Faith, frolics, and femininity: re-evaluating Irene Dunne's Hollywood stardom

Abstract

Irene Dunne (1898-1990) remained a top tier Hollywood star for over twenty years due to her ability to transform her stardom every few years without changing the core values of her persona, refreshing her career without neglecting the traits of independence, professionalism, and ambition which were key to her popularity. This thesis focuses on the moments when Dunne transformed her image arguing that she provided a rich, but currently underappreciated, example of feminine autonomy for mid-century audiences and beyond. I draw on a wide range of primary sources – including contemporary newspapers and magazines and Dunne’s personal archives – to argue that she has been undervalued within the film studies canon.

Challenging views of her as one of Hollywood’s more conservative and ‘ladylike’ stars, I combine close film analysis with archival sources to highlight her promotion throughout her film career (1930-1952) of modern, feminist lifestyle choices for women which involved work outside the home, companionate marriage, and financial independence.

I explore Dunne’s engagement with taboos such as divorce, adultery, and abortion in her early, pre-Code career. These subversive performances contradict critical views of her as a ‘perfect lady’ prevalent since the end of her film career in 1952. The thesis then considers how her unruly screwball comedy performances of drunkenness critiqued contemporary suppression of women’s visibility in public life. In the 1940s Dunne moved into playing mother roles, and I link these performances to her personal Catholic faith and devotion to the Virgin Mary. Dunne’s mid-1940s characters clearly called upon long-enduring traditions which placed Mary as an emblem of strength and perseverance for Catholic women.

Finally, I identify Dunne’s centrality to changing contemporary attitudes on female middle age, emphasising her enduring appeal as the star of romantic dramas well into her late forties and early fifties as a corrective to classical Hollywood’s association with youthful starlets.