Eve Arden - Early Life

Early Life

Eve Arden was born Eunice M. Quedens (pronounced qwi-DENZ) in Mill Valley, California, to Lucille and Charles Peter Quedens. Her parents divorced when she was a child. Arden claimed to have been an insecure child, declaring later in life that she needed therapy because her mother was so much more beautiful than she.

Some sources indicate that Arden was Catholic based solely on the fact that she had, at one point, attended a Roman Catholic convent school. However, at age 16, she left Tamalpais High School, a public high school, and joined a stock theater company. She made her film debut, under her real name, in the backstage musical Song of Love (1929). She played a wisecracking showgirl who becomes a rival to the film's star, singer Belle Baker. The film was one of Columbia Pictures' earliest successes.

Arden's Broadway debut came in 1934, when she was cast in that year's Ziegfeld Follies revue. This role was the first in which she was credited as Eve Arden. She chose that name after being told by producer Lee Shubert to drop her real name and claims she was inspired by two cosmetics bottles in her dressing room, one labeled Evening in Paris and the other by Elizabeth Arden.