Bovuaarinja - Džīna

09:54 - Džīna

Ar, iespējams, visu laiku daiļāko aktrisi Džīnu Tīrniju (Gene Tierney) notika, lūk, kas:

In the spring of 1943, Gene finished filming "Heaven Can Wait" in Hollywood. She was expecting her first child and, gratefully, not yet showing signs of pregnancy. She had kept that a secret for fear of being replaced in the film. She longed to be with husband Oleg in Kansas, where he was stationed in the army.

Before leaving Los Angeles and starting her maternity leave, Gene decided to make one last appearance at the Hollywood Canteen. So, that night, Gene showed her support of American troops by signing autographs, mingling with the crowd, and shaking hands. The troops were homesick and sad; a little stardust lightened their load.

A few days after that visit, Gene woke up with red spots covering her arms and face. She had the German measles, or rubella. In 1943, there was no vaccine to prevent contracting the measles. That would not be available for 22 more years. Obstetricians advised patients to avoid crowds in their first four months of pregnancy, to avoid contracting the measles. At the time, it was believed that measles was a harmless childhood disease.

Little did Gene know at the time, but, just two years earlier,

"[B]y studying a small cluster of cases in Australia, [eye doctor] Dr. N. M. Gregg first noted that the rubella virus could cause cataracts, deafness, heart deformities and mental retardation [in an unborn child]."

By the fall, Gene was living in Washington, D.C., while Oleg was awaiting orders in Virginia. On the morning of October 15, 1943, Gene gave birth to a premature baby girl, weighing only two and a half pounds. Oleg flew to Washington and joined his wife at Columbia Hospital. They named their baby "Daria."

Doctors informed them that Daria was not in good shape. She was premature and going blind. She had cataracts in both eyes. After reviewing Gene’s medical chart, the doctors concluded that Gene’s measles were responsible for the baby’s defects. Daria continued to have health problems and delayed development. She had no inner ear fluid and became deaf. It was clear that she suffered from mental retardation. Gene and Oleg hoped against hope that a doctor somewhere could cure Daria. But, after consulting one specialist after another (much of it paid for by Howard Hughes), they had to face the fact that Daria was permanently disabled and needed more care than they were capable of giving her at home.

When Daria was about two years old, Gene got an unexpected jolt. She was at a tennis function. A fan approached her. "Ms. Tierney, do you remember me?" asked the woman. Gene had no memory of having met the stranger. She shook her head and replied, "No. Should I?" The woman told Gene that she was in the women’s branch of the Marines and had met Gene at the Hollywood Canteen. Gene never would forget what the woman said next. "By the way, Ms. Tierney, did you happen to catch the German measles after that night I saw you at the Canteen?" The woman revealed that she had had the measles herself at the time but had broken quarantine just to see Gene at the Canteen.

Gene was dumbstruck. That woman had given her the measles! She was the sole cause of Daria’s disabilities. "I stood there for a very long minute," Tierney wrote in her autobiography. "There was no point in telling her of the tragedy that had occurred. I turned and walked away very quickly. After that I didn’t care if I was ever again anyone’s favorite actress."

When Daria was four, Oleg and Gene made the difficult decision to institutionalize Daria (1943-2010). Daria spent most of her life at the ELWYN, an institution for specially disabled in Vineland, NJ.

Gene Tierney never fully recovered from the blow that Daria was disabled. Although she gave birth to another daughter that was healthy, her marriage to Oleg ended in divorce, and her mental health began to deteriorate. On the movie set, she would forget her lines. She began to fall apart and live a life of "stark misery and despair," said ex-husband Oleg. In much of the 1950s, Gene went from one mental health facility to another seeking help with her bouts of high and low moods and suicidal thoughts. She received 27 shock treatments, destroying even more of her memory. It is believed that Gene Tierney suffered from bipolar depression during a time when effective treatment for that disease was in its infancy.

The tragic tale was the inspiration for Agatha Christie’s 1962 book "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side", adapted for the big screen in 1980, with Elizabeth Taylor playing the role based on Tierney’s life.*


* Starp citu, daudzi šo Agatas Kristi rīcību uzskatīja par neiejūtīgu un vulgāru. Grāmata ir arī latviski (tulk. kā "Ēnu spogulis"); esmu lasījusi, bet, par laimi, tur tomēr daudz kas ir izmainīts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJlc8-VVBco