The Fabulous Lunts

by Jared Brown

They were the king and queen of the American theater, embodying all the cliché of the successful acting couple--tempermental, professional, argumentative, competitive, rebellious, ingenious, on-stage magic, offstage magical. Much like the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, they allowed few accesses to reality, draping themselves in the comforting robes of theatrical royalty. Theater historian Brown is a fan of Lunt and Fontanne, and thus ignores the warts and focuses on the beauty. The 512-page text contains all the data that's available about the Lunts--that they performed the most varied and difficult of works, from Ferenc Molnar's The Guardsman to Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit; that they practically brought the Theater Guild to life by themselves. You appreciate their relationship with Noel Coward and the works that this friendship spawned. But you never really get to know the people. And with these allegedly intimate biographies (especially those written with full family cooporation a