<Archive obituary> Irene Dunne (1901-90)
Michael Rhodes
<The Times, September 6, 1990>
<IRENE DUNNE>
Irene Dunne, Hollywood leading lady of the 1930s and 1940s, died on
September 4 aged 88. She was born on December 20, 1901.
SMALL, trim and with a pleasing soprano voice, Irene Dunne was a
polished and dedicated performer much admired by her fellow actors.
She appeared with equal effect in the widest possible range of films,
which spanned straight dramas and tearjerkers through musicals to
crazy comedies. In straight parts her trademark was aladylike dignity,
while her wit and superb timing made her ideal for comedy.
In her heyday she was one of Hollywood's highest paid stars. But
despite the range of her talent it was a mark of her standing in the
industry that in a career of comparatively few films she was five
times nominated for the Oscar for best actress. It was her sadness
that she never won it.
Of Irish descent, she was born Irene Mary Dunn into a wealthy family
in Louisville, Kentucky. Her father was a steamship inspector for the
federal government and her mother an accomplished pianist. When she
came to appear in "Show Boat" on stage and on screen she should have
been well versed in the ways of mighty rivers and their traffic.
After a convent education Irene won a scholarship to the Chicago
College of Music to study singing with the ambition of becoming an
opera singer. She auditioned at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, but
was rejected as being, in her own words, "too young, too
inexperienced, too slight, too everything." The setback was only
temporary. She turned to musical comedy, making her debut in the lead
role of the touring production of "Irene".
Her first Broadway appearance was in "The Clinging Vine" in 1922 and
she was soon established as one of the leading young stars of the
American musical stage. IN 1929 she was chosen to play Magnolia in the
road company of "Show Boat" and this led her the following year into
films and a contract with RKO. Her first picture was an army musical,
"Leathernecking". The second was a Western, "Cimarron", which brought
her first Oscar nomination.
She stayed with dramatic parts for a while but by the mid-Thirties she
had returned to her first vocation as a singer in Jerome Kern
musicals. "Sweet Adeline" was followed by "Roberta", where she gave a
memorable rendition of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "Show Boat" in
which she repeated her stage part of Magnolia. A fourth Kern film was
"High, Wide and Handsome". She demonstrated her aptitude for melodrama
in "Magnificent Obsession", as a widow accidentally blinded by Robert
Taylor, and blossomed as a comedienne in "Theodora Goes Wild", as a
prim New Englander who writes a daring book, and in "The Awful Truth".
In the last her co-star was Cary Grant, and their partnership was
resumed with great success for "My Favourite Wife" and "Penny
Seranade". Another notable screen partner was Charles Boyer. They
played together in the romantic comedy, "Love Affair", which she
regarded as one of her favourite pictures, and in "When Tomorrow
Comes". These four films, made between 1939 and 1941, represent the
peak of her career. Her acting was mature and assured, she was
felicitously cast, and she had a perfect rapport with her leading men.
During and after the war styles changed and the crazy comedy faded
from popularity. But she had little difficulty making the transition
to more serious roles and the playing of older women. In contrast to
many other stars she took on characters considerably older than
herself with every sign of enjoyment. In 1946 she was the Victorian
governess Anna Leonowens in "Anna and the King of Siam", a subject
which later produced the musical "The King and I". She was in two
other period films, "I Remember Mama", as the matriarch of a Norwegian
family in America at the turn of the century which brought her fifth
Oscar nomination, and "Life With Father", a comedy with William Powell
set in New York in the 1890s.
Her casting as Queen Victoria in the 1950 British film "The Mudlark"
was more controversial. Her critics complained that an American
actress was not appropriate for the role. But Irene Dunne, helped by
convincing make-up and giving no hint of an American accent, produced
her usual professional performance. After one more film, "It Grows on
Trees", she retired to devote herself to her family, although she
later made occasional television appearances.
In politics she was an ardent supporter of the Republican party. This
became publicly apparent in 1956 when at the party convention in San
Francisco she recited, to suitable background music, the prayers with
President Eisenhower had offered at his inauguration three years
earlier. Later she urged America's housewives to bake cakes for
children in hospitals as part of the celebrations for the president's
69th birthday and in 1957 she was appointed as Eisenhower as a
delegate to the United Nations. During the Sixties she was elected to
the board of directors of Technicolour.
One of the minority of Hollywood stars whose private life never made
the headlines, she was married for nearly 40 years to Dr Francis
Griffin, a dentist and later businessman. He died in 1965. She had an
adopted daughter, Mary Frances, who survives her.
END
Terrymelin
and a person. She had a wide range and did so much in her career and yet she
seemed very under-rated. A truly class act.
Terry Ellsworth
JFK114
Irene was a fine actres, but now she's done.
Goodnight Irene,
I'll see you in my dreams.....