EARLY DAYS PRODUCTIONS
Irene Marie Dunne was born in Louisville, Kentucky to Joseph Dunne, a steamboat inspector for the United States government, and Adelaide Henry, a concert pianist/music teacher from Newport, Kentucky.She was only eleven when her father died in 1909. She saved all of his letters and often remembered and lived by what he told her the night before he died: "Happiness is never an accident. It is the prize we get when we choose wisely from life's great stores."After her father's death, she, her mother and younger brother Charles moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana. Nicknamed "Dunnie," she took piano and voice lessons, sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916.
1898 - 1990
Stats:
Birth Name:
Irene Marie Dunn
Height: 5' 5"
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Light Brown
Nickname: First Lady of Hollywood
Quote: "Trying to build the brotherhood of man without the Fatherhood of God is like having the spokes of a wheel without the hub."
Birth Name:
Irene Marie Dunn
Height: 5' 5"
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Light Brown
Nickname: First Lady of Hollywood
Quote: "Trying to build the brotherhood of man without the Fatherhood of God is like having the spokes of a wheel without the hub."
Dunne turned to musical theater, making her Broadway debut in 1922 in Zelda Sear's The Clinging Vine.Though in her own words Dunne created "no great furor," by 1929 she had a successful Broadway career playing leading roles, grateful to be at center stage rather than in the chorus line.Dunne was discovered by Hollywood while starring with the Chicago company of the musical Showboat in 1929. She signed a contract with RKO and Dunne appeared in her first movie in 1930, Leathernecking, an early musical.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Dunne blossomed into a popular screen heroine in movies such as Back Street (1932), and Magnificent Obsession (1935). The first of three films she made opposite Charles Boyer, Love Affair (1939) was one of her best. She sang "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" in the 1935 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film version of the musical Roberta.
For more information about Irene Dunne please visit: Wikipedia
Irene Dunne's Selected Filmography
Leathernecking (1930)
Cimarron (1931)
The Slippery Pearls (1931) (short subject)
Bachelor Apartment (1931)
The Great Lover (1931)
Consolation Marriage (1931)
Symphony of Six Million (1932)
Back Street (1932)
Thirteen Women (1932)
No Other Woman (1933)
The Secret of Madame Blanche (1933)
The Silver Cord (1933)
Ann Vickers (1933)
Only Yesterday (1933)
If I Were Free (1933)
This Man Is Mine (1934)
Stingaree (1934)
The Age of Innocence (1934)
Sweet Adeline (1934)
Roberta (1935)
Magnificent Obsession (1935)
Show Boat (1936)
Theodora Goes Wild (1936)
High, Wide, and Handsome (1937)
The Awful Truth (1937)
Joy of Living (1938)
Love Affair (1939)
Invitation to Happiness (1939)
When Tomorrow Comes (1939)
My Favorite Wife (1940)
Penny Serenade (1941)
Unfinished Business (1941)
Lady in a Jam (1942)
Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
A Guy Named Joe (1943)
The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)
Together Again (1944)
Over 21 (1945)
Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
Life with Father (1947)
I Remember Mama (1948)
Never a Dull Moment (1950)
The Mudlark (1950)
You Can Change the World (1951) (short subject)
It Grows on Trees (1952)
Cimarron (1931)
The Slippery Pearls (1931) (short subject)
Bachelor Apartment (1931)
The Great Lover (1931)
Consolation Marriage (1931)
Symphony of Six Million (1932)
Back Street (1932)
Thirteen Women (1932)
No Other Woman (1933)
The Secret of Madame Blanche (1933)
The Silver Cord (1933)
Ann Vickers (1933)
Only Yesterday (1933)
If I Were Free (1933)
This Man Is Mine (1934)
Stingaree (1934)
The Age of Innocence (1934)
Sweet Adeline (1934)
Roberta (1935)
Magnificent Obsession (1935)
Show Boat (1936)
Theodora Goes Wild (1936)
High, Wide, and Handsome (1937)
The Awful Truth (1937)
Joy of Living (1938)
Love Affair (1939)
Invitation to Happiness (1939)
When Tomorrow Comes (1939)
My Favorite Wife (1940)
Penny Serenade (1941)
Unfinished Business (1941)
Lady in a Jam (1942)
Show Business at War (1943) (short subject)
A Guy Named Joe (1943)
The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)
Together Again (1944)
Over 21 (1945)
Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
Life with Father (1947)
I Remember Mama (1948)
Never a Dull Moment (1950)
The Mudlark (1950)
You Can Change the World (1951) (short subject)
It Grows on Trees (1952)
Early Days Productions: Irene Dunne 03/17/2012
Full Movie: Love Affair (1939)
French playboy Michel Marnet and American Terry McKay fall in love aboard ship. They arrange to reunite 6 months later, after Michel has had a chance to earn a decent living. - Edited from IMDB
She was apprehensive about attempting her first comedy role, as the title character in Theodora Goes Wild (1936), but discovered that she enjoyed it. She turned out to possess an exceptional aptitude for comedy. The unique Dunne trademark flair for combining elegance and madcap comedy is seen at its best in such films as The Awful Truth (1937), My Favorite Wife (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941), all three with Cary Grant.
Other notable roles include Anna Leonowens in Anna and the King of Siam (1946), Lavinia Day in Life with Father (1947), and Martha Hanson in I Remember Mama (1948). In The Mudlark (1950), Dunne was nearly unrecognizable under heavy makeup as Queen Victoria. She retired from the screen in 1952, after the comedy It Grows on Trees.
Dunne has been described as the best actress to never win an Academy Award. She received five Best Actress nominations during her career: for Cimarron (1931), Theodora Goes Wild (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Love Affair (1939) and I Remember Mama (1948). Dunne died peacefully at her Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles, California in 1990, and is entombed in the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.