Irene Dunne: Gentlewoman

Hollywood has been cast in many lights - stark, and sometimes vulgar - but it would be impossible to say these words in the same breath in describing a lady who is invetiably part of the industry Hollywood represents. She may be out of context but never out of character.

 The public and private light that shines on Irene Dunne is soft and flattering, a subdued spotlight on a career of taste and dignity. She is simply a champion among the oftimes shoddy galaxy of stars.

 But to imply that her ability to escape the well of conflict, tragedy and notoriety in the supercharged emotions of filmland makes her something less or more than human is a fallacy. Her very humaneness has made her what she is.

 And what she is now is the natural maturity of what she started to be.

 "Growth through faith and faith through growth," she explains simply, "are all we have in life."

 And the direction of her growth, consistent with her talent, is to put her beauty and humanity to work at the core, in the very instrument of world peace, the United Nations - with the faith that "it will work."

 Maturity for Irene Dunne is a beautiful thing. Unlike the examples of childish absurdity where face and figure are fearfully preserved, she, past 50, is unchanged, except for the grace and wisdom of years.

 And interview with Irene Dunne has no taint of the typical Hollywood pitch, set in some corner table of a plushy night spot. One meets her in her home, in Holmby Hills, where she is first Mrs. Francis Griffin, wife of a dentist. She is dressed modestly in a matching blue sweater and skirt, but the exact tone is royal, suggesting more clearly the effect.

 And the effect is not just the magnificent coloring of her face and the classic beauty of her features. It is more in the quality of speaking and the thoughts expressed.

 As she talked, we wondered, as many do, what motivation and coed brought her trough childhood to Nr. 1 actress, wife and mother, to an unprecedented appointment as U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.

 But the pattern, it is clear, is all of one piece.

 Southern gentility se the stage. She was born, with a background dating back to colonial days, in Louisville, Ky. Her father, who died when she was 12, was a supervisor general of steamships for the U.S. government. Her mother, Adelaide, however, was the one from whom she inherited musical and dramatic abilities.

 "Yes," she mused, "Mother was dignified and kind. If I have any of that in me, then I learned it from her."

 She learned, too, when she accompanied her widowed mother and her brother back to her mother's home town, Madison, Ind., that she should be self-supporting. Teaching, then, was considered the first possibility, but even this had to be within the boundaries of her special talents - voice and piano.

 After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Indianpolis on a scholarship, young Irene, dressed to look older than she was, passed an examination for public school supervisor of music and arts and was assigned to an East Chicago school.

 But this was not quite enlough formal education for her. Through an audition she won another scholarship, this time to the Chicago Musical College, and by the time she held her diploma there was no doubt in her mind where she was headed: On stage.

 Though it is hard to imagine the present Miss Dunne as ever being discouraged during this period, she was. To her, like the many before and after, came the endless visits to offices, the tryouts, the out-of-town tours that went nowhere.

 Then came the break, oddly enough a role in "Irene" on Broadway, and a series of other successful plays. At this time she met a young Park Ave. dentist, Dr. Griffin, and they were later married - in 1927.

 She had no conflict over retiring from the stage, but submitted to her husband's urgings to continue her vocal studies.

 Then one of those inexplainable coincidences occurred: On the way to a lesson she rode in the same elevator with Flo Ziegfeld. He naturally assumed that she was on her way to his office for an audition. When she didn't get off his floor, he sent his secretary after her. The result: a lead in "Show Boat" and then offers from Hollywood.

 Miss Dunne, five times an Academy Award nominee, reviews her film career with this phrase, "an experience I would never want to replace," but looks ahead with discriminatin eyes.

 "While I'm available for television, the script and the show and everything about it has to be exaclty right."

 There is no doubt in her mind that in civic and national activities she can never be divorced from herself as an actress, but welcomed the U.N. appointment as a "chance to be just an American among hundreds of different nationalities trying to make progress toward peace."

 Her fame, even in this role, has helped in two ways: There are no bridges to cross with the delegates because they already know her; she is able to do public relations work for the U.N.

 Among the latter are speeches, such as the one she gave recently at Marymount College here, reciting the U.N. Charter with musical background to youth groups (25,000 in Philiadelphia recently) and appearances on TV, such as the Perry Como Show, were she sang "Getting to Know You" with children of foreign delegates.

 "This," she said, "is really the theme song of the U.N. How can we have peace if we don't know each other?"

 Then we had to ask the telling question about the quality that will linger in the public memory long after her name is erased with ancient movies, the quality that has endured through all temptations and tantalizations of money, prestige and influence. What is the quantity, the how and the why that has made her Hollywood's real first lady?

 It wasn't our words but the public tribute it represented that produced a response of surprise in Irene Dunne, and her expressive eyes momentarily lost their clarity in emotion.

 Then, as a true actress, she resorted to comedy.

 "Well, I suppose it's because I was born in Kentucky and was too lazy to be involved in scandals."

 After a sip of tea she became candid: "I don't think I'm dignified, but if I am, then that's my mother in me. I'm a devout Catholic and always have been, and I married a man outside the profession. This means a balance of friends and diversification of intersts.

 "Also," she said, "I've learned from him to live life day by day and enjoy every minute. We have learned together that even in the bosom of our family discussions must always be carried on with tact and politeness."

 This is something diplomats at the United Nations do so well, she said. "They present the most divergent opinions with so much decorum that anger is almost impossible."

 The Griffins' adopted daughter, Mary Frances, now 22, who is married and living in San Francisco, is undoubtly carrying the same attitude into her own marriage.

 There could be many other conclusions to be drawn as to the "why" of this first lady of filmdom - her honorary degrees, her charities, her awards - but perhaps the closest to the truth can somehow be found in the answer she herself gave to a question asked of her recently in San Francisco, where she was opening the Heart Fund drive.

 Why, she was asked, do you do all these things, when you don't have to do them?

 "But I do," she replied. "Doing for others is all we have."

 This is not Pollyannish, she explains; it is fact. No suicide would ever happen, she believes, if these same people could put the same perfection of this final act into a helpful act for someone else.

 And for Irene Dunne this is the meaning of life and living and why she is more than a star. She is first a human being.

(Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1958)

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