Eve Arden | Hollywood Yesterday

Groucho Marx and Eve Arden

Eunice Mary Quedens was born on this date in Mill Valley, California in 1908. Eunice Mary would go on to become one of our best-loved stars, Eve Arden. As I said earlier on Twitter, she’s one of those rare stars who is loved by everyone – you can’t imagine coming across anyone who DOESN’T like Eve Arden.

But I can take it one step further… I’m not sure I’d even want to cross paths with someone so out of their mind that they don’t love her!

The photos shown here need very (very, very) little identification. It is, of course, Groucho Marx and our birthday beauty, Eve Arden. These are from the hilarious 1939 comedy At the Circus.

The movie also stars Chico, Harpo, Kenny Baker, and Florence Rice.

At the Circus is on Prime Video (I always get a huge kick out of seeing our beloved classics on Prime Video!) and can also be found on dvd in a Room Service and At the Circus Double Pack (link to the dvd on Amazon). Room Service stars another beautiful, universally loved actress… Lucille Ball.

Groucho Marx and Eve Arden

As I’ve said many times before, when you watch as many old movies as I do, new “favorites” come into your life regularly. Maybe it’s an actor or actress you’d seen before but seeing them in a particular role bolts them toward the top. Or, maybe it’s one you’d somehow never come across before… but now that you have, you vow to see every movie they ever made.

Eve Arden is fairly new to my world or favorites – I have no idea how our paths hadn’t crossed sooner! She is delightful and entertaining in every conceivable way and I am mowing through her filmography and television appearances. I’m also researching and reading everything I can about her. She was a very, very interesting lady – that always makes research more fun!

“I’ve worked with a lot of great glamorous girls in movies and the theater. And I’ll admit, I’ve often thought it would be wonderful to be a femme fatale. But then I’d always come back to thinking that if they only had what I’ve had – a family, real love, an anchor – they would have been so much happier during all the hours when the marquees and the floodlights are dark.” – Eve Arden

Below are some facts about this very lovely and talented actress.

She was born Eunice Mary Quedens on April 30, 1908.
Eunice Mary made her film debut in a musical, Song of Love, in 1929.
In 1933, she moved to NYC to pursue work in theater.
When she was cast in the 1934 Ziegfeld Follies, she was told to change her name. Looking at her perfume and cosmetics, she chose Eve from Evening in Paris and Arden from Elizabeth Arden. Eve Arden… perfect!
When she returned to Hollywood in 1937, she was cast in Stage Door (only one of the best movies ever made, that’s all) and found herself sharing the screen with Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Ann Miller, and Lucille Ball. Her character, Eve, is one of the many highlights of the movie.
Like many stars who were simply trying to do what it took to keep working, she was known to “get creative” when giving her age and birth year.
She was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.
Her autobiography is titled Three Phases of Eve (Amazon link).
She was awarded two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for Television and Radio.
Had four children.
Jane Wyman and Eve Arden were lifelong friends. (Arden guest-starred on Jane Wyman’s Falcon Crest.)
She was in three movies nominated for Best Picture Oscars: Stage Door (1937), Mildred Pierce (1945) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).
Profiled in book “Funny Ladies” by Stephen Silverman.