Early Life
Tierney was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavina Taylor. She had an elder brother, Howard Sherwood “Butch” Tierney, Jr., and a younger sister, Patricia “Pat” Tierney. Her father was a prosperous insurance broker of Irish descent, her mother a former physical education instructor.
Tierney attended St. Margaret’s School in Waterbury, Connecticut, and the Unquowa School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her first poem, entitled “Night,” was published in the school magazine, and writing verse became an occasional pastime during the rest of her life. Tierney also played Jo in a student production of "Little Women." She then spent two years in Europe and attended the Brillantmont finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she learned to speak fluent French. She returned to the U.S. in 1938 and attended Miss Porter's School. On a trip to the West Coast, she visited Warner Bros. studios. There, director Anatole Litvak, taken by the seventeen-year-old’s beauty, told her that she should become an actress. Warner Bros. wanted to sign her to a contract, but her parents advised against it because of the low salary.
Tierney’s coming-out party as a debutante occurred on September 24, 1938, when she was 17 years old. Bored with society life, she decided to pursue a career in acting. Her father's response was, “If Gene is to be an actress, it should be in the legitimate theatre.” Tierney studied acting at a small Greenwich Village acting studio in New York with Benno Schneider. She became a protégée of Broadway producer-director George Abbott.
Read more about this topic: Gene Tierney
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“We shall make mistakes, but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principles. I remember that my old school master Dr. Peabody said in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled, he said things in life will not always run smoothly, sometimes we will be rising toward the heights and all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great thing to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)