The Irene Dunne Site
"Just a Nice Person, Eh?"
Irene Dunne was burned up when PHOTOPLAY said that about her
By Evaline Lieber
HOLLYWOOD thought this beautiful girl had a colorless personality. But Hollywood may occassionally be dead wrong, as the intimate story about Irene Dunne over on the opposite page proves. Here's the smile she flashes on her co-workers and they are all for her, to a man. It's a neat trick if you can do it. And Irene tells you how.
"A WOMAN must use her personality to be successful," and we'll give you up to eigthy-thress guesses who said that. No, not Lupe Velez, or Clara Bow, or Tallulah Bankhead. Sweet, charming, gentle Irene Dunne voiced that statement and further admitted that much of her success from childhood had come from the judicious use of the subtle art of flirtation.
Most of the folks in Hollywood dismiss Irene with a shrug and such comments as "a girl of quiet charm." "A lady." "Nothing exciting about her." The newspaper writers call her "poor copy."
Recently there appeared in PHOTOPLAY a picture of Irene under which was written: "There's little to write about Irene Dunne except that she's a great actress, that she can sing, is a swell golf player and a nice person."
And was Irene burned up about it! She sizzled and fumed for a couple of days. "Just a nice person" indeed!
And when we stop to think about it, maybe we were wrong. Not, of course, that Irene isn't a nice person - she is that - but she isn't "just a nice person" if you get that subtle but very pertinent distinction.
There's an amazing story about Irene which ties up with her remark in the first paragraph. And there are lots of girls who can apply to their own lives some of her philosophy.
So let's go back a little and have a good look at this Dunne girl. How did she, a musical comedy singer, manage to secure the difficult and dramatic lead in the epic picture, "Cimarron"? Why was she sent back to New York along with the other warblers, when musicals went out of fashion in Hollywood? Why was director Wesley Ruggles so sure that she is the right actress for the part?
Why did even the electricians and the prop boys pull for this newcomer? For, at that time, no one knew whether she could act or not. As yet she was an untested Sabra when hundreds of actresses would have given six of their best evening gowns, and a couple of sets of French lingerie thrown in, for the role of Sabra Cravat in "Cimarron." And as a rule, Hollywood is none too kind to the stage newcomer when studio girls are languishing for jobs.
But here's what happened.
Ernest Westmore, make-up man de luxe, begged her to allow him to give her a perfect make-up for the part, several weeks before she was assigned the role. He insisted that she have pictures taken as Sabra. Ern took those pictures to producer Bill LeBaron. Ern claimed Irene Dunne as his discovery. And LeBaron claims her as his. And the man who took the original pictures puts in his claim, too.
IRENE let them all take the credit and she accepted the part with the grace of a queen bestowing a favor.
Poor copy for newspaper writers? Of course, she's poor copy. A woman as subtle and as clever as that doesn't tip her hand while she still has aces to play.
Every man on the Radio Pictures lot would take a flying jump off the highest Beverly hill tomorrow if Irene asked him to. The cameraman, the electricians, the prop boys - all adore her. Why? Because she knows hos to use her personality. Because she gets what she wants by using her charm, hse sense of humor - and her beautiful, sympathetic eyes.
During her apprenticeship in the studio, she was so nice and courteous to everybody on the lot - from producer to prop boy - that by the time a big chance like "Cimarron" came they were all rooting for her and anxious to see her get the opportunity.
And what those little friendships mean! If a cameraman dislikes a star, he can ruin her photographically. The electrician can "burn her up" with lights. The assistant director can make it most unpleasant for her.
But nobody disliked Irene. In fact, they were all crazy about her.
When Irene finished her role in Fannie Hearst's "Back Street," at Universal, she had more friends for the space of time she remaind there than any other girl ever had. And the boys on the set voted her the swellest girl they knew.
WHAT'S more, they did a lot of little things that would spare her trouble - such as making telephone calls for her, and things like that. Director John Stahl even barred the set to protect her from prying eyes - something that is rarely done for one so new in the game as Irene.
Irene did all this by using her personality and her charm. And here's where your little lesson comes in, for the picture business is not much different from any other business. With fundamental abiltity, even latent ability, it is the woman who knows hos to use her charm who gets the breaks. She doesn't necessarily have to be a flirt - but she must know the gentle art of making a man feel important.
For instance, when Irene walks on the set, she says to the cameraman, "You're looking great today. What a good looking tie you have on." And to the prop boy, "Been to the beach? That coat of tan is most becoming." But she never does it obviously - oh my, no. And the funny part is that she genuinely likes these people. You must like people, else insincerity will get through to them in some mysterious fashion.
Irene has been succesful all her life. When she was in line for scholarship in a Chicago musical college, she was particularly nice to one of the judges. Her voice was excellent - for without that she couldn't have won - but it was that judge who fought for her championship as no other professor fought for the other contenders.
And she's been exercising her gentle feminine tricks ever since.
YET she said, "It's not a good thing to flirt with your leading man. It's too dangerous. He might misunderstand. You have to keep your mind on your work. You have to make love, anyhow, and if you flirt and become serious... not so good."
"A woman must avoid that," Irene admitted. "Perhaps flirting is fun, but falling in love is fatal. Flirtations are from the head; love is from the heart.
"Using one's personality is the feminine form of back slapping. Used subtly is is effective; used cheaply it is disgusting."
"My mother is charming to everyone. She never orders groceries or meats over the phone. Instead, she goes to the butcher personally. She calls him by first name in no time and she always gets the best cuts of meat at the best prices."
Naturally, Irene's real dramatic talent made her a success - but many a genius has hid his light under a bushel for want of a little graciousness. Irene does not go around hiding her light under any stray bushels.
I REMEMBER the first time I saw Irene Dunne. It was while she was making "Cimarron" and it was one of the hottest, dustiest days California has ever known. She was on location in that miniature city that was built for the picture. Cameramen were fuming; assistant directors rushing madly about on what seemed, to the inexperienced eye, utterly futile errands; great crowds of extras were milling around in the space allotted to them - in fact, everybody on that set, including the horses, was in a state of turmoil. Did I say everybody? I take that back.
Seated in a hastily built little dressing-room was Irene Dunne - as cool and as calm as the first peach blossom of spring. Her make-up showed not the slightest trace of wear and tear from the heat and the strain. She was sipping an iced drink - which some prop boy had miraculously brought from somewhere - and regarding the turgid scene.
You would have thought that a newcomer, as Irene was then, might have been flustered and excited at finding herself in the midst of all this. Perhaps you would have imagined that an actress, untried in the picture business, would have been in the thick of it all, asking questions and otherwise making herself a nuisance.
But not Irene. Instead she offered me a chair, as is she had been in her own beautiful appointed drawing room, and said, "What a shame that you have to come out on such a hot day." And, calling to a prop boy, "Do you think you could find another glass of cold lemonade?"
We chatted about the role that she had succeeded in getting in the manner I've already explained.
"I had no doubt about getting that part," she said. "I only hope, now that I've got it, that I am able to do it well enough and yet I feel that I know this Sabra Cravat. I've almost memorized the book - I did that before I was sure that my tests were right. I thought that if I knew Sabra well enough I would surely be allowed to make her come alive on the screen.
"You see when I realized that musical pictures, for which I was given a contract, were out of fashion and that perhaps I'd have to wait a long, long time for them to come in style again, I knew that I'd simply have to be an actress - that I'd have to work with a medium other than my voice, so I set about the task of learning to be an actress. And when I knew that someone would play the role of Sabra in 'Cimarron' I wanted that someone to be me more than anything else in the world."
But what she didn't tell me and what I didn't know at that time was how she set about getting that role - how she excercised her charm and her graciousness upon everyone who could help her to have the thing she wanted. It was most certainly done in a worthy cause for those who saw "Cimarron" agree that no actress in Hollywood could have played the role of Sabra with greater understanding and finesse. In every picture in which she has since been cast, she has given a good capable performance. Lots of folks will take you aside and whisper confidentially that Irene has done her best movie job to date in "Back Street."
IRENE has climbed the slippery ladder of film fame with surefooted determination. She has not wavered once.
And this is the person whom Hollywood has called colorless. But Hollywood simply slipper her in the wrong file. Irene is about as colorless as a rainbow. If you see her flash those eyes you'd never say again that she was colorless. And - what's more - she holds her husband who adores her, while he is in New York practicing medicine and she is in Hollywood being an actress. Irene is far from colorless. She's a brilliant, charming, witty young woman. Come on, Irene, forgive us for calling you "just a nice person."
(Photoplay, August 1932 - Thanks to Thorsten for the article!)