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Irene Dunne (December 20, 1898 - September 4, 1990) was an American film actress
Actor

An actor or actress is a person who acting in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio programming in that capacity....
 and singer of the 1930s and 1940s. Dunne was nominated for five-time Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry....
 for her performances in Cimarron
Cimarron (1931 film)

Cimarron is a film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1931 in film....
 (1931), Theodora Goes Wild
Theodora Goes Wild

Theodora Goes Wild is a comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risqu? novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by a member of the town's leading family....
 (1936), The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth

The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades....
 (1937), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama
I Remember Mama

I Remember Mama is a play by John Van Druten. Based on the memoir Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, it focuses on a loving family of Norway immigrants living on Steiner Street in San Francisco, California in the 1910s....
 (1948).

Irene Marie Dunne in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is Kentucky's largest city and county seat of Jefferson County, Kentucky. The city's estimated population as of 2006 is listed as 557,789, with a population of 1,233,733 in the Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area....
 to Joseph Dunne, 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.






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Irene Dunne (December 20, 1898 - September 4, 1990) was an American film actress
Actor

An actor or actress is a person who acting in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio programming in that capacity....
 and singer of the 1930s and 1940s. Dunne was nominated for five-time Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry....
 for her performances in Cimarron
Cimarron (1931 film)

Cimarron is a film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1931 in film....
 (1931), Theodora Goes Wild
Theodora Goes Wild

Theodora Goes Wild is a comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risqu? novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by a member of the town's leading family....
 (1936), The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth

The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades....
 (1937), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama
I Remember Mama

I Remember Mama is a play by John Van Druten. Based on the memoir Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, it focuses on a loving family of Norway immigrants living on Steiner Street in San Francisco, California in the 1910s....
 (1948).

Early life

Born Irene Marie Dunne in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is Kentucky's largest city and county seat of Jefferson County, Kentucky. The city's estimated population as of 2006 is listed as 557,789, with a population of 1,233,733 in the Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area....
 to Joseph Dunne, 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."

After her father's death, she, her mother and younger brother Charles moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana
Madison, Indiana

Madison is a city in Jefferson County, Indiana, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 12,004 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County, 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." Nicknamed "Dunnie," she took piano and voice lessons, sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916.

She earned a diploma to teach art, but took a chance on a contest and won a prestigious scholarship to the Chicago Musical College. She had hopes of becoming an opera singer, but did not pass an audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

Career

Dunne turned to musical theater, making her Broadway
Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 39 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City....
 debut in 1922 in Zelda Sear's The Clinging Vine. The following year, Dunne played a season of light opera in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the Capital and most populous city in Georgia , as well as the 33rd largest city in the United States of America with a population of 519,145....
. Though in her own words Dunne created "no great furor," by 1929 she had a successful Broadway career playing leading roles, grateful to be at center stage rather than in the chorus line.

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, Dunne eventually agreed to marry him and leave the theater. They were wed on July 16, 1928 until his death 15 October 1965. They had adopted a daughter Mary Frances Griffen in 1936.

Dunne's role as Magnolia Hawks in Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of popular music. He wrote around 700 songs, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance ", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight", and "Who? ", a 6-week #1 hit for George Olsen & his Orchestra in 1925....
 and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II was an American writer, Theatrical producer, and Theatre director of Musical theatre for almost forty years, collaborating on many of the most important pieces of musical theatre of the twentieth century....
's Show Boat
Show Boat

Show Boat is a musical theatre 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 by Kern and author-lyricist P....
 was the result of a chance meeting with showman Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , called Flo Ziegfeld, was an American Broadway theatre impresario. He is best known for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Berg?res of Paris....
 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
Show Boat (1936 film)

Show Boat is a film based on the Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the Show Boat by Edna Ferber....
.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Dunne blossomed into a popular screen heroine in movies such as Back Street
Back Street (1932 film)

Back Street is a 1932 in film film made by Universal Pictures, directed by John M. Stahl, and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.. The screenplay was written by Gladys Lehman based on novel by Fannie Hurst....
 (1932), and Magnificent Obsession
Magnificent Obsession (1935 film)

Magnificent Obsession is a 1935 in film drama film based on a book by Lloyd C. Douglas, Magnificent Obsession. It was adapted by Sarah Y....
 (1935). The first of three films she made opposite Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer

Charles Boyer was a four-time Academy Award-nominated France-born actor. Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in European and Hollywood movies during the 1930s, and continued to act in films, television and theatre over the next several decades....
, Love Affair (1939) was one of her best. She sang "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is a show tune written by American composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for their 1933 operetta Roberta....
" in the 1935 Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire

Fred Astaire was an United States Academy Award-winning film and Broadway theatre dance, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of seventy-six years, during which he made thirty-one musical films....
-Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers was an Academy Awards-winning United States film and stage actor, dancer and singer. In a film career spanning 50 years, she made a total of 73 films, and is now principally celebrated for her role as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre....
 film version of the musical Roberta
Roberta

Roberta is a musical from 1933 with music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics and book by Otto Harbach. The musical is based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller....
.

She was apprehensive about attempting her first comedy role, as the title character in Theodora Goes Wild
Theodora Goes Wild

Theodora Goes Wild is a comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risqu? novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by a member of the town's leading family....
 (1936), but discovered that she enjoyed it. She turned out to possess 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 The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth

The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades....
 (1937), My Favorite Wife
My Favorite Wife

My Favorite Wife is a 1940 in film screwball comedy starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant that tells the story of a woman returning home to her husband and children after being shipwrecked on a tropical island for seven years....
 (1940) and Penny Serenade
Penny Serenade

Penny Serenade is a film melodrama starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi, and Edgar Buchanan. It was directed by George Stevens and written by Martha Cheavens and Morrie Ryskind....
 (1941), all three opposite Cary Grant
Cary Grant

Archibald Alec Leach , better known by his stage name, Cary Grant, was a British-born American actor. With his distinctive yet not quite placeable accent, he was noted as perhaps the foremost exemplar of the debonair leading man, handsome, virile, charismatic and charming....
. Other notable roles include Anna Leonowens
Anna Leonowens

Anna Leonowens was a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland travel writer, educator and social activist, known for teaching the wives and children of Mongkut, king of Siam, and for co-founding the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design....
 in Anna and the King of Siam (1946), Lavinia Day in Life with Father
Life with Father (film)

Life with Father is a 1947 in film comedy film....
 (1947), and Martha Hanson in I Remember Mama
I Remember Mama

I Remember Mama is a play by John Van Druten. Based on the memoir Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, it focuses on a loving family of Norway immigrants living on Steiner Street in San Francisco, California in the 1910s....
 (1948). In The Mudlark
The Mudlark

The Mudlark a film made in England by 20th Century Fox, is a fictionalized account of how Victoria of the United Kingdom was eventually brought out of her mourning for her dead husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha....
 (1950), Dunne was nearly unrecognizable under heavy makeup as Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria was from 20 June 1837 the Queen regnant of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and from 1 May 1876 the first Empress of India of the British Raj until her death....
. She retired from the screen in 1952, after It Grows on Trees
It Grows on Trees

It Grows on Trees is a 1952 in film fantasy film comedy film about a couple who discover that two trees in their backyard grow money. One morning a few days after Polly Baxter purchased a couple of trees and planted them in her backyard, a $5 bill floated in through an open window, spurring a curious turn of luck to her family's ongoing...
, a comedy about a couple who discover that money does grow on trees, at least in their back yard.

Shortly after It Grows on Trees
It Grows on Trees

It Grows on Trees is a 1952 in film fantasy film comedy film about a couple who discover that two trees in their backyard grow money. One morning a few days after Polly Baxter purchased a couple of trees and planted them in her backyard, a $5 bill floated in through an open window, spurring a curious turn of luck to her family's ongoing...
 opened, she performed as the opening act on the 1953 March of Dimes showcase in New York City. While in town, she made her first appearance as the mystery guest on What's My Line?
What's My Line?

What's My Line? is a weekly panel game show which was produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. When first sold to CBS, the proposed title was Occupation Unknown....
. She made television performances on Ford Theatre
Ford Theatre

Ford Theatre is a radio and television anthology series broadcast in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. At various times, the television was to appear on all of the then-three major U.S television networks, while the radio version also was broadcast on two separate networks and on two separate coasts....
, General Electric Theater
General Electric Theater

General Electric Theater is an United States anthology series that was broadcast on CBS radio and television program. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public relations Services....
, and the Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is a weekly Anthology series television series telecast Friday nights on CBS from 1951 until 1959. The series presented both Television comedy and Dramatic programming....
, continuing to act until 1962.

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."

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
Technicolor

Technicolor is the trademark for a series of Color film processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation , now a division of Thomson SA....
, the first woman ever elected to the board of directors.

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 from the New York Foundling Hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity of New York
Sisters of Charity of New York

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....
. Both Dunne and her husband were ordained Knights of Malta.

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.

Death

Dunne died peacefully at her Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
 in 1990, and is entombed in the Calvary Cemetery
Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles

The Calvary Cemetery is a Roman Catholic Church cemetery operated by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, located at 4201 Whittier Boulevard in Los Angeles, California....
 in East Los Angeles, California
East Los Angeles, California

East Los Angeles is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California, California, United States. As of the 2000 census, the area had a total population of 124,283....
. Her personal papers are housed at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private university, nonsectarian, research university located in the University Park, Los Angeles, California neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, California, United States....
.

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
Cimarron (1931 film)

Cimarron is a film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1931 in film....
 (1931), Theodora Goes Wild
Theodora Goes Wild

Theodora Goes Wild is a comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risqu? novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by a member of the town's leading family....
 (1936), The Awful Truth
The Awful Truth

The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades....
 (1937), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama
I Remember Mama

I Remember Mama is a play by John Van Druten. Based on the memoir Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, it focuses on a loving family of Norway immigrants living on Steiner Street in San Francisco, California in the 1910s....
 (1948).

In 1985, she was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors
Kennedy Center Honors

The Kennedy Center Honors is an annual honor given to those in the performing arts for theirlifetime of contributions to Culture of the United States....
, 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
Laetare Medal

The Laetare Medal is an annual award given by the University of Notre Dame in recognition of outstanding service to the Roman Catholic church and society....
 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
Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA, that serves as an entertainment hall of fame....
 at 6440 Hollywood Blvd. and displays in the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's largest film producer of film and television.It is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank, California and New York City....
 Museum and Center for Motion Picture Study.

Filmography

  • Leathernecking (1930)
  • Cimarron (1931)
  • The Slippery Pearls (1931) (short subject)
  • Bachelor Apartment (1931)
  • The Great Lover (1931)
  • Consolation Marriage (1931)
  • Symphony of Six Million (1932)
  • Back Street
    Back Street (1932 film)

    Back Street is a 1932 in film film made by Universal Pictures, directed by John M. Stahl, and produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.. The screenplay was written by Gladys Lehman based on novel by Fannie Hurst....
     (1932)
  • Thirteen Women
    Thirteen Women

    Thirteen Women is a psychological thriller film, produced by David O. Selznick and directed by George Archainbaud. It starred Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Florence Eldridge and Jill Esmond....
     (1932)
  • No Other Woman (1933)
  • The Secret of Madame Blanche (1933)
  • The Silver Cord (1933)
  • Ann Vickers
    Ann Vickers

    Ann Vickers is a 1933 in literature novel by Sinclair Lewis.It is also a 1933 in film drama film directed by John Cromwell , adapted by Jane Murfin from Lewis's novel, and starring Irene Dunne, Walter Huston, and Conrad Nagel....
     (1933)
  • Only Yesterday
    Only Yesterday (1933 film)

    Only Yesterday is a 1933 in film drama film about a young woman who makes love with her soldier boyfriend and becomes pregnant before he rushes off to fight in World War I....
     (1933)
  • If I Were Free (1933)
  • This Man Is Mine
    This Man Is Mine (1934 film)

    This Man is Mine is a 1934 film directed by John Cromwell and starring Irene Dunne....
     (1934)
  • Stingaree
    Stingaree (1934 film)

    Stingaree is a film directed by William A. Wellman, starring Irene Dunne and Richard Dix, and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film was based on a story by Ernest William Hornung, which was published in 1905....
     (1934)
  • The Age of Innocence (1934)
  • Sweet Adeline (1934)
  • Roberta
    Roberta (1935 film)

    Roberta is a 1935 in film musical film by RKO starring Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Randolph Scott. It was an adaptation of a Broadway theatre Roberta, which in turn was based on the novel Gowns by Roberta by Alice Duer Miller....
     (1935)
  • Magnificent Obsession
    Magnificent Obsession (1935 film)

    Magnificent Obsession is a 1935 in film drama film based on a book by Lloyd C. Douglas, Magnificent Obsession. It was adapted by Sarah Y....
     (1935)
  • Show Boat
    Show Boat (1936 film)

    Show Boat is a film based on the Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the Show Boat by Edna Ferber....
     (1936)
  • Theodora Goes Wild
    Theodora Goes Wild

    Theodora Goes Wild is a comedy film which tells the story of a small town, incensed by a risqu? novel, little knowing that it was written under a pseudonym by a member of the town's leading family....
     (1936)
  • High, Wide, and Handsome
    High, Wide, and Handsome

    High, Wide, and Handsome is a 1937 in film Hollywood film starring Irene Dunne, Randolph Scott, Alan Hale, Sr., Charles Bickford, and Dorothy Lamour....
     (1937)
  • The Awful Truth
    The Awful Truth

    The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant. The plot concerns the machinations of a soon-to-be-divorced couple, played by Dunne and Grant, who go to great lengths to try to ruin each other's romantic escapades....
     (1937)
  • Joy of Living (1938)
  • Love Affair (1939)
  • Invitation to Happiness (1939)
  • When Tomorrow Comes (1939)
  • My Favorite Wife
    My Favorite Wife

    My Favorite Wife is a 1940 in film screwball comedy starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant that tells the story of a woman returning home to her husband and children after being shipwrecked on a tropical island for seven years....
     (1940)
  • Penny Serenade
    Penny Serenade

    Penny Serenade is a film melodrama starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi, and Edgar Buchanan. It was directed by George Stevens and written by Martha Cheavens and Morrie Ryskind....
     (1941)
  • Unfinished Business (1941)
  • Lady in a Jam (1942)
  • Show Business at War
    Show Business at War

    Show Business at War was a short film made in 1943 in film to tout the United States film industry's contribution to the Second World War war effort....
     (1943) (short subject)
  • A Guy Named Joe
    A Guy Named Joe

    A Guy Named Joe is a 1943 in film film made by MGM, directed by Victor Fleming, produced by Everett Riskin, from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, adapted by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan from a story by Chandler Sprague and David Boehm....
     (1943)
  • The White Cliffs of Dover
    The White Cliffs of Dover (1944 film)

    The White Cliffs of Dover is a 1944 in film film made by Loew's and MGM. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Clarence Brown and Sidney Franklin ....
     (1944)
  • Together Again (1944)
  • Over 21
    Over 21

    Over 21 is a 1945 in film comedy film about a wife who supports her husband's decision to enlist in the army for World War II over the objections of his boss....
     (1945)
  • Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
  • Life with Father
    Life with Father (film)

    Life with Father is a 1947 in film comedy film....
     (1947)
  • I Remember Mama
    I Remember Mama

    I Remember Mama is a play by John Van Druten. Based on the memoir Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, it focuses on a loving family of Norway immigrants living on Steiner Street in San Francisco, California in the 1910s....
     (1948)
  • Never a Dull Moment
    Never a Dull Moment (1950 film)

    Never a Dull Moment is a 1950 in film RKO comedy film starring Irene Dunne and Fred MacMurray. The film is based on the 1943 book Who Could Ask For Anything More? by Kay Swift....
     (1950)
  • The Mudlark
    The Mudlark

    The Mudlark a film made in England by 20th Century Fox, is a fictionalized account of how Victoria of the United Kingdom was eventually brought out of her mourning for her dead husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha....
     (1950)
  • You Can Change the World (1951) (short subject)
  • It Grows on Trees
    It Grows on Trees

    It Grows on Trees is a 1952 in film fantasy film comedy film about a couple who discover that two trees in their backyard grow money. One morning a few days after Polly Baxter purchased a couple of trees and planted them in her backyard, a $5 bill floated in through an open window, spurring a curious turn of luck to her family's ongoing...
     (1952)


Television

  • Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
    Schlitz Playhouse of Stars

    Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is a weekly Anthology series television series telecast Friday nights on CBS from 1951 until 1959. The series presented both Television comedy and Dramatic programming....
     (1951) Host
  • General Electric Theater
    General Electric Theater

    General Electric Theater is an United States anthology series that was broadcast on CBS radio and television program. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public relations Services....
     (1953) episode: "Go Fight City Hall" 10/15/1962
  • Saints and Sinners (1962) episode: "Source of Information" 10/15/1962
  • Frontier Circus
    Frontier Circus

    For the National Broadcasting Company program similarly named, see Frontier .'Frontier Circus' is a short-lived Western television program about a traveling circus roaming the American West in the 1880s....
     (1961) episode: "Dr. Sam" 10/26/1961
  • The DuPont Show with June Allyson (1959) playing "Dr. Gina Kerstas", episode: "The Opening Door" 10/5/1959
  • What's My Line?
    What's My Line?

    What's My Line? is a weekly panel game show which was produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. When first sold to CBS, the proposed title was Occupation Unknown....
     (10/20/1957) (Episode # 385) (Season 9, Ep 8) Mystery Guest.
  • Ford Theatre
    Ford Theatre

    Ford Theatre is a radio and television anthology series broadcast in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. At various times, the television was to appear on all of the then-three major U.S television networks, while the radio version also was broadcast on two separate networks and on two separate coasts....
     (1952) episode: "Sheila" 5/24/1956
  • Letter to Loretta
    Letter to Loretta

    Letter to Loretta is a 30-minute dramatic television anthology series telecast on NBC from 1953 to 1961 for a total of 165 episodes. The live show was hosted by Loretta Young, who played the lead in various episodes....
     (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


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

  • , by Wes D. Gehring, USA Today, July 2003
  • "Irene Dunne - Elegant Leading Lady of the Golden Age," by John Roberts; Films of the Golden Age (Fall, 1998, Issue #14)
  • "We Remember Irene," Film Comment (New York), by Richard Schickel, March/April 1991.
  • "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.
  • "Irene Dunne: The Awesome Truth," Film Comment (New York), by James McCourt January/February 1980.
  • Interview with J. Harvey, Film Comment (New York), January/February 1980.
  • "Irene Dunne," interview with John Kobal, in Focus on Film (London), no. 28, 1977.
  • "Hats - Hunches and Happiness" by Irene Dunne Picturegoer, (England) February, 1945.
  • "Irene Dunne: Native Treasure", Close-Ups: The Movie Star Book, DeWitt Bodeen, edited by Danny Peary, New York, 1978.
  • Irene Dunne, in Films in Review (New York), Madden, J. C., December 1969.


External links

  • Biographical Info for Irene Dunne
  • Film Reference by Jeanine Basinger
  • by Hal Erickson, Allmovie Guide
  • - Stanford University
    Stanford University

    Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....