Emma Dunn

Emma Dunn (February 26, 1875 – December 14, 1966) was an English-born American character actress on the stage and in motion pictures.

Career

Emma Dunn and Emmett Corrigan in David Belasco's production of The Governor's Lady (1912)

Emma Dunn appeared onstage in her early teens, graduating to the London stage for several years and later became a noted Broadway actress. She appeared in the first American production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt (1906) with Richard Mansfield as Peer. She played Peer's mother, Ase, even though she was, in real life, 20 years younger than Mansfield. She appeared in three productions for theatre impresario David Belasco: The Warrens of Virginia (1907), The Easiest Way (1909) and The Governor's Lady (1912). In The Easiest Way, Dunn portrayed Annie, who was black, in blackface. In 1913 Dunn appeared in vaudeville.

Dunn made her first film in 1914, a silent film of her 1910 stage success, Mother, directed by Maurice Tourneur. This was Tourneur's first American film. Dunn's second film was 1920's Old Lady 31, reprising the role she played in the 1916 Broadway play of the same name. One more silent film followed in 1924, Pied Piper Malone, before she made her talkie debut in Side Street, co-starring the Moore brothers, Matt, Owen and Tom as her sons.

Dunn wrote two books on elocution and speech: Thought Quality in the Voice (1933) and You Can Do It (1947).

Personal life

Emma Dunn with daughters Helen (left) and Dorothy (1915)

Emma Dunn was born February 26, 1875, in Birkenhead, England, although she sometimes gave her year of birth as 1883.

Dunn married actor Harry Beresford (born Harry J. Morgan) in Chicago on October 4, 1897.

They divorced on February 10, 1909, in New York City. She was awarded sole custody of their young daughter, Dorothy. On May 19, 1909, Dunn married John W. Stokes (John W. S. Sullivan), an actor, playwright and theatrical manager. They subsequently adopted a second daughter, Helen. The couple divorced sometime between 1923 and Stokes' death in 1931.

After suffering a heart attack some months before, Dunn died December 14, 1966, in Los Angeles, California, aged 91.

Theatre credits

Filmography

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