Screenland (Nov 1935-Apr 1936)

51 Beautiful Baffler The decorative Dunne's reserve may bewilder many, but not the reporter who analyses Irene here Leonard Hall HOLLYWOOD, that western hamlet which glories in the obvious, has always been completely baffled by Irene Dunne. Here is a young and beautiful woman who insists on living what the film colony considers the life of a crabbed spinster, devoted to good works and, perhaps, a dog of the more obnoxious type. Entitled by her good looks and stellar eminence to all the normal pleasures of a film star, such as getting divorces or wafting hard rolls at her sweetie-pie in the Trocadero, this odd Dunne girl tends strictly to her tatting in the studio, exhibits no boy-friends, and tags along with a married couple when she does appear in public ! Hollywood is not only puzzled by these strange antics, but is even a little annoyed. What in the heck, the town asks, is the use of being a movie star if you are going to live like an antiquated librarian But it is a notorious fact that Hollywood baffles easily, and is far too busy patting its own shoulder-blades to bother a great deal about what makes a lady tick. Because of her alleged lack of color and glamor, (O despised and shopworn word !), a legend of dullness has grown up about the fair Irene. Many of my colleagues shrug their best shrug at the mention of her name, and say "Oh, Dunne ! Nice girl — but what can you say about her ? She's the worst copy in the world !" From this superficial opinion, I loudly dissent. I am fascinated at the sight of a lovely girl who can live a quiet life in the midst of insane exhibitionism, who is content to slave for months on end in the film canneries, and gets her modest relaxation out of smacking a little white ball hither and thither on the greensward. So little does Irene Dunne resemble the movie star of song and story that she is actually unique, and to the resolving of any mystery about her I have recently addressed myself. Here are my findings. For eleven months a year La Dunne labors like a bargee in the studios. She is an honest, earnest worker at her trade, and she never gets push-over roles. You will note that Irene Dunne plays in the tough ones — "The Magnificent Obsession," which she has just finished, was months in the making at Universal, and wore her almost completely down. The twelfth month, usually, is her own. Packing her prettiest toggery, she plunges eastward to let her hair down and relax. She recently completed one of these thirtyday junkets, and I succeeded in wheedling my way into the presence to finish my microscopic study of Irene Dunne on a tear. When the lovely one arrives in her beloved New York, it is no Little Grey Home in the East for her. No indeedy ! She moves right into a fancy hotel right in the center of the town's nocturnal hurly and burly. From the goldplated Hotel Pierre, where she was in residence when I dropped in, one could hurl a brick in almost any direction and hit a nifty night club, or one of these chromium bars infested by the Fifth Avenue Drinking Set. Out west the girl may prefer to lurk in the suburbs, but in Manhattan she wants to be where things are most apt to happen — though, alas, few do ! Doc Griffin, her dentist husband, moves in from the outskirts, and for the period of her stay they are always together. It was in this family suite that I found her, though I the Doc was still at his office doing a bit of bridgework. Irene was looking extraordinarily lovely in a suit of black silk lounging pajamas (Continued on page 88)