Irene Dunne
from the film Love Affair (1939)
Birth name	Irene Marie Dunn
Born	December 20, 1898 Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Died	September 4 1990 (aged 91) Los Angeles, California
Years active	Broadway 1920s Film 1930 - 1952 Television 1962
Spouse(s)	Francis Dennis Griffin
Awards Academy Awards Nominated: Best Actress 1931 Cimarron 1936 Theodora Goes Wild 1937 The Awful Truth 1939 Love Affair 1948 I Remember Mama

Irene Dunne (December 20, 1898 - September 4, 1990) was a five-time Academy Award-nominated American film actress and singer of the 1930s and 1940s. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... There is also a musical group named Love Affair. ... is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... “Louisville” redirects here. ... is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... d Los Angeles and L.A. redirect here. ... See also: 1929 in film 1930 1931 in film 1930s in film 1920s in film years in film film // Events Top grossing films The Indians Are Coming Madam Satan Der Blaue Engel Academy Awards Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front - Universal Studios Best Actress: Norma Shearer - The Divorcee... // Events February 20 - The film The African Queen opens (Capitol Theater in New York City). ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... The Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the awards given to actresses working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; nominations are made by Academy members who are actors and actresses. ... A recent printing of Edna Ferbers Cimarron. ... Theodora Goes Wild is a 1936 comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risque novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by the daughter of the towns leading family. ... The Awful Truth is a 1937 romantic comedy (also screwball comedy) film. ... There is also a musical group named Love Affair. ... DVD Cover with original film poster For the Broadway musical of the same title, see I Remember Mama. ... is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1990 (MCMXC) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar). ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... A singer is a musician who uses their voice to produce music. ...

Early life

Dunne was born Irene Marie Dunn in Louisville, Kentucky to Joseph Dunn, a steamboat inspector for the United States government, and Adelaide Henry, a concert pianist/music teacher from Newport, Kentucky. Irene Dunne would later write, "No triumph of either my stage or screen career has ever rivalled the excitement of trips down the Mississippi on the river boats with my father." She was only eleven when her father died in 1909. She saved all of his letters and often 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."^[1] “Louisville” redirects here. ...

After her father's death, she, her mother and younger brother Charles moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana. 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."^[2] Nicknamed "Dunnie," she took piano and voice lessons, sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916. Madison is a city in Jefferson County, Indiana, along the Ohio River. ...

She earned a diploma to teach art, but took a chance on the contest and won the prestigious scholarship to the Chicago Musical College. She had hopes of becoming an opera singer, but did not make an audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company. The Metropolitan Opera is located at Lincoln Center in New York, New York. ...

Career

Dunne turned to musical theater, making her Broadway debut in 1922 in Arthur Miller's The Clinging Vine.^[3] The following year, Dunne played a season of light opera in Atlanta, Georgia. Though, in her own words, Dunne created "no great furore," through 1928 she was playing leading roles in a successful Broadway career, grateful that she was never in the chorus line. Broadway theatre[1] is the most prestigious form of professional theatre in the U.S., as well as the most well known to the general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows. ... Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright and essayist. ... Hotlanta redirects here. ...

Dunne met her future husband, Francis Griffin, a New York dentist, at a supper dance in New York. Despite differing opinions and battles that raged furiously,^[4] Dunne eventually agreed to marry him and leave the theater. They were wed on July 16, 1928. is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Dunne's role as Magnolia Hawks in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat was the result of a chance meeting with showman Florenz Ziegfeld in an elevator the day she returned from her honeymoon. Dunne was discovered by Hollywood while starring with the Chicago company of the musical in 1929. She signed a contract with RKO and appeared in her first movie in 1930, Leathernecking, an early musical. She moved to Hollywood with her mother and brother, and maintained a long-distance marriage with her husband in New York until he joined her in California in 1936. That year, she re-created her role as Magnolia in what is considered the classic film version of Show Boat. Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of popular music. ... For work done with Richard Rodgers, see Rodgers and Hammerstein Oscar Hammerstein II (July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960) was a New-York born writer, producer, and (usually uncredited) director of musicals for almost forty years. ... Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. One notable exception is the song Bill, which was originally written for Kern in 1918 by P. G. Wodehouse but reworked by Hammerstein for Show Boat, and two songs... 1928 Time cover featuring Ziegfeld Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. ... RKO could stand for: RKO Pictures The R.K.O. - finishing manoever (and initials) of WWE professional wrestler Randy Orton. ... Show Boat is the name of a musical film based on the stage musical of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II, which was adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber. ...

During the 30s and 40s, Dunne blossomed into a popular screen heroine in movies such as Back Street (1932), Magnificent Obsession (1935), and Love Affair (1939). She sang "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" in the 1935 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film version of the musical Roberta. She possessed an exceptional aptitude for comedy. The unique Dunne trademark flair for combining elegance and madcap comedy is seen at its best in such films as Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937) and My Favorite Wife, the latter two opposite Cary Grant. Other notable roles include Anna Leonowens in Anna and the King of Siam (1946), Lavinia Day in Life with Father (1947), and Martha Hanson in I Remember Mama (1948). In The Mudlark, a 1950 made-in-England film, Dunne was nearly unrecognizable under heavy makeup as Queen Victoria. She retired from the screen in 1952, after It Grows on Trees, a comedy about a couple who discover that money does grow on trees, at least in their back yard. There is also a musical group named Love Affair. ... Smoke Gets In Your Eyes is a song written by American composer Jerome Kern for his 1933 Broadway musical Roberta. ... Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987), born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska,[1] was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. ... Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an Academy Award-winning American film and stage actress and singer. ... Roberta was a 1933 Broadway musical, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Otto Harbach, which starred Tamara, Bob Hope, George Murphy, Lyda Roberti, Fred MacMurray, Fay Templeton, Raymond E. Middleton, and Sydney Greenstreet. ... Theodora Goes Wild is a 1936 comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risque novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by the daughter of the towns leading family. ... The Awful Truth is a 1937 romantic comedy (also screwball comedy) film. ... My Favorite Wife is a 1940 screwball comedy film that tells the story of Ellen Wagstaff Arden (Irene Dunne), a young mother who returns home after seven years of being stranded on a tropical island only to discover that that very afternoon her beloved husband Nick (Cary Grant) has had... Archibald Alec Leach (January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986), better known by his screen name, Cary Grant, was an English born film actor. ... Anna Leonowens (November, 1831 - January 19, 1915) is chiefly famous for being the British governess portrayed in the musical The King and I. The play, based on adaptations of her factually slipshod memoirs, provides a fictionalised look at her life in the royal court of Siam (present-day Thailand). ... Anna and the King of Siam is a 1944 book by Margaret Landon, a play and a 1946 movie directed by John Cromwell. ... Life with Father is the title of a humorous autobiographical book of stories written in 1936 by Clarence Day, Jr. ... DVD Cover with original film poster For the Broadway musical of the same title, see I Remember Mama. ... The Mudlark, made in England in 1950 by 20th Century Fox, is a completely fictionalized account of how Queen Victoria was eventually brought out of her mourning for Prince Albert. ... Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India from 1 May 1876, until her death on 22 January 1901. ... It Grows on Trees is a 1952 fantasy comedy film about a couple who discover that two trees they planted in their backyard grow money. ...

She continued with television performances on Ford Theatre, General Electric Theater, and the Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, remaining active as an actress until 1962. Ford Theatre was an anthology television series broadcast in the United States in 1940s and 1950s. ... General Electric Theater was a half-hour CBS television anthology broadcast every Sunday evening beginning February 1, 1953 and ending May 27, 1962. ... Schlitz Playhouse of Stars was a weekly anthology television series, broadcast Friday nights on CBS from 1951 until 1959. ...

Dunne commented in an interview that she had lacked the "terrifying ambition" of some other actresses and said, "I drifted into acting and drifted out. Acting is not everything. Living is."^[5]

Later life

In 1957, Dwight David Eisenhower appointed Dunne one of five alternative U.S. delegates to the United Nations in recognition of her charitable works and interest in conservative Catholic and Republican causes. In her retirement, Dunne devoted herself primarily to civic, philanthropic, and Republican political causes. In 1965, Dunne became a board member of Technicolor, becoming the first woman ever elected to the board of directors. Dwight David Ike Eisenhower (October 14, 1890–March 28, 1969), American soldier and politician, was the 34th President of the United States (1953–1961) and supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, with the rank of General of the Army. ... Logo celebrating Technicolors 90th Anniversary Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation (a subsidiary of Technicolor, Inc. ...

Dunne remained married to Dr. Griffin until his death on October 15, 1965. They lived in Holmby Hills, California in a Southern plantation-style mansion that they designed. They had one daughter, Mary Frances (née Anna Mary Bush), who was adopted in 1938 at the age of four from the New York Foundling Hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity of New York.^[6] Both Dunne and her husband were ordained Knights of Malta. is the 288th day of the year (289th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. ... Holmby Hills is a neighborhood in western Los Angeles, California. ... The Sisters of Charity of New York is a congregation of religious women in the Catholic Church whose primary missions are education and nursing and who are dedicated in particular to the service of the poor. ... The Knights Hospitaller (also known as Knights of Rhodes, Knights of Malta, Cavaliers of Malta, and the Order of St. ...

One of her last public appearances was in April 1985, when she attended the dedication of a bust in her honor at St. John's (Roman Catholic) Hospital in Santa Monica, California, for which her foundation, The Irene Dunne Guild, had raised more than $20 million.

Dunne died peacefully at her Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles, California in 1990, and is entombed in the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California. Her personal papers are housed at the University of Southern California. d Los Angeles and L.A. redirect here. ... The Calvary Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery operated by the Los Angeles Archdiocese, located at 4201 E. Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, California. ... East Los Angeles (often shortened to East L.A. or East Los or in Spanish El Este) is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California, United States. ... The Trojan Shrine, better known as Tommy Trojan in June 2006. ...

Awards and nominations

Dunne has been described as the best actress to never win an Academy Award. She received five Best Actress nominations during her career: for Cimarron (1931), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama (1948). Cimarron is a 1931 film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. ...

In 1985, she was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement for a career that spanned three decades and a range of musical theater, the silver screen, Broadway, radio and television. Other honors include the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame University in 1949, the Bellarmine Medal from Bellarmine College in 1965 and Colorado's Women of Achievement in 1968. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6440 Hollywood Blvd. and displays in the Warner Bros. Museum and Center for Motion Picture Study.^[7] The Kennedy Center as seen from the Potomac River. ... A band plays on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. ... Warner Bros. ...

Filmography

Hollywood had long since taken notice of writer Edna Ferbers talents. ... The Stolen Jools is a short comedy film made in 1931. ... Back Street is romance novel written by Fannie Hurst in 1931, with underlying themes of death and adultery. ... Thirteen Women is a 1932 film, produced by David O. Selznick and directed by George Archainbaud. ... Ann Vickers is a 1933 novel by Sinclair Lewis. ... Only Yesterday , meaning Memories Like Falling Teardrops (more literally, Memories Like Falling Rain Drops) is sixth film by critically acclaimed director Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies) and produced by Studio Ghibli. ... This Man Is Mine is a song recorded by the rock band Heart. ... The Stingaree was a neighborhood of San Diego between the boom of the 1880s and the cleanup of 1916. ... For other uses, see Age of innocence. ... Barbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture. ... Roberta was a 1933 Broadway musical, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Otto Harbach, which starred Tamara, Bob Hope, George Murphy, Lyda Roberti, Fred MacMurray, Fay Templeton, Raymond E. Middleton, and Sydney Greenstreet. ... Magnificent Obsession is a 1929 novel by Lloyd C. Douglas. ... Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. One notable exception is the song Bill, which was originally written for Kern in 1918 by P. G. Wodehouse but reworked by Hammerstein for Show Boat, and two songs... Theodora Goes Wild is a 1936 comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risque novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by the daughter of the towns leading family. ... High, Wide, and Handsome (2006) is a film comedy about NASCAR racing that is currently in production. ... The Awful Truth is a 1937 romantic comedy (also screwball comedy) film. ... There is also a musical group named Love Affair. ... My Favorite Wife is a 1940 screwball comedy film that tells the story of Ellen Wagstaff Arden (Irene Dunne), a young mother who returns home after seven years of being stranded on a tropical island only to discover that that very afternoon her beloved husband Nick (Cary Grant) has had... Penny Serenade is a 1941 film melodrama starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi and Edgar Buchanan. ... Show Business at War was a 1943 short (17 minutes) film touting the film industrys contribution to the war effort. ... A Guy Named Joe is a 1943 film by Victor Fleming. ... The White Cliffs of Dover is a 1944 film based on the Alice Duer Miller poem entitled The White Cliffs. It tells the story of an American girl who travels abroad to England and falls in love with an aristocrat. ... Together Again is the second single from Janet Jacksons sixth studio album, The Velvet Rope. ... Anna and the King of Siam is a 1944 book by Margaret Landon, a play and a 1946 movie directed by John Cromwell. ... Life with Father is the title of a humorous autobiographical book of stories written in 1936 by Clarence Day, Jr. ... DVD Cover with original film poster For the Broadway musical of the same title, see I Remember Mama. ... Never a Dull Moment is a 1972 album by the rock musician Rod Stewart. ... The Mudlark, made in England in 1950 by 20th Century Fox, is a completely fictionalized account of how Queen Victoria was eventually brought out of her mourning for Prince Albert. ... It Grows on Trees is a 1952 fantasy comedy film about a couple who discover that two trees they planted in their backyard grow money. ...

Television

• Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1951) Host
• General Electric Theater (1953) episode: "Go Fight City Hall" 10/15/1962
• Saints and Sinners (1962) episode: "Source of Information" 10/15/1962
• Frontier Circus (1961) episode: "Dr. Sam" 10/26/1961
• DuPont Show with June Allyson, The (1959) playing "Dr. Gina Kerstas", episode: "Opening Door, The" 10/5/1959
• Ford Theatre (1952) episode: "Sheila" 5/24/1956
• Letter to Loretta (1953) Host, episode: "Tropical Secretary" 5/24/1956
• Ford Theatre (1952) episode: "On the Beach" 5/24/1956
• Letter to Loretta (1953) Host, episode: "Slander" 10/30/1955
• Ford Theatre (1952) episode: "Touch of Spring" 2/3/1955
• Ford Theatre (1952) episode: "Sister Veronica" 4/15/1954

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars was a weekly anthology television series, broadcast Friday nights on CBS from 1951 until 1959. ... General Electric Theater was a half-hour CBS television anthology broadcast every Sunday evening beginning February 1, 1953 and ending May 27, 1962. ... Saints & Sinners was the last studio album by All Saints. ... June Allyson (October 7, 1917 – July 8, 2006) was an American film and television actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. ... Ford Theatre was an anthology television series broadcast in the United States in 1940s and 1950s. ...

References

Further reading

• TCM Film Guide, "Leading Ladies: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era", Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 2006.

Books

• Pursuits of Happiness, by Stanley Cavell, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981.
• The Runaway Bride: Hollywood Romantic Comedy of the 1930s, by Elizabeth Kendall, New York, 1990.
• Irene Dunne: A Bio-Bibliography, by Margie Schultz, New York, 1991.
• Irene Dunne: First Lady of Hollywood, by Wes D. Gehring (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003).
• Irene Dunne: a bio-bibliography, by Margie Schultz (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991).
• Fast-talking Dames, by Maria DiBattista (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).

Articles

• Irene Dunne, in Films in Review (New York), Madden, J. C., December 1969.
• "Irene Dunne: Native Treasure", Close-Ups: The Movie Star Book, DeWitt Bodeen, edited by Danny Peary, New York, 1978.
• "Irene Dunne: The Awesome Truth," Film Comment (New York), by James McCourt January/February 1980.
• "Irene Dunne: Nominee for The Awful Truth," Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), by Richard Schickel, April 1990.
• "Irene Dunne (1904–1990): A Bright Star," Filmnews,by Peter Kemp November 1990.
• "Irene Dunne, Top-rank Film Star of the '30s and '40s, Dead at 88," Variety (New York), 10 September 1990.
• "We Remember Irene," Film Comment (New York), by Richard Schickel, March/April 1991.
• "Irene Dunne," interview with John Kobal, in Focus on Film (London), no. 28, 1977.
• Interview with J. Harvey, Film Comment (New York), January/February 1980.
• "Hats - Hunches and Happiness" by Irene Dunne Picturegoer, (England) February, 1945.
• "Irene Dunne - Elegant Leading Lady of the Golden Age," by John Roberts; Films of the Golden Age (Fall, 1998, Issue #14) [1]

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Irene Dunne

• Irene Dunne at the Internet Broadway Database
• Irene Dunne at the Internet Movie Database
• Irene Dunne at the TCM Movie Database
• Irene Dunne Photo (YouTube) Photo Tribute to Irene Dunne
• Irene Dunne Sings (YouTube) "Smoke Gets In Yours Eyes"
• Irene Dunne with Cary Grant (YouTube)
• Irene Dunne piano scene "The Awful Truth" (YouTube)
• Kennedy Center Biographical Info for Irene Dunne
• The Irene Dunne Guild St. John's Hospital
• Irene Dunne Film Reference by Jeanine Basinger
• Irene Dunne TV GUIDE TV Listings
• Irene Dunne TV Now National Cable Show Listings
• Irene Dunne Bio by Hal Erickson, Allmovie Guide
• Real Movie Stars - Standford University
• Reel Classics - Lyrics to Irene Dunne Songs
• Irene Dunne Photos & Wallpaper