Dorothy Mackaill

Dorothy Mackaill
c. 1929
Born	March 4, 1903(1903-03-04) Hull, England, UK
Died	August 12, 1990(1990-08-12) (aged 87) Honolulu, Hawaii, US
Occupation	actress
Spouse	Lothar Mendes (1926-28) Neil Miller (1931-34) Harold Patterson (1934-38)

Dorothy Mackaill (March 4, 1903 — August 12, 1990)^[1] was an English-born American actress, most notably of the silent film era and into the early 1930s.

Early life

Born in Kingston upon Hull, Mackaill lived with her father after her parents separated when she was eleven. She attended Thoresby Primary School and was living on Newstead Street nearby at the time. As a teenager, Mackaill ran away to London to pursue a stage career as an actress. After temporarily relocating to Paris, she met a Broadway stage choreographer who persuaded her to move to New York City where she became involved in the Ziegfeld Follies and befriended future motion picture actresses Marion Davies and Nita Naldi.^[2]

Career rise

By 1920, Mackaill had begun making the transition from "Follies Girl" to film actress. That same year she appeared in her first film, the Wilfred Noy-directed mystery, The Face at the Window. Mackaill also appeared in several comedies of 1920 opposite actor Johnny Hines. In 1921 she appeared opposite Anna May Wong, Noah Beery, and Lon Chaney in the Marshall Neilan-directed drama Bits of Life. 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.^[3]

In 1924, Mackaill rose to leading lady status in the drama The Man Who Came Back, opposite rugged matinee idol George O'Brien. Her role of the nightclub chanteuse Marcelle catapulted Mackaill into a genuine Hollywood star and her career continued to flourish throughout the remainder of the 1920s. In early 1924 she starred in the western film, The Mine with the Iron Door, shot on location outside of Tucson, Arizona. That same year she was awarded the WAMPAS Baby Stars award by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers in the United States, which honored thirteen young women each year who they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. Other notable recipients of the award that year were Clara Bow, Julanne Johnston and Lucille Ricksen. ^[4]

Later career

She made a smooth transition to sound with the part-talkie The Barker in 1928 and had continued success in talkies for the next couple of years. Mackaill's film contract at First National Pictures was not renewed upon its expiration in 1931 and Mackaill became a free agent actress. Her most memorable role of this era was the 1932 Columbia Pictures release Love Affair with a young Humphrey Bogart as her leading man. She made several films for MGM, Paramount and Columbia before retiring in 1937 for many years from the industry to care for her aging mother.

Dorothy Mackaill occasionally came out of retirement to appear in roles for television, notably in several episodes of the 1960s and 1970s series Hawaii Five-O, which was filmed on location where Mackaill had lived for several decades.

Personal life

In 1926, Mackaill married the successful film director Lothar Mendes, but the union only lasted for two years before ending in divorce.^[5] She would marry two more times: from 1931 to 1934 to Neil Miller, and from 1934 to 1938 to Harold Patterson, both of which marriages also ended in divorce. She produced no children in either of the marriages.

Death

Mackaill died of kidney failure in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1990, aged 87. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered at sea off of Waikiki Beach.

Partial Filmography

• Bits of Life (1921)
• The Lotus Eater (1921)
• The Next Corner (1924)
• Shore Leave (1925)
• The Barker (1928)
• Kept Husbands (1931)
• Safe in Hell (1931)
• The Reckless Hour (1931)

References

1. ^ StarrPulse
2. ^ StarPulse
3. ^ Silent Hollywood
4. ^ The Wampas Baby Stars
5. ^ AOLBiography: Lothar Mendes

External links

Biography portal

• Dorothy Mackaill at the Internet Movie Database
• Dorothy Mackaill at the Internet Broadway Database
• Dorothy Mackaill at Silent Ladies & Gents
• Photographs of Dorothy Mackaill
• How Low Can You Go? Dorothy Mackaill in Safe in Hell (TCM Movie Morlocks)
• Dorothy Mackaill at Find a Grave
• Dorothy Mackaill(with tennis racket), Marion Davies (center), and another actress

Persondata
Name	Mackaill, Dorothy
Alternative names
Short description	Actress
Date of birth	March 4, 1903
Place of birth	Hull, England, UK
Date of death	August 12, 1990
Place of death	Honolulu, Hawaii, US