The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (124 page)

However, she soon revealed that she was prepared to make herself a dutiful, middlebrow fashion plate—as in Norman Jewison’s
The Thomas Crown Affair
(68) and de Sica’s
A Place for Lovers
(68). Subsequently, she gave a very mixed performance in
The Arrangement
(69, Elia Kazan), a competent comedy cameo in
Little Big Man
(70, Penn), and a modish study of breakdown in
Puzzle of a Downfall Child
(70, Jerry Schatzberg). Her Katie Elder in Frank Perry’s
Doc
(71) showed that she had yet to come to terms with her early fame, and
The Deadly Trap
(71, René Clément) suggested a misplaced respect for continental gravity. She enjoyed herself in
Oklahoma Crude
(73, Stanley Kramer) and as Milady de Winter in
The Three Musketeers
(73, Richard Lester), but looked tense and hot in
The Towering Inferno
(74, John Guillermin).

Then in
Chinatown
(74, Roman Polanski), she was the shifty heart of a film, far more so than Jack Nicholson. It is Dunaway who most effectively relates the worlds of the elegant Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray (a woman from a Lubitsch film, condescending to appear in a George Raft picture) and the glowing, mango-colored China doll who sleeps with Nicholson’s detective and has an ingrowing family tree. She looks like a cross between Joan Crawford and Sylvia Sidney until she turns her head to the light and her arched brows show the flawed iris nemesis of Chinatown.

She was not very necessary to
Three Days of the Condor
(75, Sydney Pollack), and only star cargo in
Voyage of the Damned
(76, Stuart Rosenberg). But in
Network
(76, Sidney Lumet), she was the nerve center of the film—agitated, sensation seeking, and as cold as TV itself. At the same time, she was a believable neurotic career woman and a comic-book video creature—the medium and a massage—and she won the best actress Oscar for it. With that status, she slowed down and found herself a lush vehicle,
The Eyes of Laura Mars
(78, Irvin Kershner), and looked very faded in the remake of
The Champ
(79, Franco Zeffirelli).

In the eighties, Dunaway slipped out of leading actress parts, though not before her magnificent impersonation of Joan Crawford in
Mommie Dearest
(81, Perry), a performance that deserved a more humane approach. As it was, Dunaway was herself touched by the grotesqueness of Crawford (she might have been more at ease in the 1930s) and the film may have made her unpopular in Hollywood—or added to her own reputation for being difficult. Elsewhere, she was the bedridden wife in
The First Deadly Sin
(80, Brian G. Hutton); for TV she was
Evita Peron
(81, Marvin Chomsky); to England for
The Wicked Lady
(83, Michael Winner);
Ordeal by Innocence
(84, Desmond Davis);
Supergirl
(84, Jeannot Szwarc); on TV in
Ellis Island
(84, Jerry London),
Thirteen at Dinner
(85, Lou Antonio), and
Beverly Hills Madam
(86, Harvey Hart); bravely bedraggled in
Barfly
(87, Barbet Schroeder);
Casanova
(87, Simon Langton) for TV;
Burning Secret
(88, Andrew Birkin);
Midnight Crossing
(88, Roger Holzberg); on TV for
Cold Sassy Tree
(89, Joan Tewksbury) and
Silhouette
(90, Carl Schenkel);
Wait Until Spring, Bandini
(89, Dominique Deruddere);
The Handmaid’s Tale
(90, Volker Schlondorff);
Scorchers
(91, David Beaird); a TV series,
It Had to Be You
(93); and
The Temp
(93, Tom Holland).

She works wherever she can, but she is one more helpless example of what happens to star actresses as they grow older:
A Family Divided
(95, Donald Wrye);
Don Juan DeMarco
(95, Jeremy Leven);
Drunks
(95, Peter Cohn);
Dunston Checks In
(96, Ken Kwapis);
The Chamber
(96, James Foley);
Albino Alligator
(96, Kevin Spacey);
The People Next Door
(96, Tim Hunter);
En Brazos de la Mujer Madura
(96, Manuel Lombardero);
The Twilight of the Golds
(97, Ross Kagan Marks); Mrs. Van Hopper in
Rebecca
(97, Jim O’Brien);
Gia
(98, Michael Cristofer); as Margaret Sanger in
A Will of Their Own
(98, Karen Arthur) on TV;
Love Lies Bleeding
(99, William Tannen); as the shrink in
The Thomas Crown Affair
(99, John McTiernan);
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
(99, Luc Besson);
The Yards
(00, James Gray);
Stanley’s Gig
(00, Marc Lazard);
Running Mates
(00, Ron Lagomarsino); a short film,
Yellow Bird
(01), which she directed herself; Mae West in
The Calling
(01, Richard Caesar);
The Rules of Attraction
(02, Roger Avary);
MidCentury
(02, Scott Billups);
El Padrino
(03, Damian Chapa);
The Last Goodbye
(04, Jacob Gentry);
Jennifer’s Shadow
(04, David De La Vega and Pablo Parés);
Rain
(06, Craig DiBona);
Cougar Club
(07, Christopher Duddy);
Flick
(08 David Howard);
Midnight Bayou
(09, Ralph Hemecker).

Irene Dunne
(1898–1990), b. Louisville, Kentucky
What is it about Irene Dunne? She was not a great beauty, or a commanding actress. I’m not even sure she was innately funny. There are times in her work when respectability shows: she was staunch as both Republican and Catholic, and she favored what she regarded as serious roles—drama and weepies—as opposed to the comedies for which she is treasured. Stanley Cavell once wrote of
The Awful Truth
that “if one is not willing to yield to Irene Dunne’s temperament, her talents, her reactions, following their detail almost to the loss of one’s own identity, one will not know, and will not care, what the film is about.” Richard Schickel’s obituary tribute noted, “She always knew how to put a man in her place, but at the same time leave him room to maneuver out of it.” I would add that, in two very different films with Cary Grant
—The Awful Truth
and
Penny Serenade
—she seems smarter or more knowing than Grant, yet graceful enough to watch him catch up, without letting him feel it. And Grant was testing company (he, too, revered her timing).

Then there is her age. For some time, it was believed that Dunne had been born in 1904, but 1898 is now taken as the true date. Which means that she was over thirty when she made her screen debut. Very few actresses cast in romance simply missed their twenties. (Jean Harlow never met her thirties.) Dunne had a happy family life until her father died when she was eleven. Harder years followed: she sang in church choirs for money (her mother was a musician), she taught music herself, and studied at Chicago Musical College. In 1920, she failed an audition for the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

So she went into musical comedy, rising slowly to the role of Magnolia in the touring production of
Show Boat
. By 1930, she was under contract to RKO, initially as a singer. But her first film,
Leathernecking
(30, Edward Cline), was stripped of its songs. Then Richard Dix chose her to play Sabra Cravat opposite him in
Cimarron
(31, Wesley Ruggles). That proved a huge success, and Sabra is really the heart of what is a soggy Western. So Dunne was set up as an actress.

She worked hard at RKO, but not always in good material:
Bachelor Apartment
(31, Lowell Sherman);
Consolation Marriage
(31, Paul Sloane); as the crippled teacher in
Symphony of Six Million
(32, Gregory La Cava); and
Thirteen Women
(32, George Archainbaud). She had a great success at Universal as the secret mistress in
Back Street
(32, John M. Stahl), and suffering and sacrifice seemed to appeal to her—Dunne herself approved of the character’s unself-pitying acceptance of her life. This sort of role was repeated in
The Secret of Madame Blanche
(33, Charles Brabin);
If I Were Free
(33, Elliott Nugent);
The Silver Cord
(33, John Cromwell), where Joel McCrea nearly gives her up for his mother; very good in
Ann Vickers
(33, Cromwell), where she plays Walter Huston’s mistress with unusual intelligence; and
This Man Is Mine
(34, Cromwell). The series was topped off by her blind woman in
Magnificent Obsession
(35, Stahl).

That Dunne is worthy, but not overly interesting. She sang at last in
Stingaree
(34, William Wellman), and got into a series of musicals:
Sweet Adeline
(35, Mervyn Le Roy); with Astaire and Rogers in
Roberta
(35, William A. Seiter), singing Jerome Kern’s “Yesterdays” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”; and repeated her stage role in
Show Boat
(36, James Whale).

She did not want to do
Theodora Goes Wild
(36, Richard Boleslavsky), in a Sidney Buchman script from a Mary McCarthy story. But she did it, and a great comic talent was revealed in the story of a woman who writes a bestselling book and falls in love with her New York illustrator (Melvyn Douglas).

At Paramount, she did
High, Wide and Handsome
(37, Rouben Mamoulian), singing “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” (Kern again). But Columbia and Leo McCarey grabbed her for
The Awful Truth
(37), for which she got her third Oscar nomination (
Theodora
and
Cimarron
had preceded it).

So she was established in musicals, melodrama, and high comedy—that versatility had few rivals. Still, she was forty and the decade was ending uneasily. She had more success, but nothing as bracing as
The Awful Truth: Joy of Living
(38, Tay Garnett);
Invitation to Happiness
(39, Ruggles); nominated again for the wonderful
Love Affair
(39, McCarey—with Charles Boyer), one of the most influential of romances;
When Tomorrow Comes
(39, Stahl); with Grant again in
My Favorite Wife
(40, Garson Kanin), which has the first feel of retread; very touching in the weepy
Penny Serenade
(41, George Stevens);
Unfinished Business
(41, La Cava);
Lady in a Jam
(42, La Cava); rather awkward with Spencer Tracy in
A Guy Named Joe
(43, Victor Fleming);
The White Cliffs of Dover
(44, Clarence Brown)—in Greer Garson territory;
Together Again
(44, Charles Vidor); and
Over 21
(45, Vidor).

She was with Rex Harrison in
Anna and the King of Siam
(46, Cromwell), and she had considerable success sentimentally in
Life With Father
(47, Michael Curtiz) and
I Remember Mama
(48, Stevens), and a fifth nomination. But staidness was in sight:
Never a Dull Moment
(50, George Marshall) did not live up to its title; and then in
The Mudlark
(50, Jean Negulesco), she put on makeup, years, and dignity to play Queen Victoria. She was unrecognizable and the film was a folly—perhaps it had snob appeal for her. After
It Grows on Trees
(52, Arthur Lubin), she retired and turned to political volunteer work, with special interest in the United Nations.

Kirsten Dunst
, b. Point Pleasant, New Jersey, 1982
Made when she was still short of twenty,
The Cat’s Meow
(02, Peter Bogdanovich) gave clinching proof that Kirsten Dunst the child actress had graduated. Playing Marion Davies (when she was actually twenty-seven), Dunst did a terrific job at showing that actress’s flair for comedy as well as her deep, if mixed, feelings for William Randolph Hearst. All she needs are good parts that keep her working in that range of laughter and dismay.

She did a great deal of work as a child, starting with
Bonfire of the Vanities
(90, Brian De Palma); a very grownup performance in
Interview with the Vampire
(94, Neil Jordan); Amy in
Little Women
(94, Gillian Armstrong);
Greedy
(94, Jonathan Lynn); J
umanji
(95, Joe Johnston); good in
Mother Night
(96, Keith Gordon);
Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy
(96, Roger Young); the voice of the young girl in
Anastasia
(97, Don Bluth);
Wag the Dog
(97, Barry Levinson); on TV in
Fifteen and Pregnant
(98, Sam Pillsbury);
Small Soldiers
(98, Joe Dante);
All I Wanna Do
(98, Sarah Kernochan);
The Virgin Suicides
(99, Sofia Coppola);
Drop Dead Gorgeous
(99, Michael Patrick Jann);
Dick
(99, Andrew Fleming);
Bring It On
(00, Peyton Reed);
Get Over It
(01, Tommy O’Haver);
Crazy/Beautiful
(01, John Stockwell);
Spider-Man
(02, Sam Raimi);
Levity
(03, Ed Solomon);
Kaena: The Prophecy
(03, Chris Delaporte and Pascal Pinon);
Mona Lisa Smile
(03, Mike Newell);
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(03, Michel Gondry);
Spider-Man 2
(04, Raimi);
Wimbledon
(04, Richard Loncraine);
Elizabethtown
(05, Cameron Crowe);
Marie Antoinette
(06, Coppola);
Spider-Man 3
(07, Raimi);
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
(08, Robert B. Weide);
All Good Things
(10, Andrew Jarecki).