Marie Doro
Encyclopedia
Marie Doro was an American stage and film actress of the early silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 era.

Personal life

Marie Doro was born as Marie Katherine Steward in Duncannon, Pennsylvania
Duncannon, Pennsylvania
Duncannon is a borough in Perry County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,508 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. The center of population of Pennsylvania is located in Duncannon. It is named after the coastal town of...

 and began her career as a theater actress under the management of Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman
Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....

 before progressing to motion pictures in 1915, under contract with film producer Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor , born Adolph Cukor, was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.-Early life:...

.

She was briefly married to the vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 and silent screen actor Elliott Dexter
Elliott Dexter
Elliott Dexter was an American film and stage actor. Dexter started his career in vaudeville and didn't move to films until he was 45. He retired from acting in 1925....

; the marriage soon ended in divorce. The marriage produced no children and Doro never remarried.

Her name was linked over the years to much older William Gillette
William Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....

 of Sherlock Holmes fame, who was consistently linked by the press with his leading ladies. The two appeared in The Admirable Crichton in 1903, in which the young Doro had a small part, Clarice and Sherlock Holmes in 1905-06, and Diplomacy in 1914. She also starred in Gillette's 1910 production of Electricity.

Doro was a Dresden doll-like brunette, described by drama critic William Winter as “a young actress of piquant beauty, marked personality and rare expressiveness of countenance.”
She was talented, beautiful and a star in her own right. The few silent films of hers that survive show a gifted natural actress who did not always get the best parts.

Lowell Thomas, the traveler, writer and broadcaster who later gave Lawrence of Arabia to the world, knew Doro well, saying that “her fragile-looking type of pulchritude caused her to be cast in usually insipid, pretty-pretty rôles.” Offstage, she was intelligent, an expert on Shakespeare and Elizabethan poetry, and possessed a penetrating humor and a sometimes acid wit. “She became associated with Gillette quite early in her career and he, a man of strong and powerful mind, exercised considerable influence over her development.”

As she later admitted, “For years I was hypnotized by two men – Frohman and William Gillette
William Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....

.”

Career

Like many other young ladies, she started out in the chorus in musical comedy productions, finally performing as a single character in a program in San Francisco in 1903. From there she went to New York, appeared as Rosella Peppercorn in The Billionaire and as Nancy Lowly in The Girl From Kay’s. She caught the eye of Frohman, who saw in her distinct possibilities for stardom and cast her as Lady Millicent in James M. Barrie’s Little Mary, which opened at the Empire Theater on January 4, 1904. Later that year the legendary Mrs. G. H. Gilbert – who with John Drew
John Drew
John Drew was an Irish-American stage actor and theatre manager.-Early life:Born Jonathan Henry Drewland in Dublin, Ireland, to Thomas L. Drew and Louise Kanten, he was the fifth of six children. He lived in Templeogue, a poor Irish village in County Dublin during the 19th century...

, Ada Rehan
Ada Rehan
Ada Rehan was an American actress.-Biography:She was born as Ada Crehan in County Limerick, Ireland, and brought to the United States at about the age of six years....

 and James Lewis
James Lewis
James Lewis or Jimmy Lewis may refer to:* James Lewis , Welsh rugby player* James Lewis , Australian football referee in the A-League* James Lewis , American comedian from New York...

 had been one of Augustin Daly
Augustin Daly
John Augustin Daly was an American theatrical manager and playwright active in both the US and UK.-Biography:Daly was born in Plymouth, North Carolina and educated at Norfolk, Va...

’s “Big 4,” but who had spent decades supporting bigger stars – was finally given a starring vehicle of her own, Clyde Fitch’s Granny. It was to be Mrs. Gilbert’s farewell tour, with Marie playing Dora, the ingenue. And a farewell tour it was. The play was well-received in New York but, four days after its Chicago opening, on December 2, 1904, Mrs. Gilbert died at the age of 83.

The following January, Doro created the title role of Friquet at the Savoy, and it was William Collier
William Collier
William Collier, Jr. was an American film and stage actor who appeared in 89 films.-Biography:Collier was born as Charles F. Gal, Jr. in New York City...

’s company, performing The Detective, that took her to London later that year. After The Detective closed, Frohman cast her in the heroin’s role in Gillette’s Clarice, a role she filled for the next two years.

Doro then appeared in The Morals of Marcus, followed in March 1909 by The Richest Girl, and in 1910 in Gillette’s Electricity. Her career was now definitely on the rise, for in 1912 she joined Nat C. Goodwin, Lyn Harding
Lyn Harding
Lyn Harding was a Welsh actor who spent 40 years on the stage before entering British made silent films, talkies and radio...

 and Constance Collier
Constance Collier
Constance Collier was an English film actress and acting coach.-Life and career:Born Laura Constance Hardie, in Windsor, Berkshire, Collier made her stage debut at the age of 3, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in A Midsummer's Night Dream...

 in a dramatization of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

Oliver Twist, one of the earliest productions of that work, as well as appearing with De Wolf Hopper in an all-star production of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

’s Patience. She played opposite Charles Terry in The New Secretary in 1913, and the following year joined Gillette in Diplomacy.

Doro's stage career ended with Frohman's death on the Lusitania
Lusitania
Lusitania or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain . It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people...

in 1915, after which she made eighteen motion pictures and achieved several milestones, one of them being her appearance in the first presentation of 3-D films in front of a paying audience.

Her film debut for Zukor's Famous Players studio was the starring role in the now lost short film The Morals of Marcus in 1915. The following year she played the lead in the 1916 film version of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

' Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...

, a role she previously played with much acclaim on stage in 1912. Throughout the 1910s, Doro remained a highly respected and popular leading lady. Most of her earliest screen appearances are now lost. One of the few to survive is Lost and Won from 1915.

Although still a popular leading lady, by the early 1920s Doro became increasingly disillusioned with Hollywood and her acting career. She returned to the Broadway stage one last time in 1921 with Josephine Drake in Lilies of the Field. She made two more feature films, the last of them being Sally Bishop, but left Hollywood in 1924, relocated to Europe for a time and made a number of films in Italy and the UK. Returning to the United States, she became increasingly reclusive and drawn to spiritual matters. After moving to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, she briefly studied at the Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...

.

After returning to the United States, she spent the rest of her life in seclusion. She would often go on self-styled "retreats" in which she went to extremes to elude friends and acquaintances, even to the point of changing hotels four times a week.

Death

In 1956 she died of heart failure in New York City, New York, aged 74. She allocated $90,000 dollars in her will to the Actors' Fund
Actors' Fund
The Actors Fund of America is a nonprofit umbrella charitable organization that assists American entertainment and performing arts professionals through a broad spectrum of programs, including comprehensive social services, health services, supportive and affordable housing, employment and training...

. She was buried at the Duncannon Cemetery in Duncannon
Duncannon, Pennsylvania
Duncannon is a borough in Perry County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,508 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Harrisburg–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area. The center of population of Pennsylvania is located in Duncannon. It is named after the coastal town of...

, Perry County, Pennsylvania
Perry County, Pennsylvania
As of the census of 2000, there were 43,602 people, 16,695 households, and 12,320 families residing in the county. The population density was 79 people per square mile . There were 18,941 housing units at an average density of 34 per square mile...

.

For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Marie Doro was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

 at 1725 Vine Street in Hollywood, California, USA.

Filmography

  • The Morals of Marcus (1915)
  • The White Pearl (1915)
  • The Wood Nymph (1916)
  • Diplomacy (1916)
  • The Heart of Nora Flynn
    The Heart of Nora Flynn
    The Heart of Nora Flynn is a 1916 drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille.-Cast:* Marie Doro - Nora Flynn* Elliott Dexter - Nolan* Ernest Joy - Brantley Stone* Lola May - Mrs. Stone* Billy Jacobs - Tommy Stone* Charles West - Jack Murray...

    (1916)(Extant)
  • Common Ground (1916)
  • The Lash (1916)
  • Oliver Twist (1916)(Lost)
  • Lost and Won
    Lost and Won
    Lost and Won is a 1917 drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and Frank Reicher.-Cast:* Marie Doro - Cinders* Elliott Dexter - Walter Crane* Carl Stockdale - Kirkland Gaige* Mayme Kelso - Cleo Duvene* Robert Gray - Bill Holt* Clarence Geldart...

    (1917)(Extant)
  • Castles for Two (1917)(Extant; Library of Congress)
  • Heart's Desire (1917)
  • 12.10 (1919)
  • Midnight Gambols (1919)
  • The Mysterious Princess (1920)
  • Il colchico e la rosa (1921)
  • The Stronger Passion (1921)
  • Sister Against Sister (1923)
  • Sally Bishop (1924)

External links

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