After the success of The Awful Truth, she was paired with Cary Grant, her co-star in that movie, two further times; in another screwball comedy, My Favorite Wife (1940), and in the melodrama Penny Serenade (1941).

She received numerous awards for her philanthropy, including honorary doctorates, a Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, and a papal knighthood—Dame of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.

[12] On a New York vacation to visit family friends, she was recommended to audition for a stage musical,[20] eventually starring as the leading role in the popular play Irene,[12] which toured major cities as a roadshow throughout 1921.

[47][48] Starring as Magnolia Hawks in a road company adaptation of Show Boat was the result of a chance meeting with its director Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.[Note 5] in an elevator the day she returned from her honeymoon,[50] when he mistook her for his next potential client, eventually sending his secretary to chase after her.

[20][Note 6] A talent scout for RKO Pictures attended a performance,[12] and Dunne signed the studio's contract, appearing in her first movie, Leathernecking (1930),[53] an adaptation of the musical Present Arms.

[54] Already in her 30s when she made her first film, she would be in competition with younger actresses for roles, and found it advantageous to evade questions that would reveal her age, so publicists encouraged the belief that she was born in 1901 or 1904;[5][55] the former is the date engraved on her tombstone.

"[59] Other dramas included Back Street (1932)[60] and No Other Woman (1933);[61] for Magnificent Obsession (1935),[62] she reportedly studied Braille and focused on her posture with blind consultant Ruby Fruth.

[72] Dunne had concerns about Whale's directing decisions,[73] but she later admitted that her favorite scene to film was "Make Believe" with Allan Jones because the blocking reminded her of Romeo and Juliet.

[75] She was apprehensive about attempting her first comedy role as the title character in Theodora Goes Wild (1936),[76] but discovered that she enjoyed the production process,[77] and received her second Best Actress Oscar nomination for the performance.

[87] Love Affair was such an unexpected critical and financial success that the rest of Dunne and Boyer's films were judged against it;[88][89] When Tomorrow Comes was considered the most disappointing of the "trilogy,"[90][89] and the advertising for Together Again promoted the actors' reunion more than the movie.

[111] Dunne openly disliked Vinnie's ditziness and had rejected Life with Father numerous times,[112] eventually taking the role because "it seemed to be rewarding enough to be in a good picture that everyone will see.

"[113] For I Remember Mama, Dunne worked on her Norwegian accent with dialect coach Judith Sater,[114] and wore body padding to appear heavier;[30][115] Marta Hanson was her fifth and final Best Actress nomination.

[30] On the radio, she and Fred MacMurray respectively played a feuding editor and reporter of a struggling newspaper in the 52-episode comedy-drama Bright Star, which aired in syndication between 1952 and 1953 by the Ziv Company.

[127] Dunne's last acting credit was in 1962, but she was once rumored to star in unmaterialized movies named Heaven Train[128] and The Wisdom of the Serpent,[129] and rejected an offer to cameo in Airport '77.

[134] She accepted Walt Disney's offer to present at Disneyland's "Dedication Day" in 1955, and christened the Mark Twain Riverboat with a bottle containing water from several major rivers across the United States.

[155][156] She established an African American school for Los Angeles,[157] negotiated donations to St. John's through box office results,[158][159] and Hebrew University Rebuilding Fun's sponsors committee.

[164] Dunne also donated to refurbishments in Madison, Indiana, funding the manufacture of Camp Louis Ernst Boy Scout's gate in 1939[165] and the Broadway Fountain's 1976 restoration.

"[187] Her large input in politics created an assumption that she was a member of the "Hollywood right-wing fringe," which Dunne denied, calling herself "foolish" for being involved years before other celebrities did.

[188] Dunne's favorite family vacations were riverboat rides and parades, later recalling a voyage from St. Louis to New Orleans,[189] and watching boats on the Ohio River from the hillside.

On observing life behind the scenes of a typical day of filming in Hollywood, Jimmie Fidler noted, "There is something about Irene Dunne that makes every man in the room unconsciously straighten his tie.

[221] A family friend described their dynamic as "like two pixies together,"[191] and they remained married until Griffin's death on October 14, 1965,[222][223] living in the Holmby Hills in a "kind of French Chateau"[224] they designed.

"[220] Due to Dunne's privacy,[Note 13] Hollywood columnists struggled to find scandals to write about her—an eventual interview with Photoplay included the disclaimer, "I can guarantee no juicy bits of intimate gossip.

[251][252][253][254] After I Remember Mama was released, Liberty magazine hoped she would "do a Truman" at the 1949 Oscars[255] whereas Erskine Johnson called her and Best Actor nominee Montgomery Clift the dark horses of that ceremony.

"[260][261] Although known for her comedic roles, Dunne admitted that she never saw comedy as a worthy genre, even leaving the country to attend the London premiere of Show Boat[262] with her husband and James Whale to get away from being confronted with a script for Theodora Goes Wild.

"[17] Her screwball comedy characters have been praised for their subversions to the traditional characterisation of female leads in the genre, particularly Susan (Katharine Hepburn) in Bringing Up Baby and Irene (Carole Lombard) in My Man Godfrey.

In his review for My Favorite Wife, Bosley Crowther wrote that a "mere man is powerless" to "her luxurious and mocking laughter, her roving eyes and come-hither glances.

"[265] Maria DiBattista points out that Dunne is the "only comic actress working under the strictures of the Production Code" who ends both of her screwball movies alongside Cary Grant with a heavy implication of sharing a bed with him, "under the guise of keeping him at bay.

"[268] On the blatant eroticism of the same train scene, Megan McGurk wrote, "The only thing that allowed this film to pass the censors was that good-girl Irene Dunne can have a one-night stand with a random because she loves him, rather than just a once-off fling.

"[269] The Los Angeles Times referred to Dunne's publicity in their obituary as trailblazing, noting her as one of the first actors to become a freelancer in Hollywood during its rigid studio system through her "non-exclusive contract that gave her the right to make films at other studios and to decide who should direct them,"[75] and her involvement with the United Nations as a decision that allowed entertainers from movies and television to branch out into philanthropy and politics, such as Ronald Reagan and George Murphy.

"[77] Lucille Ball admitted at an American Film Institute seminar that she based her comedic skills on Dunne's performance in Joy of Living,[271] Joan Leslie called her an "outstanding example as a woman and a star.