The Irene Dunne Site
Miss Wham!
Irene Dunne - who isn't what you think she is
IRENE DUNNE is head of that school of screen brides who can toss a wisecrack or a pie into her cinema husband's face - before breakfast - and make him die laughing. That't the zany school. Other attributes: the sparkling repartee must be mixed with a face that's kissable 24 hours daily. Plus an ability to do a youthful version of Whistler's Mother.
It would be a good story if Irene were really that kind of a lady. She's not, of course. But she's much nicer. She's a very smart, very beautiful woman to whom movie work is a wonderful way to earn a living. no more. To her the most important things in the world are husband Dr. Francis Griffin and six-year-old Missy. Married for 14 years, she hasn't yet thrown a pie inot Frank's face.
In a first-name town like Hollywood, almost everybody still calls her Miss Dunne. And she's earned a reputation as one of the best businesswoman around. She makes a lot of money - and deserves it. She carefully picks her pictures. Is careful, too, about anything connected with them. But Hollywood for her begins and ends on the set. She doesn't bring her work home with her.
She began her career as the films' wackiest bride in 1926 with Columbia's "Theodora Goes Wild." Well, Irene did. And she has been going ever since - in front of the camera.
Everywhere else Irene is calm, dignified, serene. Ninety-nine percent of the time she's as cool as her voice. But far below that lovely exterior runs a vein of dynamite. That vein of dynamite was tapped during her last picture, "Unfinished Business."
Famed Gregory LaCava was the director. He picked out a dress for her to wear. She didn't want to. They argued. She yielded. She took it to the dress shop herself to have it altered. At 8 A.M. next morning she was on the set. The dress wasn't. She waited in her dressing room - her serenity leaking away. LaCava thought she was sulking. The dress arrived at 11. The dress went on. Irene turned to her maid: "My jewels for this scene, pleas." The maid paled. The jewel case was at home. Irene said quietly: "Would you mind leaving a minute?"
Then slowly, deliberately, she kicked over everything that she could kick without breaking her toes. Some things she threw. Then she went out and had a fight with LaCava. Ten minutes later they were pals - and she was Serene Irene again.
Oddly, LaCava is one of the few who spotted the Dunne volcanic streak. He likes to nickname people. "Your name with me," he announced when he first met Irene, "will be Mary Lou Wham."
by Lupton A. Wilkinson
Ralph Bellamy got mixed up with the screen's zaniest bride...
... and so did Cary Grant. Both learned about women from her.
(Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1942)