Lynn Fontanne

From Wikipedia Lynn Fontanne f?n?tæn 6 December 1887 30 July 1983 was a Britishborn Americanbased actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years She teamed with her husband Alfred Lunt Lunt and Fontanne shared a special Tony Award in 1970 They both won Emmy Awards in 1965 and Broadways LuntFontanne Theatre was named for them Fontanne was also a Kennedy Center honoree in 1980 Born Lillie Louise Fontanne in Woodford London of French and Irish descent her parents were Jules Fontanne a Frenchman and Frances Ellen Thornley She had two sisters one of whom later lived in England the other lived in New Zealand She drew acclaim in 1921 playing the title role in the George S KaufmanMarc Connelly farce Dulcy She soon became celebrated for her skill as an actress in high comedy excelling in witty roles written for her by Noël Coward SN Behrman and Robert Sherwood However she enjoyed one of the greatest critical successes of her career as Nina Leeds the desperate heroine of Eugene ONeills controversial nineact drama Strange Interlude From the late 1920s on Fontanne acted exclusively in vehicles also starring her husband Among their greatest theater triumphs were Design for Living 1933 The Taming of the Shrew 193536 Idiots Delight 1936 There Shall Be No Night 1940 and Quadrille 1952 Design for Living which Noël Coward wrote expressly for himself and the Lunts was so risqué with its theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois that Coward premiered it in New York knowing it would not survive the censor in London The duo remained active onstage until retiring in 1960 Fontanne was nominated for a Best Actress Tony for one of her last stage roles in The Visit 1959 Fontanne and Lunt worked together in 27 productions Of her acting style with Lunt British broadcasting personality Arthur Marshall having seen her in Caprice St Jamess Theatre 1929 observed in the plays of the period actors waited to speak until somebody else had finished the Lunts turned all that upside down They threw away lines they trod on each others words they gabbled they spoke at the same time They spoke in fact as people do in ordinary life6 Fontanne made only three films but nevertheless was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1931 for The Guardsman losing to Helen Hayes She also appeared in the silent films Second Youth 1924 and The Man Who Found Himself 1925 The Lunts starred in four television productions in the 1950s and 1960s with both Lunt and Fontanne winning Emmy Awards in 1965 for The Magnificent Yankee5 becoming the first married couple to win the award for playing a married couple Fontanne narrated the classic 1960 television production of Peter Pan starring Mary Martin and received a second Emmy nomination for playing Grand Duchess Marie in the Hallmark Hall of Fame telecast of Anastasia in 1967 two of the few rare productions in which she appeared without her husband The Lunts also starred in several radio dramas in the 1940s notably on the Theatre Guild programme Lynn Fontanne died in 1983 aged 95 from pneumonia at Ten Chimneys in Genesee Depot and was interred next to her husband at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee Wisconsin