Editing Irene Dunne (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Irene Dunne addressing UN General Assembly hall.jpg|left|alt=Monochrome photograph of a bespectacled, short-haired woman in a suit jacket reading from papers at a podium|thumb|250px|Dunne addresses the [[United Nations General Assembly]]<ref name="harvp|Bell|1958"/> in 1957 about the United States' $21.8 million donation towards the [[United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees]] (UNRWA).<ref>{{cite news |title=U.S. Pledges Fund to Aid Refugees |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63589612/ |work=Valley Times |date=1957-10-05 |page=5}}</ref>]]
Dunne is considered one of the best actresses of [[The Golden Age of Hollywood]] never to win an Academy Award.<ref>{{cite web|first=Milton|last=Michael|url=http://michaelmilton.org/2008/01/22/neil-postman-irene-dunne-and-living|title=Neil Postman, Irene Dunne and Living|access-date=21 August 2010|date=2008-01-22|archive-date=November 12, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161112143017/http://michaelmilton.org/2008/01/22/neil-postman-irene-dunne-and-living/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="rose">{{cite news |last1=Rose |first1=Rita |title=Late Irene Dunne Did Not Win Oscar, but Her Performances Were Nominated |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/106001323 |work=The Indianapolis Star |date=1990-10-05 |page=F-10}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Fristoe|1985|loc=ARTS|p=1}}: "Louisville native Irene Dunne is such a good actress that she never won an [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]][. This] is easily explained. Like her frequent co-stars Cary Grant and Charles Boyer, Miss Dunne was so consistently splendid she was always taken for granted at Oscar time."</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.filmsite.org/noawards3.html|title=Academy Awards Snubbed by Oscar: Mistakes & Omissions|access-date=18 March 2019|archive-date=October 18, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181018010009/http://www.filmsite.org/noawards3.html|url-status=live}}</ref> After ''[[I Remember Mama (film)|I Remember Mama]]'' was released, ''[[Liberty (general interest magazine)|Liberty]]'' magazine hoped she would "[[Dewey Defeats Truman|do a Truman]]" at the [[21st Academy Awards|1949 Oscars]]<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Wilson |first1=Elizabeth |title=Hollywood's Character Reference |magazine=Liberty |issue=April 1949 |page=26}}</ref> whereas [[Erskine Johnson]] called her and Best Actor nominee [[Montgomery Clift]] the [[dark horse]]s of that ceremony.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1949-03-01|title=1949 oscars predictions|pages=6|work=The Ponca City News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63579071/1949-oscars-predicitons/|access-date=2020-11-19}}</ref> In 1985, Roger Fristoe said "a generation of filmgoers is mostly unfamiliar with her work" because eleven{{sfnp|Schultz|1991|p=25}}<ref name="rose"/> of her movies had been remade, including ''Love Affair'' (remade as ''[[An Affair to Remember]]''), ''Show Boat'' (remade in [[Show Boat (1951 film)|1951]]), ''My Favorite Wife'' (remade as ''[[Move Over, Darling]]''),<ref>{{cite news |last1=Flynn |first1=Hazel |title="Move Over, Darling" Is a Riotous Comedy |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/684531517/ |work=Los Angeles Evening Citizen News |date=1963-12-24 |quote=''Move Over, Darling'' is a remake of a hit filmed years ago. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne played it originally, I believe.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Jewell |first1=Richard B. |last2=Harbin |first2=Vernon |date=1982 |title=The RKO Story |location=New York |publisher=Arlington House |isbn=978-0517546567|page=148}}</ref> and ''Cimarron'' (remade in [[Cimarron (1960 film)|1960]]).{{r|derby|rose}} Dunne explained she had lacked the "terrifying ambition" of some other actresses, commenting in 1977, "I drifted into acting and drifted out. Acting is not everything. Living is."<ref>{{cite book|last=Shipman|first=David|title=Movie Talk|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bloomsbury]]; St Martin's Press|year= 1988|page=37|isbn=978-0747501817}}</ref><ref>{{cite interview|last=Dunne|first=Irene|interviewer=James Bawden|date=10 September 1977|page=11|journal=American Classic Screen|title=A Visit with Irene Dunne}}</ref>
{{Infobox
| above            = Notable remakes of Dunne's films{{sfnp|Schultz|1991|p=25}}
| label1           = ''Cimarron''
| data1            = [[Cimarron (1960 film)|1960 remake]]
| label2           = ''Back Street''
| data2            = [[Back Street (1961 film)|1961 remake]]
| label3           = ''Roberta''
| data3            = ''[[Lovely to Look At]]'' (1952)
| label4           = ''Magnificent Obsession''
| data4            = [[Magnificent Obsession (1954 film)|1954 remake]]
| label5           = ''Show Boat''
| data5            = [[Show Boat (1951 film)|1951 remake]]
| label6           = ''The Awful Truth''
| data6            = ''[[Let's Do It Again (1953 film)|Let's Do It Again]]'' (1953)
| label7           = ''Love Affair''
| data7            = ''[[An Affair to Remember]]'' (1957)
| label8           = ''When Tomorrow Comes''
| data8            = ''[[Interlude (1957 film)|Interlude]]'' (1957)
| label9           = ''My Favorite Wife''
| data9            = ''[[Move Over, Darling]]'' (1963)
| label10          = ''A Guy Named Joe''
| data10           = ''[[Always (1989 film)|Always]]'' (1989)
| label11          = ''Anna and the King of Siam''
| data11           = ''[[The King and I (1956 film)|The King and I]]'' (1956)
}}

Although known for her comedic roles, Dunne admitted that she never saw comedy as a worthy genre, even leaving the country to attend the [[London]] premiere of ''Show Boat''{{sfnp|Gehring|2003|page=69}} with her husband and [[James Whale]] to get away from being confronted with a script for ''Theodora Goes Wild''.{{sfnp|McDonough|1985}} "I never admired a comedienne," she said retrospectively, "yet it was very easy for me, very natural. It was no effort for me to do comedy at all. Maybe that's why I wasn't so appreciative of it."{{sfnp|James Harvey|1978}} She ascribed her sense of humor to her late father,{{sfnp|Gehring|2003|page=9}} as well as her "Irish stubbornness."{{sfnp|Gehring|2003|page=8}} Her screwball comedy characters have been praised for their subversions to the traditional characterisation of female leads in the genre, particularly Susan ([[Katharine Hepburn]]) in ''[[Bringing Up Baby]]'' and Irene ([[Carole Lombard]]) in ''[[My Man Godfrey]]''. "Unlike the genre's stereotypical leading lady, who exhibits bonkers behaviour continuously, Dunne's screwball heroine [in ''Theodora Goes Wild''] chooses when she ''goes wild''," writes Wes D. Gehring,{{sfnp|Gehring|2003|page=71}} who also described Dunne's screwball as [[Situational comedies|situational]] because her characters often obfuscate wackiness to attract the male lead, and could turn it off when needed.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gehring |first1=Wes D. |title=Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance |date=1986 |publisher=Greenwood Press}}</ref>

Biographers and critics argue that Dunne's groundedness made her screwball characters more attractive than those of her contemporaries. In his review for ''My Favorite Wife'', [[Bosley Crowther]] wrote that a "mere man is powerless" to "her luxurious and mocking laughter, her roving eyes and come-hither glances."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Crowther|first=Bosley|date=1940-05-31|title=[''My Favorite Wife'' review]|page=15|work=The New York Times}}</ref> Maria DiBattista points out that Dunne is the "only comic actress working under the strictures of [[The Hays Code|the Production Code]]" who ends both of her screwball movies alongside Cary Grant with a heavy implication of sharing a bed with him, "under the guise of keeping him at bay."<ref>{{cite book|title=Fast-Talking Dames|year=2003|first=Maria|last=DiBattista|location=[[New Haven, Connecticut]]|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]|isbn=978-0300099034|edition=2|url=https://archive.org/details/fasttalkingdames0000diba|url-access=registration}}</ref> Frankie Teller claimed Dunne's sexiness had been overshadowed by her melodramatic movies until ''The Awful Truth'' was released.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Teller |first1=Frankie |title=Are Simple Sirens Sexiest? |url=https://archive.org/details/motionpicture58fawc/page/n335/ |work=Motion Picture |volume=LVIII |issue=4 |publisher=Fawcett Publications, inc. |date=August 1939 |page=76}}</ref> Meanwhile, outside of comedy, [[Andrew Sarris]] theorized that Dunne's [[sex appeal]] is due to the common narrative in her movies about a good girl "going bad."<ref name="Sarris">{{cite news|title=Irene Dunne orbituary|first=Andrew|last=Sarris|work=New York Observer|date=17 September 1990}}</ref> Dunne's backstage "First Lady" reputation furthered Sarris' sex appeal claims, admitting the scene when she shares a [[train carriage]] with [[Preston Foster]] in ''Unfinished Business'' was practically his "rite of passage" to a sex scene in a film,<ref name="Sarris"/> theorizing that the sex appeal of Dunne came from "a good girl deciding thoughtfully to be bad."<ref name="Sarris"/> On the blatant eroticism of the same train scene, Megan McGurk wrote, "The only thing that allowed this film to pass the censors was that good-girl Irene Dunne can have a [[one-night stand]] with a random because she loves him, rather than just a once-off fling. For most other women of her star magnitude, you could not imagine a heroine without a moral compass trained on true north. Irene Dunne elevates a tawdry encounter to something justifiably pure or blameless. She's just not the casual sex type, so she gets away with it."<ref>{{cite web|first=Megan|last=McGurk|title=Irene Dunne's Unfinished Business|url=https://sassmouthdames.com/2017/06/02/irene-dunnes-unfinished-business/|website=SassMouthDames.com|date=2 June 2017|access-date=19 March 2019|archive-date=August 2, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200802020703/https://sassmouthdames.com/2017/06/02/irene-dunnes-unfinished-business/amp/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The ''Los Angeles Times'' referred to Dunne's publicity in their obituary as trailblazing, noting her as one of the first actors to become a [[freelancer]] in Hollywood during its rigid [[studio system]] through her "non-exclusive contract that gave her the right to make films at other studios and to decide who should direct them,"<ref name="LA"/> and her involvement with the United Nations as a decision that allowed entertainers from movies and television to branch out into philanthropy and politics, such as Ronald Reagan and [[George Murphy]].<ref name="LA"/>{{sfnp|Gehring|2003|p=172-73}}

Dunne later said, "[[Cary Grant]] always said that I had the best timing of anybody he ever worked with."{{sfnp|James Harvey|1978}} [[Lucille Ball]] admitted at an [[American Film Institute]] seminar that she based her comedic skills on Dunne's performance in ''[[Joy of Living]]'',{{sfnp|Gehring|2003|page=185}} [[Joan Leslie]] called her an "outstanding example as a woman and a star."{{sfnp|Schultz|1991|p=27}} [[Charles Boyer]] described her having "an irrepressible youthfulness"<ref name="Boyer"/> and [[Ralph Bellamy]] described working in three films with her as "like a three-layered cake with candles[. She was] truly professional, extremely talented, and socially attractive and beautiful."{{sfnp|Schultz|1991|p=27}} When asked about life after retiring from baseball, [[Lou Gehrig]] stated he would want Dunne as a screen partner if he ever became a movie actor.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eig |first1=Jonathan |title=Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig |date=2006 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-0743268936 |page=219}}</ref> [[Charles Mendl]] once called her one of the most attractive and fascinating women in the world "who has beauty as an accomplished actress and sophisticated conversationalist."<ref>{{Cite news|last=Hopper|first=Hedda|date=1948-11-23|title=Rudy Vallee's Life Story Being Written For Movie|page=23|work=Forth Worth Star Telegram|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63705065/}}</ref> Dunne told James Bawden in 1977: "Now don't you dare call me normal. I was never a Pollyanna. There was always a lot of Theodora in me."<ref name="Bawden"/>

In 2006, a historical marker was erected on 105 E. Main Street in [[Madison, Indiana]], to honor her contributions to the state.<ref>{{Cite web |last=IHB |date=2020-12-07 |title=Irene Dunne |url=https://www.in.gov/history/state-historical-markers/find-a-marker/irene-dunne/ |access-date=2024-06-13 |website=IHB |language=en}}</ref>