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From the much-admired biographer of Charlotte Brontë, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and the Barrymores (“Margot Peters is surely now . . . our foremost historian of stage make-believe”—Leon Edel), a new biography of the most famous English-speaking acting team of the twentieth century.
Individually, they were recognized as extraordinary actors, each one a star celebrated, imitated, sought after. Together, they were legend. The Lunts. A name to conjure with. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne worked together so imaginatively, so seamlessly onstage that they seemed to fuse into one person. Offstage, they brawled so famously and raucously over every detail of every performance that they inspired the musical Kiss Me, Kate. At home on Broadway, in London’s West End, touring the United States and Great Britain, and even playing “the foxhole circuit” of World War II, the Lunts stunned, moved, and mystified audiences for more than four decades. They were considered to be a rarefied taste, but when they toured Texas in the 1930s, the audience threw cowboy hats onto the stage.
Their private life was equally fascinating, as unusual as the one they led in public. Friends like the critic Alexander Woollcott (whom Edna Ferber once described as “the little New Jersey Nero who thinks his pinafore is a toga”), Noël Coward, Laurette Taylor, and Sidney Greenstreet received lifelong loyalty and hospitality. Ten Chimneys, their country home in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin, “is to performers what the Vatican is to Catholics,” Carol Channing once said. “The Lunts are where we all spring from.”
In this new biography, Margot Peters catches the magic of Lunt and Fontanne—their period, their work, their intimacy and its contradictions—with candor, delicacy, intelligence, and wit. She writes about their personal and creative choices as deftly as she captures their world, from their meeting (backstage, naturally)—when Fontanne was a young actress in the first flush of stardom and Lunt a lanky midwesterner who came in the stage door, bowed to her elaborately, lost his balance, and fell down the stairs—and the early days when an unknown and very hungry Noël Coward lived in a swank hotel in a room the size of a closet and cadged meals at their table to the telegram the famous couple once sent to a movie mogul, turning down a studio contract worth a fortune (“We can be bought, my dear Mr. Laemmle, but we can’t be bored”).
We follow the Lunts through triumphs in plays such as The Guardsman, The Taming of the Shrew, and Design for Living; through friendships and feuds; through the intricate way they worked with such playwrights and directors as S. N. Behrman, Robert Sherwood, Giraudoux, Dürrenmatt, Peter Brook, and with each other.
Margot Peters captures the gallantry of two remarkably gifted people who lived for their art and for each other. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were once described as an “amazing duet of intelligence and gaiety.” Margot Peters re-creates the fun and the fireworks.
- Sales Rank: #2033060 in Books
- Published on: 2003-10-14
- Released on: 2003-10-14
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.56" h x 1.36" w x 6.64" l, 1.60 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 416 pages
From Publishers Weekly
In 1951, Alfred Lunt revealed insecurity when he said of his acting partnership with wife Lynn Fontanne, "I hope people don't get tired of us." Peters's penetrating biography shows why Lunt's fears were groundless and why theater audiences from 1909 to 1962 relished their work, individually and together, in such productions as The Guardsman, Taming of the Shrew and Design for Living. Fontanne (1887-1983), a prot‚g‚e of Ellen Terry and Laurette Taylor, was critically applauded from the start. Lunt (1892-1977) overcame childhood scarlet fever and loss of a kidney to pursue acting. Peters portrays the pair as tempestuous beings (Lunt once screamed, in a fit of rage, "you're the rottenest actress I've ever worked with!"). Warned by Taylor that Lunt would make a terrible lover and a worse husband, Fontanne married him anyway, and they dedicated themselves to joint theatrical greatness. Peters laces her story with anecdotes about close friend No‰l Coward, self-destructive John Barrymore and others. She handles the issue of Lunt and Fontanne's bisexual marriage thoughtfully, and perceptively analyzes their acting styles. Wit abounds throughout, and Peters points out the paradox that made Lunt and Fontanne-whose marriage may have been unconsummated-generate heat onstage, as opposed to sexually active married couples who had no acting chemistry together (e.g., Burton and Taylor; Cruise and Kidman). More poignantly, she quotes Fontanne as admitting Lunt's decision to lock himself into a team prevented him from achieving full recognition of his stature. The book's blend of breezy humor, along with darker insights into complex personalities, make it a potent, provocative journey. 62 photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
As icons of the theater, few names are as illustrious as those of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Separately and together, they reigned as king and queen of the American stage for decades, revolutionizing dramatic performances with their innovative staging and delivery. From Shakespeare to Shaw to Sherwood, the Lunts had the power to revitalize classics and create new ones, and could catapult a fledgling playwright to instant fame by sheer dint of their appearances. As actors, their on-stage personas were perfection; as spouses, their off-stage lives were equally entertaining. At their beloved "Ten Chimneys" estate in rural Wisconsin, the creme de la creme of the theater world--Coward and Woollcott, Olivier and Hayes, Clift and Greenstreet--basked in the haven they provided. In a masterfully detailed examination of two very public lives, Peters reveals the behind-the-scenes chemistry that ensured their before-the-footlights success. Treating her subjects with a balanced reverence and learned recognition, Peters has penned an engrossing biography as stylish and charming as the Lunts themselves. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"A warm, witty, wise, and wondrous account of the greatest double-act in theatre history."
-Sheridan Morley
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
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By A Customer
I reviewed this book 2-3 weeks ago when it first came out. Why hasn't my review been posted?
22 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
Lovely People Exploited in Very Dubious "Biography"
By Tee
Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the greatest star couple of the American theater of the 20th century, probably of all time. Their careers span over a half century and they were beloved within their industry for their great kindness, outgoing friendliness, and awesome talent. Their private lives were quiet, scandal-free, and they seem the least possible of celebrities to write a tawdry book about which doesn't stop Ms. Margot Peters. The heart, if you can call it a heart, of this book is that this legendarily devoted couple were in fact both homosexuals and theirs was an "arranged" marriage. This is old gossip, the type that almost 100 percent of actors who make any sort of name for themselves in show business receives. Peters fails to even name a single same-sex lover of either star but doesn't stop her from pushing this theme. Among her sources: One critic overhears some teenaged bimbo in the 1950's, looking at a theater poster, saying Alfred likes guys and Lynn likes girls. Ms. Peters writes of this incident as if it was a source!! The Lunts had scores of friends, many of them gay, yet Peters cannot find a single person in the loop who acknowledges they were gay. Indeed, Ms. Peters makes the worst sort of homophobic comment when noting their gay friends as some sort of evidence this makes the Lunts gay as if straight people couldn't possibly befriend homosexuals. Nor does she acknowledge it was not really necessarily for a theater star to pretend to be straight in that era when several gay stars (among them Eva La Gallienne and the Lunts' great friend Noel Coward) were able to live in peace since the general public was not as interested in the private lives of theater greats as they were in movie stars. (And Coward's private diaries suggest nothing of any secret life going on with the Lunts which he certainly would have written about there given his other indiscreet remarks on celebrities.) Certainly if the Lunts were gay, wouldn't they spend at least some degree of their time off having romances which could have been carried off with ease, yet they were basically joined at the hip, their devotion as legendary as their talent. Reading some of Peters' comments one can reason she herself doesn't completely believe they were gay but she is not about to let that rumor go since it's a good publicity angle for the book.
And then there's the curious discreet hostility Peters has for Fontanne, yet she can come up with nothing to base this criticism like a rude diva-like personality or anything. Lunt is clearly her favorite of the duo. Worse is Peters constant arm chair psychology, following quotes by the actors with her intrepretation of what they "really" mean.
The Lunts left tragically little recorded work of their talents and sadly their legend grows a little dimmer each year. What a shame Margot Peters has chosen to taken a tabloidish spin on the private lives of two artists the likes of which the theater will likely never see again.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Where is the magic ?
By History Reader
Never having seen Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne onstage, I, like the author, Margot Peters, cannot explain what made them exceptional. Ms. Peters, whose previous book, "The House of Barrymore", is a fascinating and definitive biography of the great theatrical siblings, Ethel, Lionel and John Barrymore, disappointed this reader with her dual portrait of the Lunts.
The author thoroughly documents their triumphs, tours, friendships and quirks, yet their theatrical charm and power eludes her pen and is never found on the page.
Unlike in the previously mentioned bio, here she simply cannot capture the vitality of the times, places and people she is writing about throughout this volume. The author might have checked with Shakespeare for more insight into the truth about actors on the stage: "These our actors,/ As I foretold you, were all spirits, and/ Are melted into air, into thin air...".
I guess you had to be there during Broadway's great years to understand their alchemy.
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