Dorothy Mackaill

Dorothy Mackaill (March 4, 1903 – August 12, 1990) was a British-American actress, most active during the silent-film era and into the pre-Code era of the early 1930s.

Early life Mackaill was born at 20 Newstead Street in the Dukeries, Kingston upon Hull, in 1903. She was raised by her father, who owned a dance academy, after her parents separated when she was around eleven years old. She attended nearby Thoresby Primary School, where she is commemorated with a blue plaque, and one of the four school houses is named after her.

In one account of her teenage years, Mackaill ran away to London to pursue a stage career as an actress. Another version of this period of her life describes Mackaill as teaching a Saturday evening dancing class at her father's academy when her talent was recognised by visitors who persuaded her father to send her to London to learn elocution and dancing. This she did at the Thorne Academy of Dramatic Art and Dancing in Wigmore Hall, attending the first year of a two-year course before leaving to start her paid career.

At age 16, Mackaill danced in Joybelles at London's Hippodrome and worked in Paris acting in a few minor Pathé films. She met a Broadway stage choreographer who persuaded her to migrate to New York City at 17, where she became active in the Ziegfeld Follies, dancing in his Midnight Frolic revue.

Career By 1920, Mackaill had begun making the transition from "Follies Girl" to film actress. That same year she appeared in her first film, a Wilfred Noy-directed mystery, The Face at the Window. In the following years, Mackaill would appear opposite such popular actors as Richard Barthelmess, Rod La Rocque, Colleen Moore, John Barrymore, George O'Brien, Bebe Daniels, Milton Sills and Anna Q. Nilsson.

Mackaill rose to leading-lady status in the drama The Man Who Came Back (1924), opposite rugged matinee idol George O'Brien. In 1924, she also starred in the western film The Mine with the Iron Door, shot on location outside of Tucson, Arizona. That same year, the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers of the United States presented Mackaill with one of its WAMPAS Baby Stars awards, which each year honored thirteen young women whom the association believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. Other notable recipients of the award in 1924 were Clara Bow, Julanne Johnston and Lucille Ricksen. Her career continued to flourish throughout the remainder of the 1920s, as she made a smooth transition to sound with the part-talkie The Barker (1928).

Later career and retirement In September 1928, First National Pictures was acquired by Warner Bros., and her contract with First National was not renewed in 1931. Her most memorable role of this era was the 1932 Columbia Pictures B film release Love Affair (1932) with a then little-known Humphrey Bogart as her leading man. She made several films for MGM, Paramount and Columbia before retiring in 1937, to care for her ailing mother. In 1955, Mackaill moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. She had fallen in love with the islands while filming His Captive Woman (1929). Mackaill lived at the luxurious Royal Hawaiian Hotel on the beach at Waikiki as a sort of celebrity-in-residence and enjoyed swimming in the ocean nearly every day.

She occasionally came out of retirement to appear in television productions, including two episodes of Hawaii Five-O in 1976 and 1980.

Personal life

Mackaill was married three times. Her first marriage was to German film director Lothar Mendes, on November 17, 1926. They divorced in August 1928. On November 4, 1931, she married radio singer Neil Albert Miller. They divorced in February 1934. Her third and final marriage was to horticulturist Harold Patterson in June 1947. She filed for divorce in December 1948.

Mackaill had no children.

Naturalization as United States citizen Mackaill became a naturalized United States citizen in 1926, giving 1904 as her year of birth, and her age as 22.

Death Mackaill resided in Honolulu, Hawaii, during the last 35 years of her life. She died there of liver failure in her room at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on August 12, 1990.

Filmography