The Irene Dunne Site
LITERALLY, Irene Dunne swam to fame - in the rivers of tears she shed for the sake of the cameras! Ever since she was drafted from the stage, for the larger horizons of the movies, her fate has been to cry copiously, consistently, and to suffer heroically, although the arresting talent which won her a contact was her golden voice.
But Hollywood moves in strange ways its wonders to perform - and Irene Dunne became a great star by virtue of her singular artistry in portraying lugubrious emotions. In that she stood alone. Her voice, in in an occasional picture, had secondary innings.
But, currently, a new success is hers - a success which laughter earned for her! In her last two pictures - in Show Boat, in which the dignified star broke into a shuffle-along routine, and in Theodora Goes Wild, wherein she is a madcap, a clown, a girl with a delightful future, instead of a woman with a shadowed past, another phase of Irene Dunne has been revealed.
Is there then a "new Irene Dunne" as the billboards would have it? Certainly, out Hollywood-way, she has been answering a deluge of questions, all in the vein, "Why, Irene, what's happened to you?"
Frankly, Irene, always labeled "the lady," has given Hollywood the shock of its life! It was tactily agreed that she would always remain unruffled, dignified, and what, in the mauve decade, was known as "genteel." All of a sudden, here was a comedienne of the first rank as gaily, erratic as a snow flurry in May. Tantalizing. Exciting. A "glamour gal."
We sat in the glow of a lamp in Irene's still half-furnished house in Holmby Hills (the new star neigborhood between the ocean and Hollywood) and discussed this apparently "new" Irene Dunne. For the first time since I have known her, she explained fully not only the plans for her career but also for her life; took interesting conversational by-paths, which to me revealed, more tellingly, this fine artist than ever before.
The shadows gathered around the chair in which she sat, obscuring that lithe physical perfection heretofore given too little attention in pen pictures of her. She spoke rapidly, with no reserves, and her eyes kindled to her thoughts.
SOMETHING like a year ago, when she told me that, for the first time in her life she was going to do a comedy bit in Show Boat, I had looked at her in askance. "You, a comedienne?"
"What's more," she answered my skepticism, "I'm delighted. I want to have a bit of fun in picture-making, too."
And so tonight she explained what she meant then. "Art thrives on tears. But your personal soul thrives on laughter!" she explained.
"Light roles, musical comedy, will bring to an actress pleasant phrases of praise for the talent that is hers. People will be kind - almost apologetic because the thread of the story escapes them. Only when an actress cries - when her screen griefs are recorded in the hearts of an audience, will she be remembered more than briefly.
"When I was in Europe last, I had an experience which may illustrate what I mean. I visited the French Academy of Medicine to learn something about Madame Curie. I met a great savant, a man renowned for his achievements in medical research. He peered at me over his glasses and said: 'You are the actress who cries so beautifully. I remember you in Back Street.'
"The maid at the hotel didn't recall a single song I had ever sung on the screen, or the title of a single musical in which I appeared. But like the professor, she remembered vividly Back Street.
"Long ago I recognized the basis of whatever success has been mine. These incidents, which have happened before, only tend to confirm my belief that heavy dramatic roles are essential for an actress of my type. I know definitely, that the status I have achieved has been achieved through tears. And so, for my career, I cry!
"But it's so easy to permit the personalities you play on the screen to take possession of your personal life. To affect yout moods, your viewpoint, your philosophies, and certainly your reactions.
"Being a person who wants to enjoy living, I want to laugh. The Irish in me has never been given a chance. I've been labeled the 'cool' Miss Dunne, the 'dignified' Miss Dunne so consistently that no one seems to realize that I can do something else besides look cool - or cry.
"A FEW months ago I decided that for the good of my soul, I must occasionally play something light, something frothy, something which permits me to turn a cheerful face to the camera - once in a while in any event.
"I want to keep my perspective on life true and sane and normal - and so comedy has gone to my career budget. Now I expect to rotate - a drama, a musical and then something strictly for laugh purposes.
"Fortunately, I have perhaps the most unusual set-up of any actress in Hollywood. I am under contract to three studios at the present - and soon a fourth - to do only one picture a year for each of them. That arrangement holds for the next three years. It permits me a choice of stories - and a variety of them. It gives eacht studio ample time to look for a satisfactory story, without being pressed for time. I know, when I start in a production, that it has had proper preparation - and that the vehicle is suitable.
"At the same time, if a great story comes along, aside from my commitments, I could still do that one, too. On the whole, it is proving eminently wise. I've tried to organize my career on a common-sense basis. I've been fairly lucky until now."
I SUGGESTED to Miss Dunne that her private life - in its sane and unusual marriage, in the regard in which she is held in Hollywood - might partake of that sane budgeting idea.
"On the contrary," she answered, "I am opposed to organizing or budgeting one's personal life. I don't require a great deal to be happy. I can do with very little - that's the Irish in me again. It's easy to be content. Take things as they come. Don't figure too closely. Don't expect too much.
"Go along easily, comfortably. I make no effort to budget my friendships. If I had to be with the right people constanly, go to the right places inevitably, do the right things always, I'd feel that I was circumscribing my life and my interests.
"Doing these things might be good for me as an actress. But I'm certain they'd be bad for me as a person. I've found too many stimulating, interesting, vital people who by no stretch of the imagination could be termed either 'correct' or 'successful'. But to me they happen to be admirable, because in their own way, they make important contributions to the happiness of others.
"IT'S awfully good for an actress to be measured by strange yardsticks. That implies getting out of her own neat, tight, little sphere. At the moment, I think, one of the most fortunate and stimulating things which could have happened to me is to be able to do as my next picture the Life of Madame Curie. When I was in France I spent considerable time with her daughters. For hours on end I listened to their stories of this remarkable woman. Of her young days, when she could dance through a pair of shoes in one night. Of her dreams, of the human episodes which made her life so rich.
"I visited the Institute de France, the Academy of Medicine, the Pasteur Institute - and learned about the other side of this great woman. How she was worshiped - how she was honored. I sat in her seat; I handled her instruments and test tubes. Sat at her very table where she worked. To my mind, she was the greatest woman of this modern age.
"For three whole days I lived a totally different life. Far removed from picture-making - although my research was for a role. It came to me then how unimportant all of us are in comparison to this woman who gave her life to science and for the human good.
"It's a good idea to get a slant on your own stature every now and then!"
It is my belief that there will always be a "new" Irene Dunne - to be discussed and surveyed and given adulation. For here is a girl who thinks lucidly, clearly. Who holds her secure place in Hollywood, not only by virtue of her talents, but by virtue of her intelligence. And these two in Hollywood, or anywhere else, are not always synonymous.
Added laurels rest on her brow today. These she has earned - for she is a person who doesn't go to the whishing-well to make her hopes come true! She earns them - as a person first and then as an actress!
(Motion Picture, March 1937)