Irene Dunne
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Irene Dunne DHS (born Irene Marie Dunn ✦December 20, 1898 – †September 4, 1990) was an American actress who appeared in films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is best known for her comedic roles, though she performed in films of other genres.
After her father died when she was 14, Dunne's family relocated from Kentucky to Indiana. She became determined to become an opera singer. Still, when she was rejected by The Met, she performed in musicals on Broadway until she was scouted by RKO and made her Hollywood film debut in the musical Leathernecking (1930). She later starred in the successful musical Show Boat (1936). Overall, she starred in 42 movies and was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress—for her performances in the western drama Cimarron (1931), the screwball comedies Theodora Goes Wild (1936) and The Awful Truth (1937), the romance Love Affair (1939), and the drama I Remember Mama (1948). Dunne is considered one of the finest actresses never to have won an Academy Award. Some critics feel that her performances have been underappreciated and largely forgotten, often overshadowed by later remakes and better-known co-stars.
After the success of The Awful Truth, she was paired with Cary Grant, her co-star in that movie, two further times; in another screwball comedy, My Favorite Wife (1940), and in the melodrama Penny Serenade (1941). She has been praised by many during her career, and after her death, as one of the best comedic actresses in the screwball genre. The popularity of Love Affair also led to two additional movies with her co-star of that film, Charles Boyer; those were When Tomorrow Comes (1939) and Together Again (1944). Her last film role was in 1952 but she starred in and hosted numerous television anthology episodes until 1962 after having done numerous radio performances from the late 1930s until the early 1950s. She was nicknamed "The First Lady of Hollywood" for her regal manner despite being proud of her Irish-American, country-girl roots.
Dunne devoted her retirement to philanthropy and was chosen by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a delegate for the United States to the United Nations, in which she advocated for world peace and highlighted refugee-relief programs. She also used the time to be with her family—her husband, dentist Dr. Francis Griffin, and their daughter Mary Frances, whom they adopted in 1938. She received numerous awards for her philanthropy, including honorary doctorates, a Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, and a papal knighthood—Dame of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre ↗. In 1985, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for her services to the arts.
Early life
Irene Marie Dunn was born on December 20, 1898, at 507 East Gray Street in Louisville, Kentucky, to Joseph John Dunn, an Irish-American steamboat engineer/inspector for the United States government, and Adelaide Antoinette Dunn (née Henry), a concert pianist/music teacher of German descent from Newport, Kentucky. She was their second child and second daughter, and had a younger brother named Charles; Dunne's elder sister died soon after her birth. The family alternated between living in Kentucky and St. Louis, due to her father's job offers, but he died in April 1913 from a kidney infection when she was fourteen. She saved all of his letters and both remembered and lived by what he told her the night before he died: "Happiness is never an accident. It is the prize we get when we choose wisely from life's great stores."
Following her father's death, Dunne's family moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana, living on W. Second St., in the same neighborhood as Dunne's grandparents. Dunne's mother taught her to play the piano as a very small girl — according to Dunne, "Music was as natural as breathing in our house," — but unfortunately for her, music lessons frequently prevented her from playing with the neighborhood kids. Her first school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream began her interest in drama, so she took singing lessons as well, and sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916. Wanting to become a music teacher, she studied at the Indianapolis Conservatory of Music, earning a diploma in 1918. Later, she auditioned for the Chicago Musical College when she visited friends during a journey to Gary, Indiana, and won a college scholarship, officially graduating in 1926. Hoping to become a soprano opera singer, she moved to New York after finishing her second year in 1920, but failed two auditions with the Metropolitan Opera Company due to her inexperience and her "slight" voice.
Career
- Wikipedia article: Irene Dunne's Career
Personal life
Dunne's father frequently told Dunne about his memories of traveling on bayous and lazy rivers. Dunne's favorite family vacations were riverboat rides and parades, later recalling a voyage from St. Louis to New Orleans, and watching boats on the Ohio River from the hillside. She admitted, "No triumph of either my stage or screen career has ever rivaled the excitement of trips down the Mississippi on the riverboats with my father."
Dunne was an avid golfer, playing the sport since high-school graduation; Dunne and her husband often played against each other, and she made a hole in one in two different games. They often socialized with Californian business people, but she was good friends with Loretta Young, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Rosalind Russell, Van Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Carole Lombard, and George Stevens Jr., and became godmother to Young's son, Peter. She and Charles Boyer's blossoming friendship in Love Affair seeped through the movie so strongly, they both wrote essays about each other in the October issue of Photoplay. Dunne also bonded with Leo McCarey over numerous similar interests, such as their Irish ancestry, music, religious backgrounds, and humor. School friends nicknamed her "Dunnie" and she was referred to as this in Madison High School's 1916 yearbook, along with the description "divinely tall and most divinely fair." John Cromwell, however, reportedly described her as "always [having] the look of a cat who had swallowed the canary."
Dunne was popular with co-workers off-camera, earning a reputation as warm and approachable and having a "poised, gracious manner" like royalty, which spilled into her persona in movies. On observing life behind the scenes of a typical day of filming in Hollywood, Jimmie Fidler noted, "There is something about Irene Dunne that makes every man in the room unconsciously straighten his tie." Dunne earned the nickname "The First Lady of Hollywood" because "she was the first real lady Hollywood has ever seen," said Leo McCarey, with Gregory La Cava adding, "If Irene Dunne isn't the first lady of Hollywood, then she's the last one." Ironically, this title had been bestowed on her when she was a little girl when an aunt cooed "What a little lady!" When approached about the nickname in 1936, Dunne admitted it had grown tiresome but approved if it was meant as "the feminine counterpart of 'gentleman'"; a later interview she did have with the Los Angeles Times would ironically be titled "Irene Dunne, Gentlewoman."
Her fashion tastes were often the talk of newspapers, and Best Dressed lists featured her as one of the most stylish celebrities in the world. Dunne explained in a 1939 fashion-advice interview that her husband was partially responsible because he was equally stylish but also chooses outfits based on personality, color scheme and the context of where the outfits will be worn. McCall's magazine later revealed Dunne chose outfits specifically designed for her by Mainbocher and Jean Louis because she did not like buying clothes in stores.
One of Dunne's later public appearances was in April 1985, when she attended the unveiling of a bronze bust in her honor at St. John's Hospital and Health Clinic. The artwork, commissioned by the hospital by artist Artis Lane, has a plaque reading "IRENE DUNNE First Lady Of Saint John's Hospital and Health Center Foundation."
Relationships Between 1919 and 1922, Dunne was close to Fritz Ernst, a businessman based in Chicago who was 20 years older than she, and a member of one of the richest families in Madison, Indiana. They frequently corresponded while Dunne was training for musical theater but when Fritz proposed, Dunne declined, due to pressure from her mother and wanting to focus on acting. They remained friends and continued writing letters until Ernst died in 1959.
At a New York, Biltmore Hotel supper party in 1924, Dunne met Northampton, Massachusetts-born dentist Francis Griffin. According to Dunne, he preferred being a bachelor, yet tried everything he could to meet her. To her frustration, he did not telephone her until over a month later, but the relationship had strengthened and they married in Manhattan on July 13, 1927. They had constantly argued about the state of their careers if they ever got married, with Dunne agreeing to consider theater retirement sometime in the future and Griffin agreeing to support Dunne's acting. Griffin later explained: "I didn't like the moral tone of show business. [...] Then Ziegfeld signed her for Show Boat and it looked like she was due for big things. Next came Hollywood and [she] was catapulted to the top. Then I didn't feel I could ask her to drop her career. [I] really didn't think marriage and the stage were compatible but we loved each other and we were both determined to make our marriage work."
When Dunne decided to star in Leathernecking, it was meant to be her only Hollywood project, but when it was a box-office bomb, she took an interest in Cimarron. Soon after, she and her mother moved to Hollywood and maintained a long-distance relationship with her husband and brother in New York until they joined her in California in 1936. A family friend described their dynamic as "like two pixies together," and they remained married until Griffin's death on October 14, 1965, living in the Holmby Hills in a "kind of French Chateau" they designed. A hobby they both shared was astronomy. Griffin explained the marriage had lasted so long because: "When she had to go on location for a film, I arranged my schedule so I could go with her. When I had to go out of town, she arranged her schedule so she could be with me. We co-operate in everything. [...] I think a man married to a career woman in show business has to be convinced that his wife's talent is too strong to be dimmed or put out. Then, he can be just as proud of her success as she is and, inside he can take a bow himself for whatever help he's been." Due to Dunne's privacy, Hollywood columnists struggled to find scandals to write about her—an eventual interview with Photoplay included the disclaimer, "I can guarantee no juicy bits of intimate gossip. Unless, perhaps she lies awake nights heartsick about the kitchen sink in her new home. She's afraid it's too near to the door. Or would you call that juicy? No? No, I thought not." When the magazines alleged that Dunne and Griffin would divorce, Griffin released a statement denying any marital issues.
After retiring from dentistry, Griffin became Dunne's business manager and helped negotiate her first contract. The couple became interested in real estate, later investing in the Beverly Wilshire and throughout Las Vegas (including co-founding and chairing the board of Huntridge Corporation), and partnering with Griffin's family's businesses (Griffin Equipment Company and The Griffin Wellpoint Company.) Griffin sat as a board member of numerous banks, but his offices were relocated from Century City to their home after his death, when Dunne took over as president. They had one daughter, Mary Frances (née Anna Mary Bush; 1935 – 2020), who was adopted by the couple in 1936 (finalized in 1938) from the New York Foundling Hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity of New York.
Death
Dunne died at the age of 91 in her Holmby Hills home on †September 4, 1990, and was entombed four days later next to her husband in the Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles. She had been unwell for a year with an irregular heartbeat, and became bedridden about a month before. The funeral was private, with family friend Loretta Young being the only celebrity allowed to attend. Her personal papers are housed at the University of Southern California. She was survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Legacy
Dunne is considered one of the best actresses of The Golden Age of Hollywood never to win an Academy Award. "After I Remember Mama" was released, Liberty magazine hoped she would "do a Truman"[Note 1] at the 1949 Oscars whereas Erskine Johnson called her and Best Actor nominee Montgomery Clift the dark horses of that ceremony. In 1985, Roger Fristoe said "a generation of filmgoers is mostly unfamiliar with her work" because eleven of her movies had been remade, including Love Affair (remade as An Affair to Remember), Show Boat (remade in 1951), My Favorite Wife (remade as Move Over, Darling), and Cimarron (remade in 1960). Dunne explained she had lacked the "terrifying ambition" of some other actresses, commenting in 1977, "I drifted into acting and drifted out. Acting is not everything. Living is."
Although known for her comedic roles, Dunne admitted that she never saw comedy as a worthy genre, even leaving the country to attend the London premiere of Show Boat with her husband and James Whale to get away from being confronted with a script for Theodora Goes Wild. "I never admired a comedienne," she said retrospectively, "yet it was very easy for me, very natural. It was no effort for me to do comedy at all. Maybe that's why I wasn't so appreciative of it." She ascribed her sense of humor to her late father, as well as her "Irish stubbornness." Her screwball comedy characters have been praised for their subversions to the traditional characterization of female leads in the genre, particularly Susan (Katharine Hepburn) in Bringing Up Baby and Irene (Carole Lombard) in My Man Godfrey. "Unlike the genre's stereotypical leading lady, who exhibits bonkers behavior continuously, Dunne's screwball heroine [in Theodora Goes Wild] chooses when she goes wild," writes Wes D. Gehring, who also described Dunne's screwball as situational because her characters often obfuscate wackiness to attract the male lead, and could turn it off when needed.
Biographers and critics argue that Dunne's groundedness made her screwball characters more attractive than her contemporaries. In his review for My Favorite Wife, Bosley Crowther wrote that a "mere man is powerless" to "her luxurious and mocking laughter, her roving eyes and come-hither glances." Maria DiBattista points out that Dunne is the "only comic actress working under the strictures of the Production Code" who ends both of her screwball movies alongside Cary Grant with a heavy implication of sharing a bed with him, "under the guise of keeping him at bay." Frankie Teller claimed Dunne's sexiness had been overshadowed by her melodramatic movies until The Awful Truth was released. Meanwhile, outside of comedy, Andrew Sarris theorized that Dunne's sex appeal is due to the common narrative in her movies about a good girl "going bad." Dunne's backstage "First Lady" reputation furthered Sarris' sex appeal claims, admitting the scene when she shares a train carriage with Preston Foster in Unfinished Business was practically his "rite of passage" to a sex scene in a film, theorizing that the sex appeal of Dunne came from "a good girl deciding thoughtfully to be bad." On the blatant eroticism of the same train scene, Megan McGurk wrote, "The only thing that allowed this film to pass the censors was that good-girl Irene Dunne could have a one-night stand with a random because she loves him, rather than just a once-off fling. For most other women of her star magnitude, you could not imagine a heroine without a moral compass trained on true north. Irene Dunne elevates a tawdry encounter to something justifiably pure or blameless. She's just not the casual sex type, so she gets away with it."
The Los Angeles Times referred to Dunne's publicity in their obituary as trailblazing, noting her as one of the first actors to become a freelancer in Hollywood during its rigid studio system through her "non-exclusive contract that gave her the right to make films at other studios and to decide who should direct them," and her involvement with the United Nations as a decision that allowed entertainers from movies and television to branch out into philanthropy and politics, such as Ronald Reagan and George Murphy.
Dunne later said, "Cary Grant always said that I had the best timing of anybody he ever worked with." Lucille Ball admitted at an American Film Institute seminar that she based her comedic skills on Dunne's performance in Joy of Living, Joan Leslie called her an "outstanding example as a woman and a star." Charles Boyer described her as having an irrepressible youthfulness" and Ralph Bellamy described working in three films with her as "like a three-layered cake with candles[. She was] truly professional, extremely talented, and socially attractive and beautiful." When asked about life after retiring from baseball, Lou Gehrig stated he would want Dunne as a screen partner if he ever became a movie actor. Charles Mendl once called her one of the most attractive and fascinating women in the world "who has beauty as an accomplished actress and sophisticated conversationalist." Dunne told James Bawden in 1977: "Now don't you dare call me normal. I was never a Pollyanna. There was always a lot of Theodora in me."
Notes
- ↑ cause an incorrect banner headline on the front page of a newspaper
- Wikipedia article: Irene Dunne
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Note: Irene Dunne was a volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen |
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