Lynn Fontanne (6 December 1887 – 30 July 1983) was a British actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years, who with her husband
Alfred LuntAlfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for an incomparable, long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
was part of the most acclaimed acting team in the history of the American theater.
Despite living in the U.S. for over 60 years, she never relinquished her British citizenship. She and her husband shared a special
Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American theatre and are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are for Broadway productions and...
in 1970.
Lynn Fontanne (6 December 1887 – 30 July 1983) was a British actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years, who with her husband
Alfred LuntAlfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for an incomparable, long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
was part of the most acclaimed acting team in the history of the American theater.
Despite living in the U.S. for over 60 years, she never relinquished her British citizenship. She and her husband shared a special
Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American theatre and are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are for Broadway productions and...
in 1970. She also won an
Emmy awardThe Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards , Grammy Awards and Tony Awards .They are presented in various...
in 1965, and was a Kennedy Center honoree very late in life.
Career
Born
Lillie Louise Fontanne in
WoodfordWoodford is a suburban district in the London Borough of Redbridge, north-east London, England, on the boundary with the London Borough of Waltham Forest....
,
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, Fontanne first drew popular acclaim in 1921 playing the cliché-spouting title role in the
George S. KaufmanGeorge Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic.-Early years:...
-
Marc ConnellyMarcus Cook Connelly was an American playwright, director, producer, performer, and lyricist. He was a key member of the Algonquin Round Table, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1930.-Biography:...
's farce
DulcyDulcy may refer to:*A short form of Dulcinea*Dulcy by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, upon which the subsequent films were based.*Dulcy *Dulcy *Dulcy the Dragon, a dragon in Sonic the Hedgehog...
.
Dorothy ParkerDorothy Parker was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles....
memorialized her performance in verse:
Dulcy, take our gratitude, / All your words are golden ones. / Mistress of the platitude, / Queen of all the old ones. / You, at last, are something new / ’Neath the theatre’s dome. I’d / Mention to the cosmos, you / Swing a wicked bromide. ...
She soon became celebrated for her skill as an actress in high comedy, excelling in witty roles written for her by
Noël CowardSir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of Richmond upon Thames, London, Coward...
,
S. N. BehrmanSamuel Nathaniel Behrman was an American playwright and screenwriter, who also worked for the New York Times....
and
Robert SherwoodRobert Sherwood may refer to:*Robert Emmet Sherwood , American playwright, editor, and screenwriter*Robert Edmund Sherwood , American clown and author...
. Fontanne's flair for elegant romantic comedy is often credited with creating a new style of dramatic heroine and an inspiration and influence on later screen actresses like
Claudette ColbertClaudette Colbert was a French-born American stage and film actress.Born in Saint-Mandé, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...
,
Myrna LoyMyrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...
, and
Carole LombardCarole Lombard was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in several classic films of the 1930s, most notably in the 1936 film My Man Godfrey...
who brought the rhythm to their screen performances.
By contrast, Fontanne enjoyed one of the greatest critical successes of her career as Nina Leeds, the desperate heroine of
Eugene O'NeillEugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of realism, associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August...
's nine-act drama,
Strange InterludeStrange Interlude is an experimental play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill finished the play in 1923, but it was not produced on Broadway until 1928, when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Lynn Fontanne originated the central role of Nina Leeds on Broadway...
.
From the late 1920s on, Fontanne acted exclusively in vehicles also starring her husband. Among their greatest theater triumphs were
Design for LivingDesign for Living is a comedy play written by Noël Coward in 1932. It concerns a trio of artistic characters, Gilda, Otto and Leo, and their complicated three-way relationship. Originally written to star Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Coward, it was premiered on Broadway, partly because its risqué...
(1933),
The Taming of the ShrewThe Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1594.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a drunken tinker named Sly is tricked into thinking he is a nobleman by a mischievous Lord...
(1935-1936),
Idiot's DelightIdiot's Delight is a Hollywood film, with a screenplay adapted from the 1936 Robert E. Sherwood play, by Sherwood himself. The movie stars Norma Shearer and Clark Gable. It is notable as the only film where Gable sings and dances, performing a version of the Irving Berlin standard "Puttin' on the...
(1936),
There Shall Be No NightThere Shall Be No Night is a 1940 three-act play written by American playwright Robert E. Sherwood. The play was produced on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre in 1940, and won the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Drama....
(1940), and
QuadrilleQuadrille is a play by Noël Coward. The romantic comedy premiered in 1952 and starred Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. It played on Broadway in 1955, where Lunt won a Tony Award for his performance.-History:...
(1952). Design for Living, which Noel Coward wrote expressly for himself and the Lunts, was so risqué, with its theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois, that Coward premiered it in New York, knowing that it would not survive the censor in London. The Lunts remained highly active on the stage until retiring in 1960. Fontanne was nominated for a Best Actress Tony for one of her last stage roles, in
The VisitThe Visit is a 1956 tragicomedy by the Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt. It is probably the best known of his works in the English-speaking world, particularly due to its frequent study in German A-Level and Higher courses...
(1959).
Fontanne made only three movies, but nevertheless, was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best ActressPerformance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
in 1931 for
The GuardsmanThe Guardsman is a 1931 movie based on the play Testőr by Ferenc Molnár. It stars Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Roland Young and ZaSu Pitts...
, losing to the much younger
Helen HayesHelen Hayes was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of only ten people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
. She also appeared in the silent movies
Second Youth (1924) and
The Man Who Found Himself (1925).
The Lunts starred in four television productions in the 1950s and 1960s with both Lunt and Fontanne winning an Emmy award in 1965 for
The Magnificent YankeeThe Magnificent Yankee is a 1950 biographical film adapted by Emmet Lavery from his play of the same title, which was in-turn adapted from the book Mr. Justice Holmes by Francis Biddle...
, becoming the first married couple to win the award for playing a married couple. She also narrated the classic 1960 television production of
Peter PanPeter Pan is a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and Barrie's own novelization of it, Peter and Wendy. The music is mostly by Mark "Moose" Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne, and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty...
starring
Mary MartinMary Virginia Martin was an American actress. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989....
and received a second Emmy nomination for playing Grand Duchess Marie in the
Hallmark Hall of FameHallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television. It has had a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and still continuing today. From 1954 onward, all of their productions have been shown in color, although color television productions were extremely rare in 1954...
telecast of
Anastasia in 1967, both rare performances that she did without her husband.
The Lunts also starred in several radio dramas in the 1940s, notably on the
Theatre GuildThe Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1919 by Theresa Helburn, Lawrence Langner, and Armina Marshall. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players....
program. Many of these broadcasts still survive.
In 1964, Lynn Fontanne and her husband, Alfred Lunt, were presented with the
Presidential Medal of FreedomThe Presidential Medal of Freedom is a decoration bestowed by the President of the United States and is, along with theequivalent Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress, the highest civilian award in the U.S...
by President Lyndon Johnson.
Personal life
Fontanne's romance with Lunt began in 1920 while he was starring in the play
Clarence with
Helen HayesHelen Hayes was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of only ten people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, who had discreetly fallen in love with him. The Lunts were married in 1922. Hayes remained a lifelong friend of the pair, although many believe she never quite forgave Fontanne for "stealing" Lunt from her. Hayes' 1988 autobiography, published after the Lunts' deaths, contains several barbs directed at Fontanne, who supposedly was her friend for decades.
The Lunts lived for many years at
Ten ChimneysTen Chimneys, also known as Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt House is the well-preserved summer home of actors Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt...
, in
Genesee Depot, WisconsinGenesee Depot is a small unincorporated community in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located in the Town of Genesee, in southeastern Wisconsin between Milwaukee and Madison, and named for the train station, or depot, of the Wisconsin and Calumet Railroad that formerly served the...
, in
Waukesha County, WisconsinWaukesha County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of 2008, the population was 380,629. Its county seat is Waukesha.-History:The part of Wisconsin that Waukesha County now occupies was a part of Michigan until Milwaukee County was organized in September 1834. On July 4, 1836, the...
, but never had children. By all accounts, Lynn Fontanne was among the most duplicitous of actresses regarding her true age. Her husband died believing she was five years younger than him (as she had told him), and refused to believe anything to the contrary, although several magazine profiles on the stars reported her true age. She was, in fact, five years older, but continued to deny long after Lunt's death that she was born in 1887 (the year now attributed to her birth); she even misreported her year of birth accordingly to the U.S.
Social Security AdministrationThe United States Social Security Administration is an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits...
.
Asked how to say her name, she told
The Literary DigestThe Literary Digest was an influential general interest weekly magazine published by Funk and Wagnalls. Founded by Isaac Kauffman Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, Public Opinion and Current Opinion....
she preferred the French way, but "If the French is too difficult for American consumption, both syllables should be equally accented, and the
a should be more or less broad":
fon-tahn.
Lynn Fontanne is interred next to her equally famous husband,
Alfred LuntAlfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for an incomparable, long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...
, at
Forest Home CemeteryForest Home Cemetery located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the final resting place of many of the city's famed beer barons, politicians and social elite. Both the cemetery and its Landmark Chapel are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and were declared a Milwaukee Landmark in 1973.The...
in
Milwaukee, WisconsinMilwaukee is the largest city in Wisconsin and 23rd largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. Its estimated 2008 population was 604,477. Milwaukee is the main cultural and economic center of the...
.
Sources
External links