Lynn Fontanne

@Actresses, Timeline and Childhood

Lynn Fontanne was an American actress born in Britain who spent most of her acting career in the United States

Dec 6, 1887

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Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: December 6, 1887
  • Died on: July 30, 1983
  • Nationality: British, American
  • Famous: Film & Theater Personalities, Actresses, Theater Personalities
  • Spouses: Alfred Lunt
  • Known as: Lillie Louise Fontanne
  • Birth Place: Woodford, London, England, UK

Lynn Fontanne born at

Woodford, London, England, UK

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Birth Place

She married Alfred Lunt on May 26, 1922 but remained childless.

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Personal Life

After Lynn Fontanne and her husband retired from the stage in 1958, the ‘Globe Theater’ was renamed the ‘Lunt-Fontanne Theater’ in their honor.

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Personal Life

Lynn Fontanne died of pneumonia on July 30, 1983 at Genesee Depot, Wisconsin, USA at the age of 95.

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Personal Life

Lynn Fontanne was born Lillie Louise Fontanne in Woodford, Essex, England on December 6, 1887. Her father was a French brass type founder named Jules Pierre Antoine Fontanne and her mother was an Irishwoman Frances Ellen Thornley. She had two sisters.

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Childhood & Early Life

At the age of 10, she decided to become an actress after watching a country play in Woodford.

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Childhood & Early Life

In 1902, at the age of 15, she started taking acting lessons from a great Shakespearean actress named Ellen Terry.

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Childhood & Early Life

In 1903 she and Ellen Terry toured the country with the play ‘Alice Sit by the Fire’.

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Childhood & Early Life

She debuted as a professional actress in 1909 in the pantomime ‘Cinderella’ staged at the Drury Lane Theater, London.

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Career

In 1910 she made her debut appearance on the New York stage in the play ‘Mr. Preedy and the Countess’ at the ‘39th Street Theater’.

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Career

She acted in the ‘The Harp of Life’ on the New York stage in 1916 and also in ‘Out There’, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ and in George S. Kaufman’s ‘Someone in the House’.

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Career

In 1919 after completing a run on Kaufman and Marc Connelly’s ‘Dulcy’, she met Alfred Lunt at the backstage of the ‘New Amsterdam Theater’. They got married three years later and appeared together for the first time in 1923 in the play ‘Sweet Nell of Drury Lane’.

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Career

In 1924 both of them appeared in the play ‘The Guardsman’ which was a huge success and ran on the Broadway for 40 weeks.

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Career

Lynn Fontanne was nominated for the ‘Academy Award for the Best Actress’ in 1931 for ‘The Guardsman’.

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Awards & Achievements

She received the ‘Medal for Diction’ from the ‘American Academy of Arts and Letters’ in November, 1935.

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Awards & Achievements

She was awarded a ‘Doctor of Letters’ degree by the ‘Russell Sage College’ and a ‘Doctor of Humane Letters’ from the universities of New York, Yale and Dartmouth in 1950.

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Awards & Achievements

In 1959 she was nominated for ‘Tony Award’ for ‘Best Actress’ for her role in ‘The Visit’.

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Awards & Achievements

Lynn and Alfred received the ‘United States Freedom Medal’ Prize’ from President Johnson in 1964.

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Awards & Achievements