Career Girls: Daisy Kenyon, Laura Hunt and the Dana Andrews Connection

What do Daisy Kenyon 

Joan Crawford as Daisy Kenyon

and Laura Hunt 

Gene Tierney as Laura Hunt

have in common?

You mean besides being beautiful, artistic career girls (Daisy a commercial artist, Laura in advertising) and having FABULOUS New York City apartments?

You mean besides going out to fancy New York City restaurants and nightclubs?

Laura and her beau, Shelby, have a liquid lunch

Daisy and her 2 men have a civilized dinner 

Besides looking chic?

Smart Girls dress smartly

Just a "little something" Laura slips into for a typical evening soiree

This guy - Dana Andrews!

Dana Andrews: Loving Laura

Dana Andrews: Loving Daisy

Dana Andrews seemed to like those independent career girls!

Both films, directed by Otto Preminger, present the plight of those smart-but-sometimes foolish career women of the 1940s. The wartime "Laura" (starring the beauteous Gene Tierney as Laura) gives us the tale of a young woman whose success is almost unbearably perfect. She is beautiful, talented, tasteful and sweet. Of course, she has to be a nitwit about men. That's where Dana Andrews comes in.

In "Laura" he's the tough but tender cop who calls women dames, but knows a lady and a nice portrait when he sees one. He's good for Laura and eventually saves her glamorous hide from psycho Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) and wimpy and weak Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). Actually, before meeting Detective McPherson, the manliest person in Laura's social circle was her aunt (Judith Anderson).

Judith Anderson's Ann Treadwell speaks the truth
 to her niece: "I'm not a nice person, Laura."

Naturally, it all ends well, with Laura rushing into the arms of the detective who saves her.

But, what if things didn't work out for Laura and her detective? Fast forward a few years. Could Daisy Kenyon's story be Laura's future?

Post-war Dana was not so good for poor "Daisy Kenyon" (Joan Crawford). Here he's the married hot-shot lawyer who annoyingly calls everyone "honeybunch" and is stringing poor Daisy along. He is the man who never lost a case and always gets what he wants. The chief thing that he wants is to maintain his marriage and keep Daisy on the side until he is ready to make a move. Where Laura is in the first bloom of youth, Daisy sees years wasted on a married man flying by. In defiance of Andrews' control of her, she takes up with a moody and haunted Henry Fonda (in a rare "dark" role). Dana eventually loses a case, is dumped by his ultra-neurotic wife (Ruth Warwick) and tries to make things right with Daisy (see, he's Dana Andrews - a nice guy after all), but Daisy sticks it out with Henry, who claims to really love her - really. And it appears he does, although Daisy has to get into a car accident and trudge home in the snow, wearing just flimsy high heels and a mink before she realizes it.

"Laura," is a classic. But Laura Hunt, other than being extremely beautiful, is not a very interesting character, mainly because she is so young and poised and perfect. Those jaded, corrupt and just plain nutty older folks who surround her are what make the story hum.

Dana Andrews, Vincent Price and Clifton Webb all have eyes for Gene Tierney's Laura

"Daisy Kenyon," while not a classic, is interesting precisely because Daisy is becoming a woman of a certain age. Here she is, a successful commercial artist, and she is still acting like a schoolgirl over her married lover and wasting precious years foolishly waiting for him to leave his wife. Daisy is a good sport, but she knows it's time for a change. She was strong and independent enough to land a great career and a swell apartment, but those cannot make up for lost time. Luckily, Henry Fonda (who Joan, for some reason calls "Pee-tah" rather than just "Peter") shows up and hangs in there for Daisy, outsmarting the smarty-pants lawyer and winning her love in the end. It's been said that Joan Crawford was too old for this role (she was 43), but that's the point: Daisy was too old to keep living the life of the girlfriend of a married man. She knows it's time to take control of her own destiny.


While Laura says all the right things about a career, it's really loves she's after. Daisy, on the other hand, sees her work as her salvation and sanity.  When the going gets sticky, Daisy works. She has no intention of giving it up for either man.

Both Laura Hunt and Daisy Kenyon presented a glamorous image of the 1940s independent New York City career girl. The glamour, the freedom, the wardrobe! No matter how many dumb choices they made for love (it goes with the territory, right?), their allure was irresistible. When Fonda and Andrews try to force Daisy Kenyon's hand to make a choice between them, she says,"I'll do my own thinking, thank you - and my own existing." I wonder how many young girls sat in theaters around the country and said to themselves "I want that life."

Daisy makes up her own mind!

There weren't many role models out there for independent-minded females in the 1940s. While both "Laura" and "Daisy Kenyon" offer imperfect views of career women, they both give a fledgling glimpse of the freedom, the glamour, and yes, the heartbreak, of an independent life.