Hold the Knife This Way

The lady director in pink slacks, straw hat
& cowboy boots would say:

Hold the knife this way & make sure
we can see that lovely meat hook

Ida Lupino, hard-boiled queen of the B movies,
Bogie's girl in High Sierra,

so convincing as a convict, a gangster moll,
a neurotic.

Pioneering director, screenwriter, master
of the camera angle,
the 'social-message' movie.

Ballsy gal everyone liked her, the whole crew

But she didn't like being called 'hard luck' Lupino,
though she was, taking projects

to keep her actor-husband Howard Duff working
(who never quite gave up
the bachelor life).  

When she was old, she would stand in her garden,
& spray her neighbors with a hose.

As a critic once said (of her acting): 

Miss Lupino goes crazy about as well
as it can be done