Eunice Mary Quedens (1908-90) was a contender for the title of Hollywood’s greatest wisecracking dame. In around seventy films, with dialogue produced by scores of writers, she had a unique ability to make every word sound like her, a consistent persona across every picture.
Arden opted out of education at 16 to join a stock company. After gaining acting experience, she made her screen debut in 1929, in a backstage musical called Song of Love. Starting as she meant to go on, she played a wisecracking showgirl. No further film roles came her way, but by 1933 she was appearing on Broadway, ending up in the Ziegfeld Follies (1934), where she finally took the name Eve Arden.
Arden continued to work on Broadway until 1941, at the same time taking on increasingly larger film roles. Her breakthrough in Hollywood came with a featured supporting role in Stage Door (1937), where her fast-talking character stood out in a sea of female talent.
Eve Arden never carried a film as the lead actor, but provided strong support in character roles, typified by her performance as the title character’s friend in Mildred Pierce (1945), for which she was Oscar nominated.
Later in her career, Arden was notable as the secretary in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and gave a fine dramatic performance in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960). And towards the end of her career she became familiar to younger audiences as Principal McGee in Grease (1978) and its 1982 sequel.
Alongside her Hollywood career, Arden was an extremely successful radio performer, and worked on television.
Eve Arden was in three MGM musicals. She started out uncredited-but-noticeable in Dancing Lady. A few years later, she played the treacherous Peerless Pauline in the Marx Brothers’ At the Circus. Finally, and aptly, she played a wisecracking chorine in Ziegfeld Girl.
