The collection is comprised of both personal and production-related materials. The nearly 4,000 pieces of correspondence in the collection were written by colleagues and fans from 1930 to 1977. Also included in the collection are hundreds of newspaper clippings concerning the Lunts' personal and professional lives; reviews, playbills, and scripts from more than 50 theatrical and television productions; Lunt family letters dating from 1838; scattered financial records; unproduced scripts by renowned playwrights such as Robert Sherwood, Booth Tarkington, and Noel Coward; and more than 1,600 photographs of the Lunts both at home and on the stage.
The collection is divided into 11 series: Correspondence and Related Material; Financial; Personal Life; Productions - Theater; Productions - Television; Productions - Other; Unproduced Scripts; Scrapbooks; Films; Tape Recordings; and Photographs.
The CORRESPONDENCE AND RELATED MATERIAL series contains correspondence written to the Lunts by both fans and colleagues. An auditions file contains about 50 letters from aspiring actors and actresses requesting auditions in the years 1946-1949; the most notable among them was the 23-year-old Jean Stapleton, whom the Lunts recommended to producer Jack Wilson. The letters in the Canadian Government file concern the Lunts' 1940 trip to Canada and efforts in 1943 to get their costumes to England aboard a Canadian bomber. The file entitled “Christmas Celebrations” contains both incoming and outgoing Christmas cards from various years, plus several lists of card recipients and Christmas dinner invitees, and menus.
Also included in the series are about 75 letters received from fans and colleagues alike upon the death of Alfred Lunt in 1977. Some prominent correspondents include Buddy Ebsen, Lillian Gish, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Alan Hewitt, Raymond Massey, Lynn Redgrave, and Dorothy Stickney. In addition, there are several eulogies from the funeral. The “Fan Mail” file contains more than 200 letters from fans in both the United States and England, dating from 1934 to 1981. The file entitled “Legal” includes about 70 letters from the Lunts' lawyer and advisor Donald Seawell, dating from the 1950s and concerning tax payments, investments, and earnings abroad.
The Lunts' personal correspondence (numbering close to 2,000 incoming and 500 outgoing letters) provides a virtual “who's who” in the arts and entertainment industry in the first half of the 20th century. Letters abound from such prominent literary figures as Enid Bagnold, S.N. Behrman, John Mason Brown, Noel Coward, Edna Ferber, Terence Rattigan, Robert Sherwood, Booth Tarkington, Thornton Wilder, and Alexander Woollcott. Theater personalities such as Maxwell Anderson, Cecil Beaton, Hugh Beaumont, Russel Crouse, John Gielgud, Helen Hayes, Vivien Leigh, Howard Lindsay, Cathleen Nesbitt, Laurence Olivier, and John Wilson are represented as well. Those prominent correspondents from whom more than six letters exist are listed individually in the container list.
Perhaps the most complete correspondence (approximately equal numbers of incoming and outgoing letters) exists with Lynn's dresser Bessie Porter and with the playwright Robert Sherwood (who apparently sent the originals back to the Lunts). There is a great deal of incoming correspondence, however, from the following: Sibyl Colefax, Noel Coward, Jane and Wilfred de Glehn, Juliet Duff, Gus Eckstein, Jamie and Yvonne Hamilton, Antoinette Keith (Lynn's sister), Betty MacIlwaine, Graham Robertson, and Alexander Woollcott. Also, there are some 35 letters labeled “unidentified” by the processing archivist.
In addition, the collection contains at least one letter from the following well-known figures: George Arliss, Brooks Atkinson, J. M. Barrie, Ethel Barrymore, Billie Burke, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Charlie Chaplin, Clementine Churchill, Katherine Cornell, Joan Crawford, Freidrich Durrenmatt, Anthony Eden, Jean Girandoux, Sydney Greenstreet, Moss Hart, and Lillian Hellman. Also represented are Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Myra Hess, Hubert Humphrey, Josh Logan, Anita Loos, Groucho Marx, Margaret Mitchell, Arthur Penn, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Vincent Sheean, Sil-Vara, Margaret Sullavan, Elizabeth Taylor, Clifton Webb, and Rebecca West. These are filed alphabetically under the appropriate initial of the last name.
Also included in this series are a record book of correspondence and packages sent to England in 1948; information on the Lunts' residences in New York and Genesee Depot, Wisconsin (including a long run of letters from Ben Perkins, the farm's overseer, circa 1941-1972); material on the display of Alfred's toy theaters at the Museum of the City of New York in the late 1940s; war bond speeches delivered by the Lunts (borrowed by them from Brooks Atkinson); and correspondence labeled by the Lunts as “touch letters”--those asking for money or attempting blackmail.
The FINANCIAL series includes scattered records of car and fur purchases; several contracts from the early 1930s; an incomplete record of contributions and receipts, circa 1945-1975; letters and statements from the Guaranty Trust Company, 1940-1958; information on insurance, 1950-1967; scattered lists of investments; and a catalogue from the Marshall Ellis & Company gift house, 1950, annotated by Lynn.
The PERSONAL LIFE series contains mainly newspaper and magazine clippings on numerous aspects of the Lunts' personal life, including birthdays/anniversaries, fashion, general clippings, Genesee Depot Park, residences, and obituaries. Also included in the series are an article by Alfred entitled The Actor as Artist (undated); a 1943 address book inscribed by Laurence Olivier; certificates of awards and honors and accompanying citations and programs; Alfred's unpublished cookbook; early family letters from Alfred's father, uncles, and grandmother (1838-1869); samples of daily and weekly menus chosen by Alfred during the 1940s (written on scraps of paper); passports and identity cards; and a draft of several chapters from the Lunt biography, Stagestruck, by Maurice Zolotow.
The PRODUCTIONS - THEATER series provides an almost complete run of reviews and advertisements from the theater productions of the Lunts (both separate productions and those performed together). The first large group of clippings appears to be placed somewhat randomly; this is because the clippings were microfilmed directly from a scrapbook. They concern productions running from 1914 to 1924, excluding Clarence, which follows the scrapbook's clippings on the 1924 production Outward Bound. After Clarence, the clippings are arranged chronologically by production. In many cases, programs and/or playbills accompany the clippings within the individual production file. In addition, scripts exist for the following productions: Beverly's Balance (1915), Iphigenia in Aulis (1915), Clarence (1919), Banco (1922), Outward Bound (1924), The Guardsman (1924), The Taming of the Shrew (1935), Idiot's Delight (1936), The Pirate (1942), 0 Mistress Mine (1946), and I Know My Love (1949). Only scripts and playbills have been retained in paper form; other materials are available on microfilm only.
The PRODUCTIONS - TELEVISION series contains newspaper and magazine clippings of reviews and advertisements of television productions in which the Lunts appeared, in a manner similar to the Productions - Theater series. There is only one script, however--for Anastasia (1967)--and it reflects only the part played by Lynn. The other productions documented in the series are: The Great Sebastians (1957), The Old Lady Shows Her Medals (1963), The Magnificent Yankee (1965), and The Lunts: A Life in the Theatre (1980).
The PRODUCTIONS - OTHER series is comprised of clippings, programs, playbills, and the like for unrelated productions not covered by the other series. The file marked “Early Lunt Appearances, 1911-1915” includes broadsides and programs from productions in which Lunt appeared as a minor character. The material on The White Cliffs concerns a radio broadcast of that name delivered by Lynn in 1940, while the file marked “Cosi Fan Tutte” includes clippings and programs from the 1951 production directed by Alfred at the Metropolitan Opera. Also included is a screenplay from the 1931 movie, The Guardsman. Other unrelated and minor material is contained in the file entitled “Assorted Productions, undated.”
The UNPRODUCED SCRIPTS series contains 19 scripts submitted to the Lunts but which they neither produced nor starred in. Several were written by notable playwrights including Enid Bagnold, Noel Coward, Booth Tarkington, St. John Ervine, Maxwell Anderson, and Robert Sherwood. Also included are two plays written (in longhand) by Alfred Lunt, dating from 1900-1901.
The SCRAPBOOKS series includes the contents of three large scrapbooks --filmed in their entirety--which contain clippings of reviews, programs, playbills, and advertisements from assorted Lunt productions. Also included are clippings on the Lunts' engagement and wedding.
The FILMS series contains video cassettes of two television productions featuring Lynn Fontanne: The Lunts: A Life in the Theatre, March 7, 1980; and The Bunny Raasch Special, July 30, 1981. Also included in the series is a film of the production The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, parts 1 and 2, 1963.
The TAPE RECORDINGS series consists of ten audio tapes including the Lunts and Noel Coward with Dick Cavett, a 1941 recording of Lynn reciting The White Cliffs of Dover, Sybil Thorndike's memories of the actress Ellen Terry (undated), and a recording of the Theatre Guild's production of The Guardsman (undated).
The PHOTOGRAPHS series is comprised of more than 1,600 photographs of the internationally acclaimed theatrical couple in production and personal settings. At least 1,000 of these document thirty of their most famous productions, and also include some early character poses of Alfred (circa 1914). Many of the personal photographs are snapshots of the Lunts on numerous vacations abroad; others feature family and friends and the Lunts' home at Genesee Depot. Also, there are a limited number of photographs of Lynn's family, circa 1880-1900, Alfred's toy theaters, and autographed photos from friends.
Most of the clippings were discarded after the collection was microfilmed, and are therefore available only in microfilm form.
