Wisconsin-Born Actor Alfred Lunt Was Born This Week In 1892

Alfred Lunt, one-half of one of the most well-known and highly regarded stage actors of the 20th century, was born this week on Aug. 12,1892 in Milwaukee.

Lunt’s father died when he was 2 years old, and he grew up with a theater-loving mother named Harriet who took him to see shows whenever they came to town. When Lunt was 7 years old, his mother remarried a physician who instilled in Lunt a lifelong love of opera.

Lunt went to Carroll College at the insistence of his mother, who ran a boarding house nearby. Lunt began performing in college in theater productions and in comedy routines while also cooking for his mother’s tenants. Lunt never lost his love of cooking, as the above image attests.

The actor never finished college and later received an honorary degree from Carroll College in 1930. In his third year, he transferred to Boston’s Emerson College of Oratory, but was hired almost immediately as an actor.

It was on the stage that he met his wife, Lynn Fontanne, a British-born, American-based actress, according to the New York Times. The two married in 1922.

With money inherited from his father, Lunt bought land in Genessee Depot, Wisconsin and built a home for his family in the 1910s. After he married Fontanne, Lunt remodeled the house and converted the chicken coop into a cottage for the Lunts to live in when they weren’t on stage. The two moved into the main house, Ten Chimneys, in the 1930s.

Lunt and Fontanne insisted they only act together, and by the mid-1920s they were two of the highest-paid actors in the country. The couple also insisted on having the summers off so they could relax in Wisconsin.

Lunt had a huge garden at Ten Chimneys where he grew vegetables, flowers and fruit. The tomatoes in the above image likely came from his garden.

The Lunts retired from the stage in 1960, spending all their time at their beloved Wisconsin home. Lunt died in 1977 at age 84.