Dorothy Mackaill
Born in Hull, England, Dorothy Mackaill lived with her father after her parents separated when she was eleven. As a teenager, Mackaill ran away to London to pursue a stage career as an actress. After temporarily relocating to Paris, France 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.
By 1920, Mackaill had begun making the transition from "Follies girl" to motion picture actress and that year 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.
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. 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.
In 1926 Mackaill married the successful film director Lothar Mendes, but the union only lasted for two years before ending in divorce. 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.
The motion industry upheaval during the new talkie era of the late 1920s and early 1930s left Makaill in a similar situation of many of her silent film contemporaries; Mackaill was quickly passed over by studio executives in favor of newer talent in hopes of luring the American public back to the theaters as the United States sank into the Great Depression. 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-0, which was filmed on location where Mackaill had lived for several decades.
Dorothy Mackaill died of kidney failure in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1990 at the age of 87. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered at sea off of Waikiki Beach.
Filmography
1937 Bulldog Drummond at Bay
1934 Picture Brides
1934 Curtain at Eight
1934 Cheaters
1933 The Chief
1933 Neighbors' Wives
1932 No Man of Her Own
1932 Love Affair
1931 Their Mad Moment
1931 The Reckless Hour
1931 Safe in Hell
1931 Party Husband
1931 Once a Sinner
1931 Kept Husbands
1931 Bright Lights
1930 The Office Wife
1930 The Great Divide
1930 The Flirting Widow
1930 Strictly Modern
1930 Man Trouble
1929 Two Weeks Off
1929 The Love Racket
1929 His Captive Woman
1929 Hard to Get
1929 Children of the Ritz
1928 Whip
1928 Waterfront
1928 The Barker
1928 Lady Be Good
1928 Ladies' Night in a Turkish Bath
1927 The Crystal Cup
1927 Smile, Brother, Smile
1927 Man Crazy
1927 Lunatic at Large
1927 Convoy
1926 Subway Sadie
1926 Ranson's Folly
1926 Girl From Coney Island
1926 Dancer of Paris
1925 Shore Leave
1925 One Year to Live
1925 Making of O'Malley
1925 Joanna
1925 Chickie
1925 Bridge of Sighs
1924 What Shall I Do?
1924 The Mine with the Iron Door
1924 Next Corner
1924 Man Who Came Back
1923 Twenty-One
1923 The Fighting Blade
1923 Mighty Lak'a Rose
1923 His Children's Children
1923 Fair Cheat
1923 Broken Violin
1922 Woman's Woman
1922 The Streets of New York
1922 The Inner Man
1921 Bits of Life
1920 The Face at the Window
