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Deanna Durbin and

By Sonia Sarró

fortune. By the way, same as Deanna helped at
the Hollywood Canteen,the Lunts volunteered
at the Stage Door Canteen.

Well, the story goes that in 1935 Lunt and
Fontanne were staging and performing in
Broadway their own production of
Shakespeare´s Taming of the Shrew. With all
its verbal and physical battle of sexes
fireworks in action, and -not unsurprisingly for
Each movie has its own story. Let´s learn the a living-and-working-together couple- some
one about Kiss Me Kate (1953) and its offstage riffs-raffs too. This became Arnold
connection to Deanna Durbin. Let´s pull the Saint Subber, their stage manager, inspiration
thread. for a different point of view on Shakespeare´s
play. Years later (pressed by his friend
Once there were two actors who became Montgomery Clift, whom the Lunts were also
famous because they not only got married, but fond of) he wrote a script, and hired Samuel
also took the decision of working together. and Bella Spewack, another married couple
Their names were Alfred Lunt and Lynn working together, to rewrite the classic story
Fontanne. They met at a Summer stock about a determined woman and an even more
company touring the States and married in determined man that Shakespeare had created.
1922. They became known for their sparkling They asked Cole Porter to join them and write
delivery of witty dialogues, as much for their the music and songs. The plot: a couple of
personalities. They were a legendary couple, divorced actors reunite to play Shakespeare´s
shining especially in comedies for their timing, Taming of the Shrew. A play inside a play.
often overlapping each other. Since they And so, Kiss Me Kate was born.
decided to always perform together, audiences
had many chances to see them onstage, and That´s the reason why the character names are
they loved them. Fred (after Alfred Lunt) and Lilli Vanessi (as
Lynn Fontanne birth name was in fact Lillie
Louise). (One also wonders if the Lola Lane
character has anything to do with Superman´s
favorite bold reporter).
Now we jump to December 1948, when Kiss
Me Kate was premièred first at the Shubert
Theatre in Philadelphia and after a couple of
weeks at Broadway´s New Century Theatre,
Such qualities easily explain why they made starring Alfred Drake as Fred and Patricia
good friends with Noël Coward, who would Morison as Lilli. With its songs integrated into
write Design for Living (1933) expressly for the plot instead of inserted apart, it was
them, the three taking the leading roles. They instantly a huge success. Saint Subber would
had committed to do so some 10 years earlier, become a theatrical producer and Cole Porter
when all of them were striving for fame and had his longest running stage hit.

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