Career
She appeared in 108 films between 1914 and 1948. Emma Dunn appeared onstage in her early teens, graduating to the London stage for several years and later became a noted Broadway actress. She appeared in the first American production of Ibsen"s Peer Gynt (1906) with Richard Mansfield as Peer.
She played Peer"s mother, Ase, even though she was, in real life, 20 years younger than Mansfield.
She appeared in three productions for theatre impresario David Belasco: The Warrens of Virginia (1907), The Easiest Way (1909) and The Governor"s Lady (1912). In The Easiest Way, Dunn portrayed Annie, who was black, in blackface.
In 1913 Dunn appeared in Vaudeville. Dunn wrote two books regarding voice quality and speech: Thought Quality in the Voice (published in 1933) and You Can Do lieutenant (published in 1947).
Dunn made her first film in 1914, a silent film of her 1910 stage success, Mother, directed by Maurice Tourneur.
This was Tourneur"s first American film. Dunn"s second film was 1920"s Old Lady 31, reprising the role she played in the 1916 Broadway play of the same name.