LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Alfred Lunt: Living
built 238 days ago
Stage actor Alfred Lunt makes one of his rare screen appearances in this light comedy, based on the novel by Allen Updegraff. Rowland Farwell Francis (Lunt) is a retiring silk salesman at a department store. His reticent demeanor doesn't stop his widowed landlady, Mrs. Benson (Jobyna Howland) and his stenographer from considering him to be husband material. These women don't get Francis' attention... -- and he falls for the wealthy Anne Winton (Mimi Palmeri), who he meets over the silk counter. Of course, he's too shy to do anything about it, and hat's the way it would probably have stayed if Anne's brother-in-law hadn't dared her to invite a man out to supper. She takes the dare and shows Francis such a good time that he becomes an aggressive and virile lover who wins her heart.
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After two years at Carroll College, Lunt transferred to Emerson College in Boston, but he attended only briefly before joining the repertory company of the Castle Square Theatre. He made his professional debut in their production of A. Baldwin Stone and Frederic Ranken's The Gingerbread Man.
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W[H]en the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, long a shining light of New York City’s legendary Broadway theater district, was recently renovated, there was a rich history to preserve. A National Historic Landmark building, the Lunt-Fontanne is the only remaining theater built by famed architects Carrere & Hastings.
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When relaxing, they retreated in high style to their country manor in Lunt's home state, Wisconsin, where he could cook and redecorate to his heart's content while she sewed her ultra-chic clothes. But they seldom stayed long; the theater was their true home. Both were relentless perfectionists who refined their performances long after opening night, though in the 1950s critics began to carp that they were squandering their talents in trivial vehicles.
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At the time, Clift was in a gay relationship, and Lunt worried that Clift's career might suffer if that fact became known. The Lunts' "parental" advice to Clift was to marry a young actress, Phyllis Thaxter, and to establish themselves as an acting team, as Lunt and Fontanne had done.
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No one ever questioned their lifelong devotion, though insiders assumed that the offstage union of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne was a "white marriage" between a gay man and a bisexual woman. Peters seems to agree, though she never comes right out and says so, respecting the reticence of a more discreet age.
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