In 2014, the Park Ridge Public Library Classic Film Series (and program host Matthew C. Hoffman) were honored to have as their guest, Ann-Marie Streibich, granddaughter of actress Irene Dunne. For the first time, we present her introduction to the audience…
Thank you for asking me to speak about my grandmother, Irene Dunne. As Jimmy Stewart said of her…”a woman of Patrician beauty poised with Regal Grace.”
It couldn’t be more true to say that my Mimi is what a legitimate star was all about: a positive effect of other people’s spirits in a wavelength way beyond charisma. She spoke of having a purpose greater than herself; of living life ‘in a state of grace’ as though she could live as an instrument by which other lives might be improved through a form of divine will combined with best of human intent… She was, bar none, the finest example of character I have ever known. She spoke with proper diction and civility, and she was a seeker of accuracy and fairness. Her personal integrity has been a guiding light to me in my life.
She was raised in the genteel South in Louisville, KY, and was surrounded by Southern charm. When she was eight her family moved to St. Louis after her father had accepted a promotion to Supervising Inspector of Steam Vessels. She was highly influenced by both her mother and particularly her father. She and her brother were raised practicing Catholics in a religious home. While she did have great faith, Mimi was never pious or judgemental.
It would be her mother, Adelaide Henry, from Madison, IN, who opened the door to the exciting world of music. A mother’s keen awareness of her young daughter’s talent paved the way for a life of dedication to the Arts and a never wavering obligation for service. She was good-natured, easy going and very gentle. A traditional wife and mother and kept a tidy and orderly home and made all her children’s clothes.
Her father, Joe, was a Steamboat engineer and Inspector. A character who loved to entertain and possessed a great sense of humor. His philosophies and wisdom of defining one’s character greatly influenced how Irene conducted her own life.
She was surrounded by a parent team comprised of great wit and musical showmanship. One of Mimi’s earliest memories was her parents singing a duet at the family piano… Can’t you see the debonair, charming, funny, minstrel, handsome captain, and his scholarly, talented wife entertaining and delighting their children?
Sadly, her beloved Papa died when she was 11 and left her with these words which would model her life until the day she died in 1990:
“Happiness is never an accident. It is the prize we get when we choose wisely from life’s great stores. Don’t reach out wildly for this and that and the other thing. You’ll end up empty-handed if you do. Make up your mind what you want. Go after it. And be prepared to be paid well for it. I hope you go after the rooted things – the self respect that comes when we accept our share of responsibility. Satisfying work, Marriage. A Home. A Family. For these things grow better with time, not less. These things are the very bulwarks of happiness.”
I fervently believe she held those dying words as gospel and sacred. She lived and breathed his creed. She was a firm believer in prayer, and I honor the energy she poured into the rosaries I now possess. She made me a believer because I can’t explain personally how I survived certain events, other than her prayers for me at the time. She was a special being who radiated a special energy.
After her father’s death, they moved back to Adelaid’s, their mother’s hometown. She had a idyllic youth and had very fond memories of Madison. “We lived a leisurely life in that small town. There was time for everything. Time for me to dream my dreams under the Heaven Tree, that stood in our yard, time for music around the piano in the evenings, time for reading wonderful books, time for friendship” She wondered how teenagers today find the time for hopes and ambition to set in. How do they find the time to chart their course ahead?
She fled the nest finally to take a job teaching music and art in East Chicago. Her mother wasn’t thrilled about the location, but Irene was determined. She was sent to live at a cousins house two weeks before her job began.
One morning, she saw the Chicago Tribune on the breakfast table and saw an ad for a scholarship for singing at the prestigious Chicago Musical College… She took the ad and went to go prepare for the audition. She won! The head of the school was Dr. Ziegfeld of the Ziegfeld Theater in Chicago, where she would perform to get stage experience. When she finished, he gave her a letter of recommendation to give to his son, the great showman Florenz Ziegfeld in NYC .
Two years later, he offered her the leading role in her first movie; Cimarron…in Hollywood!. After that, he cast her in Show Boat, which she had already done on Broadway. Which was, ironically, the link where her soul rested, a deep understanding of the Ohio River where her father took her often when she could accompany him on a journey as a Steamboat Inspector.
She starred in 46 films, sung on Broadway , played opposite a dozen of Hollywood’s matinee idols, been nominated 5X for Best Actress Academy Awards…The Awful Truth, Cimarron, Love Affair, I Remember Mama, and tonight’s movie Theodora Goes Wild. I don’t know of another actress who could do a comedy one year, a drama the next, and a hit musical after that AND be nominated for an Academy Award for all three times!
It was also in NYC she met and married my grandfather, Dr. Frank Griffin, a man 20 years her Senior. And from a prominent family from the East. He was her partner, co-manager and best friend. In the early years of marriage, she was in Hollywood crafting her career and he was a successful businessman in NYC. They were a bi-coastal, married couple for six years before he moved to LA, when it became apparent that her career had taken off.
She was the first woman to successfully negotiate an independent contract from the studio (RKO). Of course, actresses today, are a beneficiary of that deed.
She retired from pictures in 1953 and devoted her time to volunteer work for the Republican Party and Catholic Charities. In 1957, for her work on behalf of the Republicans, President Eisenhower appointed her the 12th General Assembly of the United Nations.
She was thrilled to have been awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1985. (And, of course, a highlight for me to accompany her). She very much was in company she admired and respected: Bob Hope, Beverly Sills, Merce Cunningham, Alan J Lerner and Frederick Loewe. Performance by the opera great, Frederica von Stade, and introduced by her very dear friend, Jimmy Stewart. (I really wish they would have done a movie together.)
Nancy and Ronald Reagan, Jimmy/Gloria Stewart, Rosalind Russell, Loretta Young, The Bob Hopes, The Annenbergs, Roddy McDowell, Edgar and Frances Bergen, The Bloomingdales…all regulars in each other’s homes. I used to sit in my closet peering down, through a lighting hole from my closet, at her guests at the dining table. They could include any or all of these people. I was often invited to come down during the cocktail portion of a dinner party and say my polite hellos. I would always feel so privileged and would discreetly slip away to the kitchen and know Melvin, our cook, was going to give me the best meal of the week. At the end of the night, there would always be my Mimi singing, to the delight of her friends.
She fulfilled every prize of life her father wanted her to have. With her strong sense of self reliance and independence, her father’s creed governed her actions for her family and herself until the day she died .When she drew her last breath…she indeed fulfilled every word of the ethics of life he whispered to her with his dying breath.
Pretty remarkable for someone who commented in an interview that she lacked the terrifying ambition of some other actresses and said “I drifted into acting and drifted out” and “Acting is not everything, living is.”
I am proud to be a part of this legend’s family and I take pride in promoting the sterling image she left behind.
Irene Dunne