Priscilla Lane

Pretty American actress and singer Priscilla Lane (1915-1995) was the youngest of the Lane sisters. Rosemary, Lola, Leota and Priscilla Lane worked in show business from an early age. Priscilla became known for films such as The Roaring Twenties (1939), Saboteur (1942) and Arsenic and Lace (1944). She was often cast as the pretty girlfriend, fiancée or daughter. Like her sisters, she stopped her career fairly quickly to devote herself fully to her role as a mother.


Dutch postcard, no. 641. Photo: Warner Bros / First National Pictures.


British postcard in the Film Partner series, no. PC 303. Photo: Warner Bros. John Garfield and Priscilla Lane in Four Daughters (Michael Curtiz, 1938).

The springboard she needed to propel her Hollywood career

Priscilla Lane was born Priscilla Mullican in 1915 in Indianola, a small college town south of Des Moines, Iowa. She was the youngest of five daughters of Lorenzo Mullican and his wife, Cora Bell Hicks. Dr. Mullican had a dental practice in Indianola. Shortly before she was born, her parents moved into a large house with twenty-two bedrooms, where she and her four sisters could spend their childhood learning music and singing.

In 1930, Priscilla, then 15, made her stage debut at Des Moines' Paramount Theatre as part of the entertainment accompanying the release of her sister Lola's Hollywood film Good News (Nick Grinde, 1930) starring Bessie Love. Priscilla studied at the Eagin School of Dramatic Arts in New York. She began touring with her sisters Leota, Rosemary and Lola in the Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians Dance Band. They became a popular singing act.

In 1937, Rosemary and Priscilla signed a contract with Warner Brothers Studios. Their film debut was Varsity Show (William Keighley, 1937), a musical starring Dick Powell. Priscilla had the hard task of portraying a singer with the Fred Waring Band. Her next film was the romantic comedy Men Are Such Fools (Busby Berkeley, 1938), in which she starred with Wayne Morris and Humphrey Bogart. Unlike her sister, Rosemary who played the spirited star in Hollywood films, Priscilla was confined to the role of the pretty girlfriend, fiancée or daughter.

In 1938, Bette Davis refused the lead role in Four Daughters (Michael Curtiz, 1938), an adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel 'Sister Act'. Priscilla's sister, Lola Lane, suggested to Jack L. Warner that she and her three other sisters star in the tearjerker about the Lemp family. Priscilla and Rosemary Lane were signed on, but the oldest sister Leota Lane, who was flown in from New York to test for the part, was deemed unsuitable by the studio. Actress Gale Page replaced her. Four Daughters (Michael Curtiz, 1938) also with Claude Rains and John Garfield, was one of the great successes of Priscilla's career. It was followed by two sequels: Four Wives (Michael Curtiz, 1939) and Four Mothers (William Keighley, 1941).

The same cast also appeared in the film Daughters Courageous (Michael Curtiz, 1939), which had no connection with the Lemp family trilogy. With Leota, the sisters appeared in a 'Lux Radio Theatre' adaptation of 'Four Daughters' in 1939. In 1939, Priscilla impulsively married the assistant director and screenwriter Oren Haglund in Yuma, Arizona. However, she left her husband the very next day and the marriage was annulled in May. That same year, she was up for the role of Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood, 1939), but she didn't get the part. In most of her films till then, all Priscilla had to do was look attractive and give a good supporting performance. However, she played James Cagney's girlfriend in the crime film The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, 1939) with Humphrey Bogart. This was the springboard she needed to propel her Hollywood career.


Dutch postcard by J.S.A. Photo: Warner Bros / M.P.E. Rosemary Lane and Priscilla Lane.


Dutch postcard by Sparo.


Dutch postcard by J.S.A., no. 840. Photo: Warner Bros / First National Pictures.

One of her career highlights

Over the next few years, Priscilla Lane was successful as a classic leading lady. At Warner Bros., she appeared in a lighthearted comedy Million Dollar Baby (Curtis Bernhardt, 1941), opposite Jeffrey Lynn and Ronald Reagan, and as a night club singer in the musical Blues in the Night (Anatole Litvak 1941).

In the comedy classic Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra, 1944), she appeared as Cary Grant's newlywed wife. The film was only released two years later after it was shot because, as stipulated in the contract, it could not be shown while the play was still running on Broadway. It was Priscilla's last Warner film. Her contract was terminated by mutual agreement after five years with the studio. She freelanced next.

When Barbara Stanwyck was not available for the female lead in the Hitchcock thriller Saboteur (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942) with Robert Cummings, Priscilla was given the role. It became one of her career highlights. She co-starred with George Brent in Silver Queen (Lloyd Bacon, 1942) for producer Harry Sherman. Lane played the owner of a gambling house in 1870s San Francisco.

In 1942, she married Colonel Joseph A. Howard of the U.S. Air Force. She acted in a Jack Benny comedy, The Meanest Man in the World (Sidney Lanfield, Ernst Lubitsch, 1943) and then retired from films. She accompanied her husband around the world to sing for the soldiers at his posts. After the war, she accepted the leading role in Fun on a Weekend (1947) for producer-director Andrew Stone, co-starring Eddie Bracken. The following year, she starred in the Film Noir Bodyguard (Richard Fleischer, 1948), with Lawrence Tierney. It was her last screen appearance.

She and her husband eventually settled in New England and had four children: Joseph Lawrence (1945), Hannah (1950), Judith (1953) and James (1955). Priscilla returned to show business briefly in 1958 with The Priscilla Lane Show on a local television station broadcasting from Boston. She chatted and interviewed celebrities visiting the area. She enjoyed the television experience, but family demands proved too much, and she gave up after a year. 19 years after her husband died in 1976, Priscilla Lane passed away from lung cancer and chronic heart failure in 1995 at the age of 79. She was buried next to her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.


Vintage postcard. Photo: Warner Bros.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 17. Photo: Warner Bros.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1202a. Photo: Warner Bros.

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Wikipedia (German, French and English) and IMDb.