From the Ancient Roman myths of Romulus and Remus to such reality TV “favorites” as Jon & Kate Plus 8, multiple births have fascinated folks for millennia. In the early 20th century, interest in childbirth and medical science gave rise to the display of “incubator babies” at fairs and boardwalk exhibits. These twin crazes may have reached their zenith on May 28, 1934, with the arrival of Canada’s Dionne Quintuplets. Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie were the first known set of five siblings to survive infancy (a sixth sister miscarried early in the pregnancy). Last month’s passing of Cécile Dionne at age 91 means Annette is the only living quint.
Born to a poor farming family in central Ontario, the girls became a global sensation within days of their delivery by Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and two midwives. In July of 1934 a guardianship bill was passed which essentially made them wards of the Crown until they were 18. A special hospital compound across from the Dionne farmhouse was constructed by the Canadian Red Cross. Along with a nine-room nursery and a staff house, the facility–which was surrounded by barbed wire and under police guard–had an outdoor playground which doubled as a public observation area. Meawhile, the girls’ parents sold souvenirs and signed photos in a nearby shop known as “Quintland.”
An estimated 3,000 visitors per day came to Ontario to see the miracle babies. Among them were such Tinseltown notables as James Cagney, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, James Stewart, and Mae West. With all this built-in publicity, it’s no surprise that movie studios were knocking on the Dionnes’ door. It was 20th Century-Fox who came away with a signed contract and big plans to feature the infants in a fictionalized biodrama starring Will Rogers as the physician who delivers them. Sadly, Rogers would die in August of 1935 in a plane crash near Barrow, Alaska, alongside aviator Wiley Post.
To take his place, Fox cast veteran actor Jean Hersholt–now best-known for the humanitarian Academy Award given annually in his name–to play the fictitious Dr. John Luke. As the parents of the Quintuplets–renamed the Wyatts–they went with John Qualen (Norwegian freedom fighter Berger in Casablanca) and Aileen Carlyle. And because everything has to be changed in Hollywood, the locale shifted from Ontario to Quebec.
Filming the quints at the Dionnes’ home and the neighboring hospital was done in daily 45-minute sessions, under the watchful eye of Dr. Dafoe, who had become their de facto guardian. Rather than have the infants do anything specific to the story, they were left alone to behave as toddlers do and photographed documentary-style. Let’s face it, everyone loves to watch babies just being themselves (I know my 89-year-old mother can’t get enough of “diaper derby” races on YouTube).
Released in March of 1936, The Country Doctor focuses more on Hersholt’s titular Dr. Luke than his celebrated patients, who don’t appear until much later in the film. Set in a remote lumber town, the story follows the physician’s struggle with provincial authorities to make the local timber company fund a proper hospital. The greedy timber firm reveals that Luke has been practicing medicine without a license, making him a pariah. Things change when lumber mill worker Asa Wyatt (Qualen)’s wife goes into labor and Luke, pressed into service despite a police warning, realizes he’s facing an unprecedented multiple delivery. Five healthy baby girls later, the good doctor is hailed nationwide and plans are announced for the community hospital.
It’s a very low-key and at times hokey melodrama, but it gave audiences just what they wanted to see (to paraphrase The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, when the legend becomes fact, film the legend). The Country Doctor went on gross over $4.5 million on its $650,000 budgets and was among the top 30 box office hits of 1936. Its popularity led Fox to follow up with an immediate sequel released just eight months later.
Reunion continued the saga of Dr. Luke, who is being honored for his years of service (often unlicensed service, but still…) to the quaint Quebecois hamlet of Moosetown with a gathering of the many children (3,000 in all) he helped bring into the world. Along with the returning Hersholt and Qualen, the Dionne girls–now in their “terrible twos”–were back, once again filmed on location at their Red Cross-run nursery.
Fearing that moviegoers may have had their fill of the quints thanks to their regularly popping up in newsreels, the scriptwriters came up with several soap opera-style subplots to fill out the proceedings. One such story deals with Dr. Luke’s first delivery, who is now a governor (Alan Dinehart) facing a tight re-election race. Another of his “babies,” actress Janet Fair (Esther Ralston), plans to use the event as a publicity stunt. And then there’s Wyatt’s neighbor, constable Jim Ogden (Slim Summerville), who tries to outdo him by announcing his wife is expecting sextuplets (she isn’t). With all these goings on at times pushing the Dionnes to the periphery, Reunion wound up taking in only about one-third of its predecessor’s total.
The Dionne Quintuplets made their third and final feature appearance for Fox two years later, in a 1938 comedy aptly titled Five of a Kind. Once again the girls’ antics are background material, with the movie concentrating more on Duke Lester (Cesar Romero) and Christine Nelson (Claire Trevor), rival New York reporters constantly trying to trick and out-scoop one another. When Christine goes to a movie theater and watches a Fox Movietone newsreel (!) about the Wyatt quints, she convinces a newspaper to send her and an assistant north of the border to launch a series of exclusive radio interviews with the family.
Duke hatches a scheme to get the women arrested in Canada, but they manage to win over Hersholt’s Dr. Luke. The radio programs are a success, so much so that a doctor (Henry Wilcoxon) seeks Nelson’s help in raising funds for an orphanage he runs. Lester tries to derail things with a phony story about sextuplets, but things get smoothed over and the Wyatt girls are the star attraction in a live television (yes, they had TV in 1938!) broadcast for their fourth birthday celebration. And, as always happens in these kind of stories, Duke and Christine wind up a couple.
Posters for Five of a Kind declared “They Act! They Sing! They Dance!,” and to their credit the Dionnes do more here than in their first two films (which is only natural since they’ve reached pre-school age). The quints were still filmed exclusively in their nursery, in hour-long increments, and are seen interacting with Hersholt as he presents them with puppies and lets them “serve coffee” to him. They also perform two songs, the French-language favorite “Frère Jacques” and the original English-language tune “All Mixed Up.” Sorry to say, but the novelty factor of watching them was indeed wearing thin. When it came to screen presence, even at such a tender age, the girls couldn’t hold a candle to fellow Fox star Shirley Temple.
The $4 million box office take for Five of a Kind was an improvement on Reunion, but Fox could see that the novelty factor of watching the Dionnes on the big screen was wearing off and ended its association with the family. Hollywood in general, though, wasn’t finished with the girls. Their fifth birthday party was the subject of a 1939 RKO documentary short, Five by Five, which earned an Academy Award nomination.
References to the quints popped up in films ranging from A Night at the Opera and My Man Godfrey to The Women and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. Even Mickey Mouse’s dog got into the act by becoming proud papa to five pups in the 1937 Disney cartoon Pluto’s Quin-Puplets. In the meantime, after failing to get the rights to his Dr. Luke character, Jean Hersholt created another kindly country physician, Dr. Paul Christian. He went on to star in a 1937-54 CBS radio series as well as six Dr. Christian films for RKO.
Sadly, the Dionne sisters’ real lives were not as happy and carefree as the Fox films suggested. Returned to the care of their parents when they turned eight years old in 1943, and the family moved into a spacious new home the following year. Allegations of physical abuse by their mother and sexual abue by their father during adolescence were made years later. Moving out in 1952 when they were 18, the girls had little contact with their parents or other siblings in the years that followed. Émilie, who joined a convent and planned to become nun, died in 1954 from an apparent seizure. In 1970 Marie was founded dead in her apartment from a blood clot in her brain.
Surviving sisters Yvonne, Cécile, and Annette lived together or near each other in Montreal for many years and took part in a 1978 documentary about their childhood. 1994 saw the debut of a CBS/CBC biodrama miniseries, Million Dollar Babies. Yvonne passed away in 2001 and Cécile followed on July 28 of this year, leaving 91-year-old Annette as the last of the 1930s’ most famous siblings. “I resented everyone for the way we were brought up,” Cécile said in a 1984 her 50th birthday interview. “Because of the accident of birth, we were not considered people.”