# Irene Rich

Irene Frances Rich (née Luther; October 13, 1891 – April 22, 1988) was an American actress who worked in both silent films, talkies, and radio.

## Early life

Rich was born in Buffalo, New York.
At age 17, she wed Elvo Elcourt Deffenbaugh at All Saints' Cathedral in Spokane, Washington on February 17, 1909, after her parents talked about sending her to boarding school. The couple had one child, born Irene Frances Luther Deffenbaugh, who later adopted her stepfather's surname and was a stage and film actress in the 1930s known as Frances Rich before becoming a noted sculptor. Elvo Deffenbaugh was a salesman who traveled a lot. The young family moved to the Bay Area of San Francisco, where the marriage ended after two years.
Next, Irene married Charles Henry Rich, who was then a lieutenant in the United States Army (became a major during World War I and was later a lieutenant colonel), in Portland, Oregon on January 9, 1912. The two had met when he was stationed with the 25th Infantry at Fort George Wright in Spokane. They had one daughter, Martha Jane Rich, who was born on December 13, 1916. The marriage ended after four years. Luther went into real estate to provide for herself and her daughters. She then went to Hollywood in 1918 and found work as an extra.

## Career

Rich worked for Will Rogers, who used her in eight pictures, including Water Water Everywhere (1920), The Strange Boarder (1920), Jes' Call Me Jim (1920), Boys Will Be Boys (1921) and The Ropin' Fool (1921). She often portrayed society women, such as in the 1925 adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan and also in Queen of the Yukon (1940). In two of her last films she played a frontier wife and mother. She was the mother of Gail Russell's character 'Penelope Worth', in John Wayne's Angel and the Badman as well as in John Ford's cavalry story Fort Apache in which she portrayed Mrs. O'Rourke, the wife of Sergeant O'Rourke (Ward Bond).
In the 1930s, Rich did much work in radio. From 1933 to 1944, she hosted a nationwide anthology program of serialized mini-dramas, Dear John (aka The Irene Rich Show). Her leading man was actor Gale Gordon, (who later played Lucille Ball's apoplectic boss "Mr. Mooney" on TV). In the early 1940s, Rich starred in Glorious One on NBC Blue. Rich appeared in stage productions, including Seven Keys to Baldpate (1935) which starred George M. Cohan, the creator of the play, and later As the Girls Go in 1948.

## Personal life

Rich married for the third time on April 6, 1927 in Del Monte, California, to real estate mogul David Ferguson Blankenhorn (1886–1969), at the home of William May Garland. Blankenhorn was well known in the Los Angeles real estate market, was a longtime resident of Pasadena and San Francisco, and handled the transaction of William Wrigley, Jr. purchasing Catalina Island in 1919. Rich and Blankenhorn separated at least three times in the summer and fall of 1931, they filed for divorce on October 30, 1931, they were divorced that November.
She became involved in a deadly love triangle in 1949 when Agnes Elizabeth Garnier shot and killed wealthy businessman John Edwin Owen (1881–1949). Owen, formerly a businessman and politician from Michigan, was president of the National Apartment House Owners' Association, among other business interests, including cattle and horse ranching in Gunnison, Colorado and Riverside, California. The Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigator said that Garnier killed Owen (who was married, but estranged and separated from his wife) and blamed Rich for coming between them. Garnier, Owen's personal secretary, told the district attorney that the gun went off accidentally and she took the gun from an intoxicated Owen as he was going to bed. Rich said that she was not in love with Owen and that they were just friends. Garnier pleaded not guilty. The prosecutor decided not to try for first degree murder, and she was found guilty of manslaughter, and received a sentence of "one-to-ten" years. Garnier, after losing her appeal in January 1950, was released from Tehachapi Prison in May 1951 after serving less than a year-and-a-half. She died in San Diego in 1990 at the age of 93.

## Family and death

Rich was married four times, the first time at age 17. She had two daughters, Frances and Jane. On February 28, 1950, Rich married her last husband, George Henry Clifford (1881–1959), a public utilities executive, at The Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York City. He was president of Stone & Webster Service Corporation. The couple bought an avocado ranch within Hope Ranch, near Santa Barbara, in 1956, where they lived out the remainder of their lives.
On April 22, 1988, Irene Rich died at age 96 of heart failure in Hope Ranch, California.
Rich has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for her contribution to the motion picture industry at 6225 Hollywood Boulevard and one for her contributions to the radio industry at 6150 Hollywood Boulevard.

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1918 | A Desert Wooing | Bit Role | Uncredited |
| 1918 | The Girl in His House | Betty Burlingham | Lost film |
| 1918 | A Law Unto Herself | Stephanie | |
| 1919 | Todd of the Times | Janet Milton | Lost film |
| 1919 | The Man in the Open | Kate | Lost film |
| 1919 | Diane of the Green Van | Keela | Lost film |
| 1919 | The Silver Girl | Julia Raymond | |
| 1919 | Castles in the Air | Mrs. Owen Pauncefort | Lost film |
| 1919 | The Lone Star Ranger | Mrs. Laramie | Lost film |
| 1919 | The Blue Bonnet | Martha Drake | Lost film |
| 1919 | The Sneak | Enid Granley | Lost film |
| 1919 | Wolves of the Night | Juanita | Lost film |
| 1919 | Her Purchase Price | Marda | Lost film |
| 1919 | The Spite Bride | Eileen Moore | |
| 1920 | Water, Water, Everywhere | Hope Beecher | Lost film |
| 1920 | The Street Called Straight | Drusilla Fane | Lost film |
| 1920 | The Strange Boarder | Jane Ingraham | Lost film |
| 1920 | Jes' Call Me Jim | Miss Butterworth | |
| 1920 | Stop Thief | Madge Carr | |
| 1920 | Just Out of College | Miss Jones | Lost film |
| 1920 | Godless Men | Black Pawl's Wife | |
| 1921 | Sunset Jones | Marion Rand | Lost film |
| 1921 | One Man in a Million | Madame Maureveau | Lost film |
| 1921 | Boys Will Be Boys | Lucy | Lost film |
| 1921 | A Tale of Two Worlds | Mrs. Carmichael | |
| 1921 | A Voice in the Dark | Blanche Walton | |
| 1921 | Desperate Trails | Mrs. Walker | Lost film |
| 1921 | The Invisible Power | Laura Chadwick | Lost film |
| 1921 | The Poverty of Riches | Mrs. Holt | Lost film |
| 1922 | The Call of Home | Alix Lansing | Lost film |
| 1922 | Strength of the Pines | Linda | Lost film |
| 1922 | The Trap | The Teacher | |
| 1922 | One Clear Call | Maggie Thornton | |
| 1922 | A Fool There Was | Mrs. Schuyler | Lost film |
| 1922 | The Yosemite Trail | Eve Marsham | Lost film |
| 1922 | The Ropin' Fool | The Girl | Short |
| 1922 | Brawn of the North | Marion Wells | Lost film |
| 1922 | While Justice Waits | Nell Hunt | Lost film |
| 1922 | The Marriage Chance | Mary Douglas | Lost film |
| 1922 | Fruits of Faith | Larry's Wife | Short |
| 1923 | Dangerous Trails | Grace Alderson | |
| 1923 | Brass | Mrs. Grotenberg / aka Mrs. G | |
| 1923 | Snowdrift | Kitty | Lost film |
| 1923 | Michael O'Halloran | Nellie Minturn | Lost film |
| 1923 | Yesterday's Wife | Megan Daye | Lost film |
| 1923 | Rosita | The Queen | |
| 1923 | Defying Destiny | Beth Alden | |
| 1923 | Lucretia Lombard | Lucretia Morgan | |
| 1923 | Boy of Mine | Ruth Latimer | Lost film |
| 1924 | Pal o' Mine | Julia Montfort | |
| 1924 | Beau Brummel | Frederica Charlotte, Duchess of York | |
| 1924 | Cytherea | Fanny Randon | Lost film |
| 1924 | Being Respectable | Suzanne Schuyler | Lost film |
| 1924 | Captain January | Isabelle Morton | |
| 1924 | A Woman Who Sinned | Mrs. Ransdell | Lost film |
| 1924 | Behold This Woman | Louise Maurel | |
| 1924 | What the Butler Saw | Mrs. Barrington | |
| 1924 | This Woman | Carol Drayton | |
| 1924 | A Lost Lady | Marian Forrester | Lost film |
| 1925 | My Wife and I | Mrs. James Borden | Lost film |
| 1925 | The Man Without a Conscience | Shirley Graves | |
| 1925 | Eve's Lover | Eva Burnside | Lost film |
| 1925 | The Wife Who Wasn't Wanted | Mrs. John Mannering | Lost film |
| 1925 | Compromise | Joan Trevore | Lost film |
| 1925 | The Pleasure Buyers | Joan Wiswell | |
| 1925 | Lady Windermere's Fan | Mrs. Erlynne | |
| 1926 | Silken Shackles | Denise Lake | Lost film |
| 1926 | The Honeymoon Express | Mary Lambert | Lost film |
| 1926 | My Official Wife | Helene, Countess Orloff | Lost film |
| 1927 | Don't Tell the Wife | Mrs. Cartier | Lost film |
| 1927 | The Climbers | Duchess of Arrogan | Lost film |
| 1927 | Dearie | Sylvia Darling / aka "Dearie" | Lost film |
| 1927 | The Desired Woman | Diana Maxwell | Lost film |
| 1927 | The Silver Slave | Bernice Randall | Lost film |
| 1928 | Beware of Married Men | Myra Martin | Incomplete film, one reel survives |
| 1928 | Across the Atlantic | Minor Role | Lost film Uncredited |
| 1928 | Powder My Back | Fritzi Foy | Lost film |
| 1928 | Craig's Wife | Mrs. Craig | Lost film |
| 1928 | The Perfect Crime | Stella | Lost film first Irene Rich film to have dialogue, a part-talkie from FBO |
| 1928 | Women They Talk About | Irene Mervin Hughes | Lost film |
| 1928 | Ned McCobb's Daughter | Carol | Lost film |
| 1929 | Daughters of Desire | | |
| 1929 | The Exalted Flapper | Queen Charlotte of Capra | Lost film |
| 1929 | They Had to See Paris | Idy Peters | |
| 1929 | Shanghai Rose | Shanghai Rose | |
| 1930 | So This Is London | Mrs. Hiram Draper | |
| 1930 | On Your Back | Julianne | |
| 1930 | Check and Double Check | Mrs. Blair | |
| 1931 | Beau Ideal | Lady Brandon | |
| 1931 | Father's Son | Ruth Emory | |
| 1931 | Strangers May Kiss | Celia | |
| 1931 | Five and Ten | Jenny Rarick | |
| 1931 | The Mad Parade | Mrs. Schuyler | |
| 1931 | Wicked | Mrs. Luther | |
| 1931 | The Champ | Linda Carleton | |
| 1932 | Down to Earth | Idy Peters | |
| 1932 | Her Mad Night | Joan Manners | |
| 1932 | Manhattan Tower | Ann Burns | |
| 1934 | Spitfire | Woman | (scenes deleted) |
| 1938 | Hollywood Handicap | Woman at Racetrack | Short Uncredited |
| 1938 | That Certain Age | Dorothy Fullerton | |
| 1939 | The Right Way | Mrs. Martin | Short |
| 1939 | Everybody's Hobby | Mrs. Myra Leslie | |
| 1940 | The Mortal Storm | Mrs. Emilia Roth | |
| 1940 | The Lady in Question | Michele Morestan | |
| 1940 | Queen of the Yukon | Sadie Martin | |
| 1940 | Keeping Company | Mrs. Thomas | |
| 1941 | Three Sons o' Guns | Mrs. Margaret Patterson | |
| 1942 | This Time for Keeps | Mrs. Bryant | Alternative title: Over the Waves |
| 1947 | Calendar Girl | Lulu Varden | Alternative title: Star Dust and Sweet Music |
| 1947 | Angel and the Badman | Mrs. Worth | |
| 1947 | New Orleans | Mrs. Rutledge Smith | |
| 1948 | Fort Apache | Mary O'Rourke | |
| 1948 | Joan of Arc | Catherine le Royer | |
| Television ||||
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1949 | The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre | | 1 episode, (final appearance) |