When it comes to the great screwball comedies of the ’30s and ’40s, several names immediately come to mind, such as Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, and Jimmy Stewart. But one name consistently stands out above the rest: Irene Dunne. She didn’t have Hepburn’s illustrious career, or Loy’s signature role. She never won an Academy Award (which many contemporary critics consider a huge mistake). In fact, her road to comedy stardom was hardly an easy one, and her initial hope in life was to become an opera singer.
Fortunately for the viewing public, her voice was deemed not entirely suitable by the Metropolitan Opera Company (although she was quite competent enough to sing in some of her films). Here’s a brief look at how she became a mainstay of a genre characterized by humorous battles of the sexes that often veered towards the ridiculous, with quirky heroines exchanging witty barbs with their male counterparts.
Humble start
Irene Dunne (who changed her name from the original Dunn early in her career) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and her humble beginnings in showbiz began innocently enough in school, where she took piano lessons from her mother and performed in productions in the church and high school. After her father’s death, the family moved to Indiana, where Dunne wanted to pursue a career in music teaching at the Indianapolis Conservatory of Music. Her dreams shifted to Chicago Musical College and an opera career, and although the opera fell through, luckily for the world, she ended up in the world of musical theatre.
Although she was a regular on Broadway for nearly a decade and had some starring roles, she was 30 by the time she made her first movie, Leather necks, in 1930, not exactly a good time to start your film career in an age of dewy young languages. To keep up with the competition, she (with the help of publicists) began shaving off a few years from her date of birth. Along with a few musicals, Dunne attracted attention for her performance in the Western cimarronfor which she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, followed by a series of melodramatic tearjerkers, including Back street, No other womanand as a woman who tragically loses her sight Wonderful obsession.
She was initially hesitant to venture into comedy, but her first foray, Theodora goes wild (1936), paired her with Melvyn Douglas and earned her a second Best Actress nomination. Dunne played Theodora, a top-notch Sunday school teacher in a conservative small town who, unbeknownst to her family and fellow residents, has written a scandalous, best-selling romance that has horrified the entire town. Douglas is her romantic foil as a riotous New York book illustrator who comes to town determined to force Theodora to be her true self. She eventually does, but the tables are predictably turned when she follows him back to New York City and similarly turns his life upside down. The screwball comedy had found its newest star.
Together with Cary
Perhaps her most successful were three comedies starring the incomparable Cary Grant, beginning with the 1937 classic The terrible truthwhich was named number 68 on the AFI list of Top 100 funniest movies in American cinema. Dunne is simply bubbly as Lucy Warriner, and she and Cary Grant begin the movie as a husband and wife who find each other’s behavior so suspicious that they decide to divorce. They spend the rest of the movie figuring out how to win each other back, resulting in a series of wild hijinks involving unsuitable future mates and their dog Mr. Smith are involved. Leo McCarey won Best Director; the film was entered into the National Film Registry and for Dunne it meant another nomination for Best Actress.
Three years later came My favorite womanin which Dunne and Grant once again played a married couple, though Dunne’s character returns after being shipwrecked for several years and declared legally dead. Add in Grant’s new flame and the handsome man Dunne stranded with, and you’ve got a quasi-sequel. The terrible truth Which even Pauline Kael enjoyed it.
The third Dunne/Grant outing was Penny Serenade. This one wasn’t a straight comedy, but the couple is once again playing a married couple. Their relationship plays out in flashback using cues from popular music from each stage of their lives together. After losing a pregnancy, they adopt a child, and we see their relationship go through some rather melodramatic struggles until they are inevitably back together at the end.
Another famous combination
Dunne had another famous trio of films in which she starred alongside Charles Boyer, Love affair, When tomorrow comesand Together againalthough these were more in the genre of romance. Love affair (another Best Actress nomination for Dunne) was especially a huge success, directed by Dunne’s The terrible truth collaborator Leo McCarey, though its popularity didn’t last long: it spawned a number of incredibly successful remakes, including the classic An affair to rememberstarring Cary Grant opposite Deborah Kerr.
Dunne had another big hit with it I remember mom, a family drama that earned her her fifth and final Academy Award nomination. Over the next few years, it became clear that her star was on the wane, which Dunne took as a sign to retire from Hollywood before things got even tougher. She had made her last film in 1952, spent her later years as a staunch humanitarian activist, worked for numerous charities and even became a US delegate to the United Nations.
But for a few years, in the 1930s, Irene Dunne lit up the silly comedies of the silver screen. It’s a shame she never won an Academy Award despite countless well-deserved nominations, but hopefully her name won’t be lost in movie history and future audiences will discover and enjoy her scintillating performances.
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