Dorothy Mackaill

Born in Sculcoates, Kingston upon Hull in 1903 (although she later would claim 1904 or 1905 as her year of birth, including on her petition for naturalization as a United States citizen, giving 1904 as the year), Mackaill lived with her father after her parents separated when she was around eleven years old. She attended Thoresby Primary School. As a teenager, Mackaill ran away to London to pursue a stage career as an actress.[3]

At age 16, she danced in Joybelles at London's Hippodrome and worked in Paris acting in a few minor Pathé films.[4] She met a Broadway stage choreographer who persuaded her to migrate to New York City, where aged 17 she became active in the Ziegfeld Follies, dancing in his Midnight Frolic review.[4][5]

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.[3] 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.[6] 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.[7]

Dorothy Mackaill, c. 1920

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.[8] 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).

1926 Dorothy Mackaill cover art from Picture-Play Magazine

Mackaill was married three times. Her first marriage was to German film director Lothar Mendes, on November 17, 1926.[14] They divorced in August 1928.[15] On November 4, 1931, she married radio singer Neil Albert Miller.[16] They divorced in February 1934.[17] Her third and final marriage was to horticulturist Harold Patterson in June 1947.[18][19] She filed for divorce in December 1948.[20]

Mackaill had no children.

Mackaill became a naturalized United States citizen in 1926, giving 1904 as her year of birth, and her age as 22.[21][22]

Mackaill resided in Honolulu, Hawaii, during the last 35 years of her life.[23] She died there of liver failure in her room at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on August 12, 1990.[23] She was cremated and her ashes scattered off Waikiki Beach.[24][25]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dorothy Mackaill.

• Dorothy Mackaill at IMDb
• Dorothy Mackaill at the Internet Broadway Database
• Photographs of Dorothy Mackaill