Margot Peters - Design for Living: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne

Table of Contents

For Joe Garton

A sense of style is the ultimate morality.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Some years ago, Lynn Nesbit, my agent, called to ask, What about that Lunt and Fontanne biography you were going to write? Thank you for jump-starting the project, Lynn. It had begun as a book about Ten Chimneys, suggested by Amy Henderson, a curator of the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery, who rekindled an interest in the Lunts that had taken root seriously in 1985 when I toured their Ten Chimneys estate with a Wisconsin Historical Society group. But then, my aspiring-actress mother had gone to Carroll because it was Alfred Lunts college, so this biography has been germinating, really, for a lifetime.

I am grateful to the biographers of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne who have written before me. In 1958 George Freedley published a brief biography, The Lunts, an illustrated study of their work, with a list of their appearances on stage and screen. Maurice Zolotows colorful Stagestruck (1964) was based on extensive taped interviews with Lunt, Fontanne, and their contemporaries. Jared Browns The Fabulous Lunts (1986) is a thorough, scholarly treatment of the famous acting couple. These books are invaluable resources for the study of Lunt and Fontanne and I am indebted to all three.

Many thanks to the staffs of the following libraries and collections: the Center for Film and Theatre Research at the Wisconsin Historical Society; the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the Performing Arts Research Center of the New York Public Library, Lincoln Center; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Library; the Harvard Theatre Collection; the Special Collections of the Houghton Library, Harvard; the Department of Manuscripts, the Henry E. Huntington Library; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin; the Special Collections of the Hatcher Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and the Covent Garden Theatre Museum, London.

Special thanks to Harry Miller, Lisa Hinzman, and Maxine Fleckner Ducey (Center for Film and Theatre Research, Wisconsin Historical Society); Jeremy Megraw (New York Public Library Theatre Collection); Kathryn Beam (Hatcher Library); Fredric Woodbridge Wilson and Annette Fern (Harvard Theatre Collection); Hannah Frost (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center); Thomas Ford (Houghton Library); Claire Hudson and Andrew Kirk (Covent Garden Theatre Museum); Gayle Barkley (Huntington Library); Patricia Willis (Beinecke Library); Kathryn Johnson (British Library); and Susan Baker (Waukesha Historical Society).

My gratitude to the following persons who granted permission to quote from unpublished material: Alan Brodie Representation for the Nol Coward estate (Nol Coward), Julie Gilbert (Edna Ferber), and Philip Langner (Lawrence and Theresa Helburn). Equal thanks to those granting permission to quote from published works: Crescent Dragon Wagon (Maurice Zolotow), Julie Gilbert (Edna Ferber), the Kurt Weill Foundation and the University of California Press (Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya), Methuen Publishing Ltd. (Nol Cowards autobiographies), and the Orion Publishing Group Ltd. (Nol Cowards diaries).

To the many people who talked or wrote to me about Lunt and Fontanne, or otherwise offered assistance, my warm thanks: James Auer, Steven Bach, Arthur Bean Jr., Ronald Bowers, Joseph Broyles, Donald Buka, Clarence Bundy, Philip Byrd, Ronald Campbell, Montgomery Davis, Jane Doud, Gay Jordan Elwell, William Eppes, Carolyn Every, Catherine Gavigan, Claire Greene, John Hale, Joanna Harris, Stella Heintz, Bunny Raasch Hooten, Bruce Kellner, Harold Koeffler, Maurice Kurtz, Dan H. Laurence, Howard Lee Levine, Sydney Luria, John McMillan, William Manly, Barbara Martin, Faith Miracle, Michael Morrison, George Newill, Philip Nohl, Libbie Faulkner Nolan, Elliot Norton, Stuart Oderman, Christine Plichta, William Pronold, Bernard Ryan Jr., Verna Schmidt, Ruth Schudson, Lucille Shulberg Warner, and Charlotte Zolotow. To Margaret Whalen my thanks for putting her formidable Inter-net skills to work on Lunt and Fontanne.

Very special thanks to Ronald Bryden, Barry Day, Gloria Irwin, and Lucille Justin, all of them knowledgeable about Lunt and Fontanne and extremely generous with that knowledge. To Donald Seawell, Lunt and Fontannes lawyer, my gratitude for his invaluable information and support.

My research in England was assisted by Sheridan Morley, Roger F. Fisher, Patricia Burnell, Terence Morgan, Richard Mangan, Muriel Pahlow, and Sir Donald and Diana Sinden. Mr. Fisher and Ms. Burnell were extraordinarily helpful with tracing Lynn Fontannes family, and Mr. Fishers unearthing of Lynn Fontannes sisters birth certificates a significant documentary contribution.

Thomas H. Garver interviewed on tape dozens of Genesee Depot area residents who worked for or otherwise knew the Lunts. The Ten Chimneys Foundation made his transcribed interviews available to me. I am indebted both to the foundation and to Mr. Garvers excellent work.

The young staff of Ten Chimneys has been a delight to work with. Salut to Christine Cross, Alice Kamps Curtin, Erika Kent, Virginia Thomas Malone, Nellie Martens Murphy, Terri Plewa, Amanda Schilling, former Vice President Sharon K. Kayne, and Acting President Sean Malone.

Peter Ridgway Jordan, my husband, lent his support, criticism, and research skills from the beginningand found Lunt and Fontanne as brilliant, witty, and lovable as I did. Mashed potatoes, darling.

I am also deeply grateful to Peter Jordan, Joseph Garton, and my former editor, Robert Gottlieb, whose continued support I treasure, for readingand considerably improvingthe biography in manuscript.

As always it has been a great pleasure to work with Victoria Wilson. I value her expertise, judgment, and enthusiasm for the acting profession, all of which make her the ideal editor for Lunt and Fontanne.

Listed in the Register of National Historic Places, restored and looking as though the Lunts just stepped out for a walk, Ten Chimneys opened to the public in May 2003. The estates preservation is the work of the Madison businessman and theater enthusiast Joseph Garton. Knowing how deeply he cares about preserving the magic of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, I gratefully dedicate this biography to him.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne as Tragedy and Comedy, photographed by Edward Steichen (George Eastman House)

Frances and Jules Pierre Fontanne with Lynn, Mai, and Antoinette (Wisconsin Historical Society)

Lynn Fontanne in 1899 (Ten Chimneys Foundation)

Ellen Terry (Authors collection)

Laurette Taylor (Photofest)

Young Alfred and Hattie Lunt Sederholm (New York Public Library Theater Collection)

Alfred Lunt and Ray Bennett Weaver (Authors collection)

Alfred at the Castle Square Theater, Boston (Wisconsin Historical Society)

Lillie Langtry (Photofest)

Alfred Lunt in Clarence, 1919 (New York Public Library Theater Collection)

Helen Hayes (Photofest)

Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and Nol Coward (Warren OBrien, courtesy of the OBrien Family Collection at Ten Chimneys Foundation)

Lynn Fontanne in