THAT SPRING OF 1956, Joan was fitted for costumes for her third and final picture for Columbia—this one to be made in England and directed by David Miller, who had done so well on Sudden Fear. “This was my last really top picture,” she later said, discussing The Story of Esther Costello, which was filmed from August to December. The press, noting her twenty-eight pieces of luggage, forty-eight costumes, a trunk full of furs and her millionaire husband, duly covered her arrival in England. Based on a 1953 novel by Nicholas Monsarrat, Esther’s story was alternately
