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Alfred Lunt
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By the mid 1 920s, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were the two most respected, most popular, most critically acclaimed, and highest-paid stage actors in the country. At the height of their individual careers, they made a remarkable decision. They each took enormous pay cuts to sign on with The Theatre Guild—a fledgling company dedicated to performing new and avant-garde work by writers such as Ibsen and Shaw. The Lunts believed strongly that creating great theatre with broad impact was far more important than money. But since they were taking such large cuts in salary, they were ultimately able to put two clauses into their contracts that would profoundly affect the rest of their lives and careers.
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Alfred Lunt ( August 12 , 1892 – August 3 , 1977 ) was an American actor. Along with his wife Lynn Fontanne , who he married May 26, 1922 in New York City, was half of the pre-eminent Broadway acting couple in American history. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin , he received two Tony Award s, an Academy Award nomination ( Academy Award for Best Actor for 1931 's The Guardsman ) and an Emmy Award . He appeared with Fontanne in over 24 plays - and most recently on an American postage stamp .
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Alfred Lunt, who was born in Milwaukee and attended Carroll College, had a love of this area. He first bought a parcel of land in Genesee Depot in 1914, and in 1915, he built the first part of the Main House as a home for his family. After their marriage in 1922, Lunt and Fontanne continued to add on to the estate through the decades, deciding in 1943 to name it Ten Chimneys. You can check the Lunts' math by counting the six chimneys on the Main House, the three on the Cottage and the one on the Studio.
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From All Movie Guide: One of America's foremost stage actors, Alfred Lunt made his debut with a Boston stock company in 1912. He first set foot on a Broadway stage in 1917, and two years later scored his first significant success as the title character in Clarence. In 1922, he married British actress Lynn Fontanne, and for the next 35 years the team of Lunt and Fontanne reigned supreme along the Great White Way. Their string of stage successes included Amphytrion 38, Idiots' Delight, and The Visit, not to mention their sublime collaborations with actor/playwright Noel Coward (Private Lives, Design for Living). By nature and inclination a stage actor, Lunt made only a handful of film appearances, most of them during the silent era; one of his least characteristic film roles was in D.W. Griffith's Sally of the Sawdust, in which he played third fiddle to Carol Dempster and W.C.
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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.
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Alfred Lunt was born in Milwaukee on August 19, 1893. He began his acting career with a Boston stock company in 1912. By 1917, Lunt had made his Broadway debut. Lynn Fontanne was born in Essex, England on December 6, 1887. She began acting professionally in 1905, in London and as a member of a touring company. It was with this group that Fontanne first came to America.
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Alfred Lunt