Philip Ives Dunne was a Hollywood screenwriter, film director and producer, who worked prolifically from 1932 until 1965. He spent the majority of his career at 20th Century Fox crafting well regarded romantic and historical dramas, usually adapted from another medium. Dunne was a leading Screen Writers Guild organizer. He is best known for the films How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), The Robe (1953) and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).
Dunne was born in New York City, the son of Chicago syndicated columnist and humorist Finley Peter Dunne and Margaret Ives (Abbott) Dunne, a champion golfer and the daughter of the Chicago Tribune's book reviewer and novelist, Mary Ives Abbott.
In 1947, he co-founded the Committee for the First Amendment to protest the House Un-American Activities Committee's (HUAC) investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood. He appeared before HUAC with other Hollywood figures in a well publicized meeting in October 1947.
Dunne married the former Amanda Duff (1914-2006) on July 13, 1939. They had three children, Miranda, Philippa, and Jessica.
In 1980, he published his memoirs, Take Two: A Life in Movies and Politics.
Dunne died of cancer on June 2, 1992, in Malibu, California, aged 84.
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