Post by teleadm on Dec 20, 2018 12:41:09 GMT
Irene Marie Dunn was born 120 years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, she would grow up to become one of the great moviestars of the 1930s and 1940s of both dramas and comedies, earn five Oscar nominations and later in life a board member of Technicolor, the first woman ever elected to the board of directors.
To most of us she was better known as Irene Dunne.
"Acting isn't everything, living is. I drifted into acting and drifted back out again".
Her father was a steamboat inspector for the United States government, and her mother was a concert pianist/music teacher from Newport, Kentucky.
Irene Dunne would later write, "No triumph of either my stage or screen career has ever rivalled the excitement of trips down the Mississippi on the riverboats with my father".
Following her father's death, Irene, her mother, and her younger brother Charles moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana. Dunne's mother taught her to play the piano as a very small girl.
Irene took piano and voice lessons, sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916.
Irene earned a diploma to teach art, but took a chance on a contest and won a prestigious scholarship to the Chicago Musical College, where she graduated in 1926. With a soprano voice, she had hopes of becoming an opera singer, but did not pass the audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company.
Irene, after adding an "e" to her surname, turned to musical theater. She toured several provincial cities in 1921–22 playing the lead role in the popular play Irene before making her Broadway debut in 1922 in Zelda Sears's The Clinging Vine. The following year, Dunne played a season of light opera in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1926 she married a dentist whom she had met two years earlier, this marriage would last until his death in 1965.
By 1929, she had a successful Broadway career playing leading roles. Dunne's role as Magnolia Hawks in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat was the result of a chance meeting with showman Florenz Ziegfeld in an elevator the day she returned from her honeymoon. She was discovered by Hollywood while starring with the road company of Show Boat, also in 1929.
She signed a contract with RKO and made her movie dubute in Leathernecking 1930. Already in her thirties when she made her first film, she would be in competition with younger actresses for roles, and found it advantageous to evade questions that would reveal her age. Her publicists encouraged the belief that she was born in 1901 or 1904, and the former is the date engraved on her tombstone.
An uncomplete trip down Memory Lane:
Leathernecking 1930, making her movie dubut, surrounded by Ken Murray and Eddie Foy Jr.
Cimarron 1931, with Richard Dix, earning he first Oscar nomination.
Back Street 1932, with John Boles in the frame.
Ann Vickers 1933, with Walter Huston
Stingaree 1934, with Richard Dix
Roberta 1935, singing the hit song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
Magnificent Obsession 1935, with Robert Taylor
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Show Boat 1936, with Helen Morgan and Louise Beavers
Theodora Goes Wild 1936, with Melvyn Douglas. Dunne was apprehensive about attempting her first comedy role, but discovered that she enjoyed it.
Earning her second Oscar nomination.
High, Wide, and Handsome 1937, with Randolph Scott
The Awful Truth 1937, with Ralph Bellamy and Cary Grant. Earning her third Oscar nomination.
Joy of Living 1938, with Douglas Fairbanks Jr
Love Affair 1939, with Charles Boyer. Earning her fourth Oscar nomination.
When Tomorrow Comes 1939, once again with Charles Boyer
My Favorite Wife 1940, with Cary Grant
Penny Serenade 1941, with Cary Grant, Eva Lee Kuney and Edgar Buchanan.
A Guy Named Joe 1943, with Spencer Tracy
The White Cliffs of Dover 1944, with Alan Marshall
Together Again 1944, with Charles Boyer
Anna and the King of Siam 1946 lobby card, with Rex Harrison.
Life with Father 1947, with William Powell
I Remember Mama 1948, earning her fifth and final Oscar nomination.
Never a Dull Moment 1950, with Fred MacMurray
The Mudlark 1950. Though the movie was a big hit in Britain, Irene's portrait of Queen Victoria wasn't favoured by the critics, though it has been re-evaluated in later years, and is said to have made Irene's mind up of starting to leave the movie business.
It Grows on Trees 1952, with Bob Sweeney and Dean Jagger. This became Irene's big screen farewell, but she didn't disappear from the public.
Guest star on The Jack Benny Show 1953, with Vincent Price, Gregory Ratoff and Benny.
Christening the Mark Twain riverboat at Disneyland on Opening Day, July 17, 1955 with a bottle filled with water from several major rivers from across the United States. This was also televised on Dateline: Disneyland TV-special.
Guest star on Frontier Circus TV-series episode Dr Sam 1961
Final acting job was on TV-series Saints and Sinners episode Source of Information 1962
1968 press photo.
One of Dunne's last public appearances was in April 1985, when she attended the dedication of a bust in her honor at St. John's (Roman Catholic) Hospital in Santa Monica, California, for which her foundation, The Irene Dunne Guild, had raised more than $20 million. The Irene Dunne Guild remains "instrumental in raising funds to support programs and services at St. John's" hospital in Santa Monica.
Irene Dunne left us at her Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles early September 1990, aged 91.
Thanks for watching!
Thought, oppinions and/or lists are as always welcome!
To most of us she was better known as Irene Dunne.
"Acting isn't everything, living is. I drifted into acting and drifted back out again".
Her father was a steamboat inspector for the United States government, and her mother was a concert pianist/music teacher from Newport, Kentucky.
Irene Dunne would later write, "No triumph of either my stage or screen career has ever rivalled the excitement of trips down the Mississippi on the riverboats with my father".
Following her father's death, Irene, her mother, and her younger brother Charles moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana. Dunne's mother taught her to play the piano as a very small girl.
Irene took piano and voice lessons, sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916.
Irene earned a diploma to teach art, but took a chance on a contest and won a prestigious scholarship to the Chicago Musical College, where she graduated in 1926. With a soprano voice, she had hopes of becoming an opera singer, but did not pass the audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company.
Irene, after adding an "e" to her surname, turned to musical theater. She toured several provincial cities in 1921–22 playing the lead role in the popular play Irene before making her Broadway debut in 1922 in Zelda Sears's The Clinging Vine. The following year, Dunne played a season of light opera in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1926 she married a dentist whom she had met two years earlier, this marriage would last until his death in 1965.
By 1929, she had a successful Broadway career playing leading roles. Dunne's role as Magnolia Hawks in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat was the result of a chance meeting with showman Florenz Ziegfeld in an elevator the day she returned from her honeymoon. She was discovered by Hollywood while starring with the road company of Show Boat, also in 1929.
She signed a contract with RKO and made her movie dubute in Leathernecking 1930. Already in her thirties when she made her first film, she would be in competition with younger actresses for roles, and found it advantageous to evade questions that would reveal her age. Her publicists encouraged the belief that she was born in 1901 or 1904, and the former is the date engraved on her tombstone.
An uncomplete trip down Memory Lane:
Leathernecking 1930, making her movie dubut, surrounded by Ken Murray and Eddie Foy Jr.
Cimarron 1931, with Richard Dix, earning he first Oscar nomination.
Back Street 1932, with John Boles in the frame.
Ann Vickers 1933, with Walter Huston
Stingaree 1934, with Richard Dix
Roberta 1935, singing the hit song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes"
Magnificent Obsession 1935, with Robert Taylor
Show Boat 1936, with Helen Morgan and Louise Beavers
Theodora Goes Wild 1936, with Melvyn Douglas. Dunne was apprehensive about attempting her first comedy role, but discovered that she enjoyed it.
Earning her second Oscar nomination.
High, Wide, and Handsome 1937, with Randolph Scott
The Awful Truth 1937, with Ralph Bellamy and Cary Grant. Earning her third Oscar nomination.
Joy of Living 1938, with Douglas Fairbanks Jr
Love Affair 1939, with Charles Boyer. Earning her fourth Oscar nomination.
When Tomorrow Comes 1939, once again with Charles Boyer
My Favorite Wife 1940, with Cary Grant
Penny Serenade 1941, with Cary Grant, Eva Lee Kuney and Edgar Buchanan.
A Guy Named Joe 1943, with Spencer Tracy
The White Cliffs of Dover 1944, with Alan Marshall
Together Again 1944, with Charles Boyer
Anna and the King of Siam 1946 lobby card, with Rex Harrison.
Life with Father 1947, with William Powell
I Remember Mama 1948, earning her fifth and final Oscar nomination.
Never a Dull Moment 1950, with Fred MacMurray
The Mudlark 1950. Though the movie was a big hit in Britain, Irene's portrait of Queen Victoria wasn't favoured by the critics, though it has been re-evaluated in later years, and is said to have made Irene's mind up of starting to leave the movie business.
It Grows on Trees 1952, with Bob Sweeney and Dean Jagger. This became Irene's big screen farewell, but she didn't disappear from the public.
Guest star on The Jack Benny Show 1953, with Vincent Price, Gregory Ratoff and Benny.
Christening the Mark Twain riverboat at Disneyland on Opening Day, July 17, 1955 with a bottle filled with water from several major rivers from across the United States. This was also televised on Dateline: Disneyland TV-special.
Guest star on Frontier Circus TV-series episode Dr Sam 1961
Final acting job was on TV-series Saints and Sinners episode Source of Information 1962
1968 press photo.
One of Dunne's last public appearances was in April 1985, when she attended the dedication of a bust in her honor at St. John's (Roman Catholic) Hospital in Santa Monica, California, for which her foundation, The Irene Dunne Guild, had raised more than $20 million. The Irene Dunne Guild remains "instrumental in raising funds to support programs and services at St. John's" hospital in Santa Monica.
Irene Dunne left us at her Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles early September 1990, aged 91.
Thanks for watching!
Thought, oppinions and/or lists are as always welcome!