The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 465

rrj CO JOYCE HABER -r. i The Sweet Smell of Irene Dunne "There could be worse-things than being a lady." necking" a flop musical version of Rodgcrs and Hart's "Present Arms." The next year, 1931, she became a star A year ago, Hollywood's Academy Theater ran a se-. ries of Among them was "Theodora Goes Wild," which, In 193G, earned Irene Dunne the second of five Best Actress Oscar nominations. The stately, patrician-featured lady was asked by a student whether she would play a nude scene. would never do that," she riposted, "because, Tin so susceptible to colds I'd catch pneumonia." Pneumonia aside, Miss Dunne admits that "I didnt want any part of It was the first script Co- lumbia showed me, so my husband and I took off for Europe.

When I came back, they said, Tou have to do I suppose I had a contract or something." The con- tract proved to be fortunate for the public as well as the star. 1 Theodora" started Miss Dunne as a top comedienne. As David Shipman writes in The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years," "Few actresses could play, comedy as she did. There is a brief sequence in The Awful Truth' where, her back to the camera, she is contcm- wnen sne won ine sougnt-aiter roie baora uravat in "Cimarron," based on Edna Ferbers novel Irene got the first of her Oscar nominations. It became an epic." savs Irene.

"It cost $1 millioa" That's OK, Irene. It was 1931's Souchong, the convent-bred lady crosses her legsand the legs'are great Irene Is a study in Titians gold, brown and red as is the room. Her brown knit skirt and matching striped blouse and jacket are accented only by oranges and blues. She wears a chiffon scarf, beaded necklaces in blue and gold and pearl earrings what else? She's the sort of lady who" could have bought the earrings at Woolworth's, but everyone would take them for Her favorite designer is Jean Louis. In fact, he says she discovered him.

"Years ago, I was in New York and I passed Hattie Carnegie's and saw a blue evening dress in the window. I fell in love with it. I bought it It was the first dress Jean ever made in this country. Later, when I signed at Columbia, they signed him, too. He does all my personal clothes." The lady is not without wit She suddenly coughs uncontrollably, trying to an-- swer a question: "Now, if I was supposed to dance, I'd have a broken foot," she recovers.

Miss Dunne is not without verve as well. "Do you know I met Garbo for the first time last year? We were invited to the beach. She was very nice to me. Shall we say she was 'conditioned! to my being there? The owners of the beachhouse wanted to sell it. The doorbell rang and she said, 'Maybe they're here to buy the house.

We must be very charming Then she re- alized the visitors were there for dinner. And she wasn't 'conditioned' to them. She has this strange piaung me anucs oi cary urani. tier gurgling, smom-ered laugh is more eloquent than many another's close-. ups.

She was airy, and rather super." Irene admits that superstar Cary Grant, "my vis-a-vis, 1 once said I had the best timing for comedy of any actress he ever knew. Then he also said and I don't know that we should put this into print that I was the sweetest-smelling actress he ever knew." While I didnt get close enough for a whiff, Irene Dunne is surely one of the most beautiful actresses IVe ever known. We were talking in the blond-paneled den of the mansion in Holmby Hills which she and Dr. Francis Griffin, her late husband, built some 40 years ago. "I've been in it ever since, and I always criticize widows who live in big houses.

I may look for something smaller," said Irene. 1 At the beginning of her career, Miss Dunne was con- sidered immense by some. A friend of hers warned her against leaving Broadway for Hollywood. Irene," she said, "you're too tall for movies." Irene, who is 5 feet 5 inches, proved tall enough to merit a tribute to her at this year's Los Angeles Film Exposition. Roddy Mc-Dowall, who appeared with Irene in The White Cliffs of Dover," will moderate a five-hour program next Sunday.

v-'-' "Love Affair," with Charles Boyer, will be the full-length feature, interspersed with film clips and a ques-tion-and-answer session. "Filmex chose love Affair," says Miss Dunne, illustrating her equanimity, since that movie won her her fourth nomination, "although I love Astaire and Rogers and the sets were great, but Filmex said I didnt have enough to do." Did the ac-" tress with the enormous composure ever object to her "dignified" image? She laughs, as Melvin, her houseman of 11 years, brings in a tea service and freshly baked brownies. "When I first came out here," says Irene, was asked that, and then I thought There could be worse things than being a. 1 i was invited the other night to see biggest grosser, taking in $2 millioa 2 After that success, her husband moved West "Not 5 many people know this, but he was beginning to have eye trouble. So I don't think he or I made any great sa- crifice.

He was a friend of my agent Charles Feldman," 5 and they worked together on my career. Everything he did he did well Playing bridge. He was a very good sculptor. After he died, I took over as president of com- panics not American Steel, but it keeps me Irene went on in dramatic roles (or tear-jerkers, if you will) at first. There was "Back Street" (1932) and "Magnificent Obsession" three years later.

Ross Hunter later remade them, with Susan Hayward and Jane Wy- man, respectively, as Irene Dunne. Then came the comedies, including The Awful Truth" and "My Favorite with Cary Grant who is one of her two favorite leading men. "I loved working with Cary and I was his best audience. I thought he was wildly amusing and laughed at his jokes. That always makes for a good re- lationship." Her second favorite is "Charles Boyer, because he was very professional and always on the set." Irene added: "I loved working with (Spencer) Tracy because he was such a first-rate actor." That reminded publicist Emily Torchia to say, about "A Guy Named Joe.

"(Director) Victor Fleming was always boss on the set and Tracy was macho. It didn't take a week before, both of them were bringing tea for Irene and waiting on her. She's a perfect example of the soft-spoken woman who turns men on more than sexpots." Irene believes that the public chooses the stars. "My neighbor down here, (the late) Gary Cooper I don't think he was ever any better after all those years than he was in his first role. Yet people adored him.

When I was first nominated, I thought I'd done a good job. But really I think it's the familiarity. If you have a dimple here (she gestures to her cheek) they know it The closeness of the camerathe '5' "I never had OK of my scripts or costars but I had OK of my directors. The best were Leo McCarey and George Stevens. It turned out all right, because they wouldnt do a bad script In my day, it was a director's medium.

There was no such thing as a star dictating to a director. I think a man like Brando today may call all the 8hots.We dont have any royalty in this city and I suppose show-business people are idolized here. I think the people who've gone to the top have to have a ccr-. tain degree of gratitude to the people who have that much regard for them. A certain actor comes to my mind who's abused that whole thing.

But we'll leave that out? We'll leave that out, for a stunner of the Golden Era who says she "was never star struck and stopped read-' ing scripts "because' my movies were always boy chases girl, and I cant do that anymore." Maybe not, -but Til millions of men 'would still love the chance to outrace Irene Dunne, long-distance runner. personality extreme shyness." Does it disappoint Miss that she never won the. Oscar? Again, the riposte: "Oh, I don't mind that at all. My old friend Greta Garbo never got an Oscar either." (She laughs.) "And Garbo's a living legend." So is Irene Marie Dunne Griffin, who was born in -Louisville, Ky, the daughter of Irish charmer Joseph Dunne, a supervisor of steamships for the VS. government, and musically oriented southern belle Adelaide Henry, who gave Irene piano lessons.

At the age of 5, Irene played what she calls "the smallest part Shakespeare ever wrote." She was the Mustard Seed in "Mid-. summer Night's Dream." Five years later, she entered St. Louis' Loretto Convent, briefly determined to become a nun. Her beloved father died when Irene was 11. Eventually, after graduating from the Chicago Mu-sical College and after making her social debut in Memphis she wound up on vacation in New York.

She had even studied Russian ballet "Something I loathed: Why should I. an embryo singer, stretch and stand on tiptoe?" By a fluke, Irene, the embryo soprano met the Met Opera singers and decided I hadn't the landed the title role in a touring company of the' musical "Irene." At 18, she managed four performances oh Broadway. After stepping in as understudy for Peggy Wood in "Clinging Vine," again on' Broadway, Miss Dunne turned to light opera. "Although I created no furor, I was playing leads. I never knew the chorus line, the chorus dressing room nor how it felt to live in a hall bedroom sharing a pair of silk stockings with three other 1 In 1927, at a party at Manhattan's Biltmbre Hotel, she met Park Avenue dental surgeon Griffin, whom she married three years later.

Dr. Griffin didu! approve of her bent for show business, so she gave it up until, the day after they returned front their honeymoon in Europe, Florenst Zicgfeld spotted Irene in an elevator, i Apparently, all you had to do to be discovered in the '30s was ride in elevators or not. have i acrophobia. cast Irene as Magnolia in a touring company- of "Show Boat" Hollywood imported her for "Leather; ijrt tljriiihrtjLlftS'fiJ 91'J(i 10 ol ifl'L a v. she adds, of Columbia's current erotic film.

They said, 'Listen, you may learn a few I'm just not inter-estcd seeing dirty movies. I never saw The Last Thingamabob in I think you- have a could use all the four-letter words it I wanted to. But you listen to all the Jane Fondas and I dont know why they have to come on so strong. I was convent-bred and that probably rubbed off on me someplace We were always taught to sit with the heel of one foot at the instep of the other (she Illustrates), never to cross our Minutes later, after pouring the Twining's Lapsang.