Vitals

Glenn Ford as Jeff Warren, railroad engineer and Army veteran

El Reno, Oklahoma, Fall 1953

Film: Human Desire
Release Date: August 6, 1954
Director: Fritz Lang
Costume Designer: Jean Louis (gowns)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Glenn Ford was born 110 years ago on May 1, 1916. The Quebec-born actor specialized as everymen with a tough side, making him the ideal star in classic film noir like Gilda (1946) and The Big Heat (1953) as well as westerns like 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and the school-set social drama Blackboard Jungle (1955) that featured both “Rock Around the Clock” and a young Sidney Poitier. In addition to being one of the most popular and bankable stars in the United States for a decade, Ford also enlisted in the Marine Corps during World War II and returned to service with a Navy Reserve commission in 1958.

While I always liked Ford’s screen presence which reminds me of my grandfather, the Golden Globe-winning actor’s complicated personal life as a serial womanizer included four marriages that all ended in divorce and—according to his son Peter’s biography—affairs with at least 140 Hollywood actresses, including an on-and-off romance with Gilda co-star Rita Hayworth that lasted four decades. He also recorded all of his home’s phone calls (resulting from a paranoid belief that his first wife Eleanor Powell would discover his frequent infidelity), supported candidates on both sides of the political arena, and was busted for illegally raising 140 white leghorn chickens.

Hardly the best-known from either its stars or director, the solid 1954 film noir Human Desire reteamed Ford with director Fritz Lang and co-star Gloria Grahame one year after their previous collaboration in The Big Heat. Continue reading →