Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s Torchy Blane! She is a fast-talking reporter made famous by classic Hollywood legend Glenda Farrell. Over a series of films, she gave the world a character that was the inspiration for Lois Lane, no less. Yet today, few have heard of Glenda. Hers was a life that started in defiance and poverty, flourished in an age of the liberated on-screen heroines, and culminated in tragedy, her life ending all too suddenly. This is the story of the real-life Lois Lane, the actress who worked harder than anyone else to have her name in lights…
The Beauty and Happiness of Teenage Love
Glenda Farrell was born in Enid, Oklahoma on June 30th, 1901. It was her mother, Wilhelmina, who was the driving force behind Glenda’s early foray into theatre. It began shortly after the family moved to Wichita, sadly not playing the role of ‘lineman’.
That’s a joke for the grandparents reading…
She played Little Eva in the play Uncle Tom’s Cabin when she was just seven. Wilhelmina dreamed of becoming an actress but it didn’t quite work out, so, instead, she encouraged and supported Glenda’s acting career. Like many actresses, Glenda soon realised that, to get anywhere, you need to shave a few years off your real age.
She opted for three years younger, giving her date of birth as 1904…
In 1920, Glenda fell in love with a World War I hero. And he was a Distinguished Service Medal awardee. Thomas Richards was the kind of dashing hero that proved irresistible to Glenda. But he had little money to his name and he did not work.
Because of this, Wilhelmina deemed him unsuitable for her daughter. BUT MOM, HE’S GORGEOUS! Every time he came over to the family house, Wilhelmina drove him away however she could. Glenda, being 19… or 16 as she pretended to be, always found a way to meet up with Thomas in secret…
She met up with Thomas at a candy shop. And he was by her side when she travelled to Hollywood for her first screen test. In secret, of course. Wilhelmina would have, to put it bluntly, lost her shit if she knew Thomas was with Glenda.
And you can only imagine her reaction when she found out they got married on that trip…
Even worse for Wilhelmina, the newly-weds were so broke they had nowhere to live… so they lived with Glenda’s parents. That’s right. Thomas, Glenda and her parents, all under one roof. Delightful. Absolutely delightful.
There’s a sitcom in this.
Wilhelmina made one thing very clear. As soon as you have the money, you need to move out. And that’s what they did. Glenda and Thomas travelled from town to town, dancing in their newfound vaudeville act. They lived life effectively on the lam, sleeping under the stars many nights, living in barns on other nights. It was a hectic lifestyle but they were young and in love so who cares?
As Glenda once put it:
[We were] shut into some vast dream world of our own that was beauty and happiness.
But it was not to last.
The Tragedy of the End and the Promise of a New Beginning
Guess what? Glenda became pregnant. Which, eventually, made it impossible for her to dance. As a result, the money dried up. So to make ends meet, she worked during the day as a ‘saleslady’. And at night, in a flower factory. I don’t know when she slept.
I’d choose during the first job…
Still, there was not enough money. So guess what? They moved back in with Glenda’s parents! Oh, joy. On October 7th, 1921, Glenda and Thomas’s son was born… also Thomas. Sadly, the once so blissful marriage was about to fall apart.
Thomas Senior became depressed. Money woes and the pain from his war wounds led him to drink heavily. He was a dangerous drunk and would often disappear for months on end. Glenda, with her newborn son, tried her best to keep the marriage and family together, but it was not to be.
Eventually, she left Thomas, seeking a divorce in 1929. In 1932, she legally changed her son’s surname from ‘Richards’ to ‘Farrell’. Everything appeared so bleak.
But Glenda’s fortunes were about to change…
The First Appearance and the Dream of a Name in Lights
In 1928, Glenda landed the role as the lead actress in the play, ‘The Spider’. She was brought in after the director lost his patience with the previous lead. It led to numerous other plays for Glenda, her performances always critically acclaimed.
It even led to minor film roles.
Due to her performance in ‘On the Spot’, Warner Brothers were convinced to hire her to play the girlfriend of Douglas Fairbanks Junior’s character in ‘Little Caesar’. After, she returned to the role in ‘On the Spot’, a small play on Broadway. Her mother told her never to give up until her name was in lights.
Then what? Give up?
I was doing ‘On the Spot’… a man associated with producer Arthur Hopkins came to me and offered me more money and my name in lights if I’d step over and do a lead in ‘So This Is New York’… of course, I wired my mother the grand news immediately. The lights flashed my name, and the first night they did, I went into my dressing room and found a telegram… mother had died early that evening… at the very moment undoubtedly that the lights were twinkling through the New York dusk, and the name Glenda Farrell appeared for the first time on any marquee, mother passed on, her life’s work done.
Glenda truly believed her mother’s wish was granted and then she died. It was heart-breaking for Glenda. She worked so hard for that role.
Despite this, Glenda’s future was now in those very lights…
Life Begins for the Hardest Worker in Hollywood
In 1932, she starred in the hit Broadway play ‘Life Begins’. She received rave reviews. Warner Brothers asked her to recreate the role for a film adaptation later that year. They gave her a seven-year contract to star in pictures, but her biggest love was always the theatre.
In her first five years with Warner Brothers, she appeared in 30 films. She often worked on three at once. She co-starred in the Academy-Award nominated pictures ‘I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang’ (1932) and ‘Lady for a Day’ (1933), directed by the legend that is Frank Capra.
Her hard work was finally paying off.
She quickly acquired great popularity, earning enough money to buy herself and her son a Spanish villa in San Fernando Valley, and a house next door for her dad so she could watch over him. Friend of Glenda, Joan Blondell, once said of Glenda:
No one would be able to enjoy a case of the blues with Glenda around. She would start to console you and before you realise it you’d be laughing and it wouldn’t be because Glenda had made an effort to amuse you. She just can’t help but be funny.
However, it was in 1937 when Glenda was to star as Torchy Blane, otherwise known as Lois Lane…
Torchy Blane: The Woman of Steel
Torchy Blane was a fast-talking, wisecracking newspaper reporter. Warner Brothers had started to develop a film adaption of the ‘MacBride and Kennedy’ stories, written by detective novelist Frederick Nebel. For the film, Kennedy’s gender was swapped.
You see? Not a modern thing at all for studios to do.
Kennedy became Torchy and she was in love with MacBride. Glenda would play the role in several movies and it led to her popularity skyrocketing. The public adored her and the fan mail started pouring in.
Before I undertook to do the first Torchy, I determined to create a real human being – and not an exaggerated comedy type. I met those [newswomen] who visited Hollywood and watched them work on visits to New York City. They were generally young, intelligent, refined, and attractive. By making Torchy true to life, I tried to create a character practically unique in movies.
Torchy was a special character for Glenda and her fans, but none more so than Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman. Jerry in particular adored Glenda Farrell and her portrayal of Torchy Blane inspired him.
He named the character after Lola Lane, another actor who played Torchy Blane for one movie, but the character was based on Glenda’s performance. In 1988, Jerry wrote:
‘My wife Joanne was Joe’s original art model for Superman’s girlfriend Lois Lane… our heroine was, of course, a working girl whose priority was grabbing scoops. What inspired me in the creation was Glenda Farrell, the movie star who portrayed Torchy Blane, a gutsy, beautiful headline-hunting reporter, in a series of exciting motion pictures. Because the name of the actress Lola Lane (who also played Torchy) appealed to me, I called my character Lois Lane.’
Interestingly, Jerry and Joe created a short-lived series of comic books about a hero named Funnyman, in which there is a Lois Lane-like character named June Farrell, named after Glenda.
Today, not many people know that Lois Lane was based on a character made famous by Glenda Farrell, but it is how she is best remembered…
Flipping off Elvis and the Legacy of the Unforgettable Star
She starred in motion pictures throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. She made her television debut in 1949 in the anthology series, ‘The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre’. She appeared in 40 television series between 1950 and 1959, winning a Primetime Emmy Award for outstanding performance in a supporting role by an actress for ‘A Cardinal Act of Mercy’.
She starred alongside her son Tommy in the Elvis Presley movie ‘Kissin’ Cousins’, who later recalled that Elvis treated Glenda as if she was his mother. It was a brutal production. During one scene where Glenda flips Elvis off a porch, she broke her neck.
I mean, who hasn’t broken their neck flipping Elvis off a porch, right?
She wore a neck brace for the rest of the production, only taking it off for a few minutes when she had to do a take. She tried retiring in the late 1960s but she grew hopelessly bored.
She returned to the stage in 1968 to rave reviews, but shortly after, she became very ill and was diagnosed with lung cancer. She never smoked once in her life, except in one movie, in one scene. Her son Tommy described her diagnosis as:
‘Cruelly ironic.’
Sadly, it was not a battle Glenda would win. On May 1st, 1971, she succumbed to lung cancer at the age of just 66. The New York Times wrote, rather beautifully:
‘This morning, under a still-soft mound of earth overlooking the stately Hudson… there rests the body of Glenda Farrell… she invented and developed that made-tough, uncompromising, knowing, wisecracking, undefeatable blonde… we shall remember her: a look, a scene; a line, a stance; that strong presence, or her marvellously wry, understanding, sudden American smile. She was widely imitated, and lived long enough to see her imitator imitated… old actresses do not fade away. Instead, they stay with us, in indelible memory.’
The Personification of the Golden Age of Hollywood
Glenda Farrell was more than an American actress. She personified the smart and sassy, wisecracking blonde of classic Hollywood. Her career spanned more than 50 years yet her most enduring legacy is the character of Torchy Blane.
Next time you watch any portrayal of Lois Lane, every fibre of that character came from Glenda Farrell. It was her performance that inspired the creators of Superman to create Lois Lane. Glenda created a type of character that continues to be imitated to this day.
She invented and developed that tough, uncompromising character that could not be defeated. While she may not be well-known today, she should be held in the same light as Fay Wray and Katharine Hepburn.
Glenda Farrell is a great woman because she helped to redefine cinema after working so incredibly hard to make it as an actress, to have her name in lights as her mother dreamt. She is the inspiration for one of the most famous fictional characters in history, but she is more than Lois Lane.
She was a pretty awesome human being, whose legacy lives on.
She was once asked what the most important thing in life is. She said:
Love! It’s the most important thing in the world. Take it away from me for just one day and I die a little, inside. Everything I do, all my philosophy, my living, is centred in it.
Toodle-Pip :}{:
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