1905 and 1906. The family then moved into a sprawling twenty-two room home in Indianola in 1907. A fourth daughter, Rosemary, arrived in 1913.

Pat was always close to her sisters and recalled her childhood with delight. “It was always open house for our friends. And we used to go on wiener and marshmallow roasts. In winter, after sleigh rides, we’d have oyster stew at home,” she said. “We had a big tree in our yard, and I used to climb up high in it, and tie notes and clues to branches. I’d hide clues all over the house, too. Each clue would give instructions for the next step in finding treasure—little trinkets I had buried.”

For fun-loving Pat, it’s no wonder that Indianola struck her as a quiet, straitlaced town back then. “It was against the law to dance anywhere in town. It was against the law to sell cigarettes there, too. And drinking—well, people didn’t even talk about it,” Pat recalled.

It was through Cora’s influence that four of her daughters ended up pursuing show business careers. Cora saw to it that Pat and her sisters participated in cultural activities, and the girls all studied music, which included lessons in both singing and playing a musical instrument. Martha was the only one who steered away from the entertainment world and instead eloped with a college professor with whom she had one child.

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