The Irene Dunne Site
The True And Tender Story Of Irene Dunne's Daughter
False rumors are dispelled, poignant facts revealed, in this first authorized report on Missy, recent addition to Hollywood's baby set
BY ADELE WHITELY FLETCHER
Irene Dunne adopted her little daughter for two reasons.
First of all Irene wanted a baby. She believed that having a baby, loving her, being loved by her, watching her grow and develop as an individual would prove one of the greatest experiences life could offer.
Secondly, Irene felt that she and her husband, Doctor Francis Griffin, had a considerable amount to offer a child. But recently she has had cause to wonder if she were wrong about this, to wonder if the things a baby loses when she is adopted by a motion-picture star aren't greater than the things she gains.
The things little Mary Frances Griffin (called Missy) has gained are wonderful and many. Missy and her nurse have their own suite in the Dunne-Griffin house which sits on the crest of one of the exclusive Holmby Hills. The furniture in this suite is built to scale. The sunny rooms are lined with shelves stacked with the picture books and the toys that are dear to a child's heart. Outside, in the garden, there are stretches of bright, sweet-smelling flowers and an old gardener who has stories to tell about the flowers he tends, some incredibly true, some others fanciful. In the center of the lawn, around which the cars approaching the house swish on a blue gravel driveway, there is a huge oak tree. When the sun is high and there is cause to be grateful for the deep shade this old tree provides, Missy plays beneath it with her dolls, her nurse, and a faithful Scottie dog.
To go on: every month or two, a renowned pediatrician, wise about the hygienic care of children, observes Missy to see that she is growing straight and strong. Even now, when she is only two and a half, her education is being thoughfully planned. And the stocks and bonds which have been placed in trust for her guarantee her financial security all the days of her life.
THEN there is the debit side of the ledger. It reared its ugly head only recently and Irene would eliminate it if she could. And it is in the hope of doing this that she has given PHOTOPLAY this exclusice story.
It all began when Missy had been with Irene for a year of trial which the law requires and the time had come to sign her final adoption papers.
"We could have signed those papers in Los Angeles," Irene explains, "but I dreaded the reporters and cameramen who would wait for us outside the Judge's chambers. In New York, we were assured everything could be done quickly and quietly, with the dignity which had come to mean so much to the doctor and to me."
So they came to New York... Irene and Doctor Griffin and Missy and Missy's nurse and Missy's favorite doll, Dunnie -- named after a little boy who lives down the road in Holmby Hills, who is Missy's idol. They came to New York in spite of the difficulties that attend a trip across the continent with a baby when you are a famous star and professional demands are made upon you at every stop.
The final adoption papers were drawn up and signed in privacy, as Irene had been assured they would be. But immediately she and her husband returned to the hotel where they were stopping, the storm broke. Camermen and reporters besieged the lobby. Irene saw no one, made no statement. But sob sisters and columnists printed sensational stories anyway. They announced Irene had adopted a foundling. By their stories they proclaimed Missy a baby who had been deserted by unknown parents.
"There are times, of course," says Irene, "when circumstances might force an unfortunate and desperate mother to leave her baby on a strange doorstep. But, generally speaking, those who cast off their babies are irresponsible people, not people from whom you would be proud to have come.
"And I want to make it very clear that Mary Frances Griffin was not a foundling. I want to erase any blight which Missy might feel clung to her ancestry because the press, in a desire to be sensational, reached beyond the truth.
"Perhaps those sob sisters and columnists confuse a foundling with and orphan," she went on, as if she sought to make excuses for those who had printed untruths about her baby.
IRENE has no plan to keep the fact that Missy is adopted a secret.
"Immediatley Missy is old enough to understand," she explains, "I will tell her how she came to live with us. But I want to put an end to all those untrue stories that have been published; so they will not arise later on to cast any shadow of doubt upon the true story I have to tell her.
"I would be glad to tell all I know about Missy's parentage if I did not feel this might cost all of us unhappiness later on. And it should be sufficient to say that Missy is as bright as the I.Q. tests the doctors have given her prove her to be because of the splendid heritage she gets from her mother and her father. Besides, Doctor Griffin and I have met her grandparents. They are delightful and charming old people.
"It wouldn't make any difference to me -- now that I've come to know Missy and to love her -- what her background happened to be," Irene went on gently. "It's on her account that I resent the improper stories that have been published about her. And it's because of these stories that I begin to wonder if it will cost Missy more than it will gain her to be adopted by us.
"For the things the doctor and I can give Missy will count for little it the unhappy publicity she is subjected to because I am her mother causes her to have any doubts about the people to whom she was born... and of whom she has every right to be proud, as proud as I hope she always will be of us, too."
WHEN Irene Dunne adopted the little girl with hair like corn silk and questioning blue eyes and a sensitive little mouth, I think she felt she was doing as much for the child, in a way, as she was doing for Doctor Griffin and herself. As I said in the beginning of this story, they wanted a family. But they also felt they had much to offer a child.
Now it is clear Irene feels Missy gives then far more than they ever will be able to give her in return. Which is another reason she is concerned as she is about the stories that were published recently.
There is one incident which concerns Missy and Irene Dunne's mother that Irene will never forget. It happened only a short time after Missy's arrival.
One Thursday, about ten days before Christmas, when Irene was in bed with influenza and Missy's nurse was out, Irene's mother had charge of Missy for the afternoon.
"She's one of the sweetest children I've ever seen," Mrs. Dunne told Irene after Missy was in bed. "I'm glad you have her. It's a little difficult now for all of you. You're all strange. But wait, you'll suddenly find she belongs here. And then you'll be surprised that you ever found life good enough without her."
It was later that same evening, following a dinner party at her home, that Mrs. Dunne returned for Irene's house to see that she was all right. She collapsed at the front door.
Hearing the commotion downstairs, Irene pressed the alarm beside her bed. And so amazing is the private police system in those Holmby Hills that there were officers taking charge of everything a few minutes after Irene had slipped into a dressing gown and gone downstairs to discover what had happened. Doctors were summoned at once. Everything that could be done was done. But Irene's mother never regained consciousness. She died early the next morning.
And the first thing Irene remembers being aware of, after they had told her that her mother was gone, was Missy playing under the old oak tree, with her dolls, her nurse and the faithful Scottie dog.
"Curious the way things happen sometimes," she says. "When I looked out of my bedroom window and saw Missy there, I was very grateful. Her nurse spoke to her and she looked up and waved at me and smiled. And a little warmth stirred inside of me. Suddenly, just as my mother had predicted the night before, I knew she belonged. Somehow it was as if one life had gone out and another had come in...
CHRISTMAS 1936, which came along only a few days later, would have been and oredal for Irene and Doctor Griffin if they had had only themselves to think about. But with Missy there, they made and effort, and some of the peace of the season found its way into their hearts.
Christmas 1937, just two months or two before they came to New York with Missy to sign the final papers of her adoption, was a gala day. The Christmas tree was wondrously beautiful to Irene and the doctor, too, because they saw it through Missy's awed and starry eyes. And no acclaim either of them ever has known in their professions, no grand party they ever have attended has thrilled them as much as Missy did that day.
Tears in their eyes, feeling just a little foolish, they watched her go up to her nursery, bring her old dolls downstairs, and install them in the new carriage and chairs she had found under the tree with new dolls sitting in them.
"It was so sweetly loyal," Irene says.
IT isn't only the joy Irene and Doctor Griffin have with Missy that makes Irene grateful; it's the way their life has changed because she is there and theirs.
"When you have a child you remain at home more," Irene says. "And allthough you thought your roots went deep before you, you find them now striking deeper and deeper. Now that we have Missy I can see how people with a family are less likely to be carried away by worldly things."
Dozens of times Irene and Doctor Griffin have crossed the continent between California and New York. But this last time, because Missy was with them, they saw everything through new eyes, her eyes. The pink mountains in Arizona with the sun on them... the Mississippi, which Missy learned to pronounce with the greatest of ease... And in New York, the discovered Central Park all over again... the zoo with the giraffe, which is the most wonderful of animals, because Missy thinks so... the pigeons that eat the peanuts from her little white gloved hands...
"Miss has given us so much," Irene says, "that we'd like to give her a great deal, too. And how we can do this, if above everything else, we don't give her pride in herself."
(Photoplay, June 1938)