The Guest List

Whether before a Ten Chimneys’ tour or after, you are invited to take a peek at those who have gone before you. Although it doesn’t include all of the Lunts’ lucky guests, this guestbook provides a look into the glamorous world of Broadway’s best kept secret.

Cecil Beaton

January 14, 1904 - January 18, 1980

• British Designer, Performer, and Photographer
• Designed sets and costumes for Quadrille
• Tony Award winner in 1955, 1957, 1960, and 1970 for Best Costume Design
• Knighted by the queen in 1972.

S.N. Behrman

 

June 9, 1893 - September 9, 1973

• Producer and Writer
• Adapted Amphitryon 38 from the book
• Co-produced There Shall Be No Night
• Wrote I Know My Love
• His plays, The Pirate and Waterloo Bridge were adapted into feature films

David Belasco

 

July 25, 1853 - May 14, 1931

• Producer, Writer, Director, Theater Owner and Operator
• Called “The Bishop of Broadway”
• Known for detailed, spectacular stage settings and inventiveness in stage lighting

George Bugbee

 

September 2, 1904 - August 4, 1995

• Husband of Alfred’s Sister, Karin
• Widely regarded as the father of modern hospital administration
• In 1967, he and his wife moved to the Cottage to live with and help care for the Lunts.
• Until his death in 1995, George remained committed to protecting and preserving Ten Chimneys.

"I admired Alfred very much and thought of him with respect, as if he were a member of another generation. He and Lynn were the outstanding actors of their time. Lynn, who was as talented as Alfred, said in her opinion he could have been a great artist, had he so chosen. 'Ten Chimneys,' the name they gave their Genesee Depot home, clearly supports that opinion. I now live in a museum in a park because of their talents and good taste." George Bugbee

George Burns

 

January 20, 1896 - March 9, 1996

• Prolific actor, writer, singer, comedian, producer and author
• Burns and Allen were a comedy team from 1923-1958
• Won an Academy Award in 1976 for The Sunshine Boys
• Died the age of 100

"When Alfred died, George Burns and I were touring and Lynnie called and said, 'Alfred is gone,' and George who knew them well got on the phone and told her to stay at Ten Chimneys, sit in Alfred's favorite chair and if you miss him too much, sleep on his side of the bed. This is what he did when Gracie passed away. He said people will tell you to get away, but stay where you feel closest to him. Lynnie later told me that was the best advice she received." Carol Channing

Dick Cavett

 

• Performer
• Interviewed the Lunts multiple times on his TV show,The Dick Cavett Show
• Has been nominated for eleven Emmy Awards and has won three

Carol Channing

 

• Performer
• Tony Award winner in 1964 for Hello Dolly!
• Tony Lifetime Achievement Award winner in 1995
• Met the Lunts in 1949 while “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” was being cast

"There is a peculiar feeling for actors or anybody in the theatre that when you went to Ten Chimneys you had done something right. You had died and gone to heaven. You were home."

"Ten Chimneys was actually more home to me than my own home."

"One of my favorite places was to sit by the stove as Alfred cooked." Carol Channing

Charlie Chaplin

 

April 16, 1889 - December 25, 1977

• Performer
• Best known for his “Little Tramp” character in the silent film industry
• Knighted by the queen in 1975
• www.charliechaplin.com

Montgomery Clift

 

October 17, 1920 - July 23, 1966

• Performer
• Performed in There Shall Be No Night with the Lunts
• Admired the Lunts, especially Alfred. Was said to imitate Alfred’s style and artistry

"Alfred taught me how to select. Acting is an accumulation of subtle details. And the details of Alfred Lunt's performances were like the observations of a great novelist - like Samuel Butler or Marcel Proust." Montgomery Clift

Marc Connelly

 

December 13, 1890 - December 21, 1980

• Writer, Director, Performer
• Co-Wrote Dulcy with George S. Kaufman.
• Pulitzer Prize winner in 1930 for Green Pastures

Noël Coward

 

December 16, 1899 - March 26, 1973

• Producer, Writer, Lyricist, Composer, Director, Performer
• Tony Award winner in 1970
• Wrote comedy “Design for Living” for Alfred, Lynn, and himself
• www.noelcoward.net (Noël Coward Society)

"They really are the most extraordinary couple. They are sweet and warm and friendly…I love and admire them both so much." Noël Coward

Joan Crawford 

March 23, 1905 – May 10, 1977

• Dancer, Performer
• Won a 1946 Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Mildred Peirce
• Accepted the Lunts’ 1965 Emmy Award for The Magnificent Yankee on their behalf

Laura Hope Crews

 

December 12, 1879 - November 13, 1942

• Director, Performer
• Acted opposite Alfred Lunt in Her Husband’s Wife andRomance and Arabella
• Became famous for her role as Aunt Pittypat in Gone with the Wind

Edna Ferber

 

August 15, 1885 - April 16, 1968

• Novelist and Playwright
• Pulitzer Prize winner in 1924 for So Big
• Labeled by critics as the greatest American woman novelist of her day
• So Big and Giant were turned into films
• Raised in Appleton, WI

Joseph W. Garton

 

August 17, 1946 - August 2, 2003

Ten Chimneys Foundation President and Founder from 1997 to 2003.

Joe Garton was a scholar whose expertise ranged from food to public policy to peace. He graduated from Sheboygan North High School where he was involved in the arts and was a competitive swimmer. He graduated from Amherst College in Amherst, MA. He took a year off from his studies there and became one of the country’s early VISTA volunteers in Harlem.

Following his graduation from Amherst he earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Massachusetts. Then he and wife, Deirdre, opened and managed an art gallery in Amherst, before moving to Manhattan where he earned masters and doctorate degrees in cinema studies from New York University. He taught film history in Wisconsin museums and for the University of Wisconsin Extension after returning to his home state.

Many viewed him as the consummate arts volunteer, but his business acumen was key to the success of the many projects in which he was involved. Joe restored an 1850’s farm house and grounds in the town of Fitchburg and opened Quivey’s Grove restaurant, in 1980. The preservation and restoration of Ten Chimneys, was his most recent public success. Garton received a Governor’s Award in Support of the Arts for his successful efforts to restore Ten Chimneys and for establishing a foundation to sustain it.

At the time of his cancer diagnosis, Garton was training for a competitive master’s swimming endurance competition in Hawaii. As a peace activist, Garton led silent vigils on Sunday mornings in Madison during the winter of 2003. In July, the New York Times described him as “a persistent restaurateur from Madison,” in an article about Ten Chimneys. Joe Garton passed away on August 2nd, 2003 leaving a legacy of humor, civility, and style.

Wilfred & Jane de Glehn

 

• Artists who painted the portraits of Lynn Fontanne (and her sister, Antoinette) that hang at Ten Chimneys
• Wilfred was a British impressionist painter who focused on landscape and figural representation
• Jane was an American painter who married Wilfred 1904
• Contemporaries and friends of John Singer Sargent

Sydney Greenstreet

 

December 27, 1879 - January 18, 1954

• Performer
• Acted with the Lunts in Taming of the Shrew, Idiot’s Delight, Amphitryon 38, Sea Gull, and There Shall Be No Night
• Made his film debut as Kasper Guttman in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Uta Hagen

 

June 12, 1919 - January 14, 2004

• Writer, Performer, and Teacher
• Tony Award winner in 1951 and 1963
• Tony Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999
• Debuted as Nina in The Sea Gull with the Lunts
• Ten Chimneys Foundation National Advisory Board member until her death in 2004

"The Lunts were among the most influential people in my life, and I still hold them up as shining examples to all my young colleagues." Uta Hagen

Julie Harris

 

December 2, 1925 - August 24, 2013

• Performer
• Tony Award winner in 1952, 1956, 1969, 1973, 1977
• Tony Lifetime Achievement Award winner in 2002
• Is the most honored performer in Tony history with 10 nominations and 5 victories
• First met the Lunts during auditions for I Know My Love
• Acted opposite Lynn in the TV version of Anastasia

"The Lunts were magic, and I have never, never found anyone quite like them again."

"The Lunts were not only great actors, but they were great human beings. And their home, Ten Chimneys, should be preserved and taken care of for all time because it speaks of graciousness, of wonderful work, of extraordinary effort and beauty. We need those memories to spur us on into the 21st century." Julie Harris

Rosemary Harris

 

• Performer
• Performed as Lynn in April 13, 2002 premiere of Noël & Alfred & Lynn by Barry Day (Chicago Humanities Festival)
• Tony Award nominee in 2000 for Waiting in the Wings

Helen Hayes

 

October 10, 1900 - March 17, 1993

• Producer, Performer
• Cast in Clarence
• Tony Award winner in 1947 for Happy Birthday and in 1958 for Time Remembered
• Tony Award Lawrence Langner Memorial Award recipient in 1980
• www.helenhayes.com

"The Lunts were my friends. They were my idols, my teachers, my mentors. I think of all the lucky things that happened to me in my life in the theatre, the Lunts were the luckiest." Helen Hayes

Katharine Hepburn

 

May 12, 1907 - June 29, 2003

• Performer
• Known as “The First Lady of Cinema”
• Academy Award winner in 1932, 1967, 1968, and 1981
• Is the only 4-time Oscar recipient for acting
• Received 2 Tony Award nominations in 1970 and 1982
• www.katharinehepburntheater.org

"Every time I was visiting with the Lunts in Genesee Depot I was in a sort of daze of wonder; the dining room, the table, the china, the silver, the food, the extraordinary care and beauty and taste…a sort of dream, a vision." Katharine Hepburn

Hal Holbrook

 

• Director, Performer
• Tony Award winner in 1966 for Mark Twain Tonight.
• Received 5 Emmy Awards
• Made his film debut in 1966 in The Group
• Ten Chimneys Foundation National Advisory Board member

George S. Kaufman

 

November 16, 1889 - June 2, 1961

• Writer, Director, Performer
• Co-Wrote Dulcy with Marc Connelly, a play for Lynn Fontanne.
• Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner

Lillie Langtry

 

October 13, 1853 - February 12, 1929

• Vaudeville Performer
• Acted with Alfred in the melodrama Ashes which opened in San Francisco in 1916

Vivien Leigh

 

November 5, 1913 - July 7, 1967

• Performer
• Married to Laurence Olivier
• Academy Award winner in 1939 for Gone With the Wind and in 1951 for A Street Car Named Desire
• Tony Award winner in 1963 for Tovarich

Per Lysne

 

December 8, 1880 - September 21, 1947

• Credited with inspiring the American Revival of Rosemaling (A Scandinavian style of carved or painted decoration (as on furniture or walls or dinnerware) consisting of floral motifs) in the 1930s
• When his business as a wagon painter in Stoughton, Wisconsin slowed during the Depression he began to rosemal, thus inspiring a revival of the art form

Syrie Maugham

 

July 10, 1879 - July 25, 1955

• Interior Designer
• Known for white on white room designs

W. Somerset Maugham

 

January 25, 1874 - December 16, 1965

• English writer
• Famous dramatist, novelist, and short-story writer
• Married to interior designer Syrie Maugham from 1916-1927

Sir Laurence Olivier

 

May 22, 1907 - July 11, 1989

• Producer, Composer, Director, Designer, Performer
• Tony Award Nominee in 1958 for The Entertainer
• First saw “and worshipped” Lynn and Alfred in 1929 in Caprice
• Was said to emulate the Lunts on stage with his wife, Vivien Leigh
• Knighted by the queen in 1947
• Is interred in Westminster Abbey in London, England
• www.laurenceolivier.com

"Everything I know about acting I learned from Alfred Lunt." Sir Laurence Olivier

Margot Peters

 

• Author of the 2003 biography of the Lunts, Design For Living: Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (Knopf 2003).

• Author of eight books, including: Unquiet Soul: A Biography of Charlotte Brontë, The House of Barrymore, Mrs. Pat: The Life of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and May Sarton: A Biography.

May Nickell Rankin

 

• Instrumental in developing a curriculum for the Department of Oratory and Dramatic Literature at Carroll Academy and College in Waukesha, Wisconsin
• Alfred Lunt acted in 12 plays under Miss Rankin’s direction

William Seale

 

• Historian and Architectural Restorationist, Writer
• Consultant for restoration of interior collections at Ten Chimneys
• Other restoration projects include Michigan, Kentucky, and Georgia State Capitols, Ohio Supreme Court, George Eastman House, and others

"I can think of no project more unique than Ten Chimneys, nor any that provides so penetrating a look into important - and too often neglected - elements of our cultural heritage." William Seale

Hattie Sederholm

 

• Mother of Alfred Lunt
• Nurtured Alfred’s love of theatre from an early age
• Learned of Alfred and Lynn’s marriage through the telegraphed message, “Have made an honest woman of Lynn”
• Was known to charm Alexander Woollcott

Robert E. Sherwood

 

April 4, 1896 - November 14, 1955

• Writer, Performer, Producer
• Wrote Reunion in Vienna, Idiot’s Delight, and There Shall Be No Night, which he also co-produced
• Academy Award winner in 1946 for the script of The Best Years of Our Lives
• Pulitzer Prize winner in 1936, 1939, 1941, and 1949

Booth Tarkington

 

July 29, 1869 - May 19, 1946

• Writer, Playwright
• Wrote Clarence for Alfred Lunt

Laurette Taylor

 

April 1, 1884 - December 7, 1946

• Performer
• Friend and mentor to Lynn Fontanne early in her career
• One of the brightest stars on Broadway
• Completed three films in the early 1920s

Ellen Terry

 

February 27, 1848 - July 23, 1928

• Producer, Performer
• Britain’s leading Shakespearean actress of her time
• Mentored Lynn Fontanne early in her career
• Received the Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1925

Dick Van Patten

 

December 9, 1928 - June 23,2015

• Performer, and Stage Manager
• Befriended and taught by Alfred Lunt
• Performed with the Lunts in O Mistress Mine
• Has had a prolific television and cinematic career, performing in 7 television series and 24 feature films
• Is honored with his own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame

"I went back there several years ago with my wife after they [the Lunts] were gone. It was a great experience; I was just as in awe of the place then as when I was there at 16." Dick Van Patten

Richard Whorf

 

June 4, 1906 - December 14, 1966

• Designer, Performer
• Performed with the Lunts in Taming of the Shrew,Idiot’s Delight, Amphitryon 38, Sea Gull, and There Shall Be No Night
• Tony Award winner in 1954 for his costume designs for Ondine, directed by Alfred Lunt

Claggett Wilson

 

1887-1952

• Designer, Painter
• Set and Costume Designer for The Taming of the Shrew
• Painted interior murals at Ten Chimneys

Alexander Woollcott

 

January 19, 1887 - January 23, 1943

• Writer, Director, Performer, Theatre Critic for New York Times
• One of the best known journalists of his time
• Exerted a great influence on popular tastes in literature and theatre
• In addition to his columns in The New York Timesand The New York World, Woollcott hosted Town Crier, a weekly radio show which ran from 1929-1942