Kentucky Girl Leaves Acting On Movie Lot

Irene Dunne Is So Homey That Interviewer Has Hard Time Of It

by James Roy Fuller

IRENE DUNNE is a Kentucky gal who made good at first as a singer and then as an actress. Her father wa some sort of government engineer who had to do with inspecting steamers, but all Irene knows about steamboats she learned as a star in "Showboat". She also learned a good deal about putting over a musical picture in that stage production.

 She still has the telegram Ziegfeld sent to her annoucing that she had been selected for a leading role in "Showboat". Miss Dunne could hardly believe it. She is that modest.

 The writer´s interview with Miss Dunne came pretty late in her career, that is a year or so later after her first big success in "Cimarron".

 When the picture went over with a bang the producers realized it was time to introduce Miss Dunne to the press. She seemed to be quite nice but rather queenly refusing to be interviewed on Columbus Day, which is a holiday in New York. That made the editor angry and he wouldn´t give her the second chance. He relented a year later and negotiations for the interview were renewed.

Reads for Voice Culture 

 Miss Dunne was interested in diet at the moment. She didn´t care to talk much of movies. But here was a grand system of diet. She urged your reporter to get a copy someday. Wonder what she meant by that?

 On the table was a small volume of Shakespeare. "I should have hidden that," she said, "You´ll go away and write that Irene Dunne is trying to be highbrowish because some of the Hollywood girls take to Shakespeare when they crave culture. But not so, I read it for voice practice and because I do not think he is highbrow. Just the opposite. He is human and theatrical."

 Miss Dunne said that she began playing the piano when she was a child - a least trying to play. It was her ambition to grow up into a famous musician.

 At school she got interested in plays and singing and that was the end of Irene Dunne concert pianist.

(...)

Comfortable, Sensible 

 The trouble with interviewing a person like Miss Dunne is that there are no verbal fireworks and self-dramatization with which to pep up a story. She was just a nice woman not an actor and when you left you had no more of a hot lead for an article than if you had interviewed your cousin Cynthia. And she´s just as comfortable and sensible as your cousin Cynthia.

(The Charleston Daily Mail, November 18.  1934)