Lynn Fontanne

Lynn Fontanne (/fɒnˈtæn/; 6 December 1887 – 30 July 1983) was a British-born American-based 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 Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre was named for them. Fontanne is regarded as one of the American theater's great leading ladies of the 20th century.

Early life

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.

Career

She drew acclaim in 1921 playing the title role in the George S. Kaufman-Marc Connelly farce, Dulcy. Dorothy Parker memorialized her performance in verse:

She soon became celebrated for her skill as an actress in high comedy, excelling in witty roles written for her by Noël Coward, S.N. Behrman, and Robert Sherwood. However, she enjoyed one of the greatest critical successes of her career as Nina Leeds, the desperate heroine of Eugene O'Neill's controversial nine-act 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 (1935–36), Idiot's 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 from stage performances in 1958. Fontanne was nominated for a Tony Award for one of her last stage roles, in The Visit (1959).

Ten Chimneys

Ten Chimneys was the home of Broadway actors Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt. The property is located in Genesee Depot in the Town of Genesee, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, United States.

Ten Chimneys was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003.

History

During their careers, the Fontanne and Lunt retreated to Ten Chimneys every summer for personal and artistic rejuvenation. A host of stage and screen luminaries made pilgrimages to Genesee Depot as guests of the Lunts, including Noël Coward, Helen Hayes, Laurence Olivier, and Vivien Leigh. Carol Channing said, “If you get to go to Ten Chimneys, you must have done something right.”

Upon retirement, the Lunts returned to Ten Chimneys and spent the rest of their lives at their beloved home in Genesee Depot.

The estate takes its name from the number of chimneys on the grounds. Buildings include a large main house, a cottage, a Swedish log cabin studio, an L-shaped pool, pool house, creamery, greenhouse, barns, stables, and other outbuildings.

Alfred Lunt

Alfred Lunt (August 12, 1892 – August 3, 1977) was an American stage director and actor, often identified for a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne. Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre was named for them. Lunt was one of 20th century Broadway's leading male stars.

Career

Lunt received two Tony Awards, an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for 1931's The Guardsman and an Emmy Award for the Hallmark Hall of Fame's production of The Magnificent Yankee.

He became a star in 1919 as the buffoonish lead in Booth Tarkington's play, Clarence, but soon distinguished himself in a variety of roles. The roles ranged from the Earl of Essex in Maxwell Anderson's Elizabeth the Queen, to a song-and-dance man touring the Balkans in Robert E. Sherwood's Idiot's Delight, a megalomaniacal tycoon in S. N. Behrman's Meteor and Jupiter himself in Jean Giraudoux's Amphitryon 38. His appearances in classical drama were infrequent, but he scored successes in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and Chekhov's The Seagull (in which Lunt played Trigorin, his wife played Arkadina, and Uta Hagen made her Broadway debut in the role of Nina). He was described by director and critic Harold Clurman as "universally acclaimed the finest American actor in the generation which followed John Barrymore; the Lunts are absolute angels."

White Cliffs of Dover

Coordinates: 51°08′N 1°22′E / 51.14°N 1.37°E / 51.14; 1.37

The White Cliffs of Dover are cliffs that form part of the English coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliffs are part of the North Downs formation. The cliff face, which reaches up to 350 feet (110 m), owes its striking façade to its composition of chalk accentuated by streaks of black flint. The cliffs spread east and west from the town of Dover in the county of Kent, an ancient and still important English port.

The cliffs have great symbolic value in Britain because they face towards Continental Europe across the narrowest part of the English Channel, where invasions have historically threatened and against which the cliffs form a symbolic guard. Because crossing at Dover was the primary route to the continent before the advent of air travel, the white line of cliffs also formed the first or last sight of England for travellers.

Location

The cliffs are located along the coastline of England between approximately 51°06′N 1°14′E / 51.100°N 1.233°E / 51.100; 1.233 and 51°12′N 1°24′E / 51.200°N 1.400°E / 51.200; 1.400. The White Cliffs are at one end of the Kent Downs designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

White Cliffs

White Cliffs is the name of several localities: