Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith (3 May 1896 - 24 November 1990) was an English novelist and playwright.
Biography
Dorothy was born in Whitefield, near Bury in Lancashire. Her father, Ernest Smith, died when Dodie was a baby and following his death, circa 1897, Dorothy and her mother Ella Furber Smith moved back in with her parents; William and Margaret Furber, at 586 Chester Road in the Old Trafford district of Stretford[1]. The formative years of Dorothy's childhood were spent at this house. But in 1910 Ella remarried and relocated with her new husband and the 14 year old Dodie to London. In 1914, Dodie entered the Academy (later Royal Academy) of Dramatic Art, and Ella died of breast cancer. During Ella's illness, mother and daughter became followers of Christian Science. (Smith, 1974).
Dodie unsuccessfully pursued a career as an actress. In 1923, she took a job in Heals furniture store in London and became the toy buyer (and a mistress of the chairman, Ambrose Heal).[2] She authored her first play, Autumn Crocus, in 1931 under the pseudonym C.L. Anthony. Its success, and the discovery of her identity by journalists, inspired the newspaper headline, "Shopgirl Writes Play". (Smith, 1979).
She spent most of her years as a writer living in a townhouse in London, where a plaque now commemorates her occupation. In 1939, she married Alec Beesley, another employee at Heal's.
During the 1940s, she and her husband moved to the United States due to legal difficulties with Beesley's stand as a conscientious objector. (Smith, 1979). While living in the U.S. and feeling homesick for England, she wrote her first novel, I Capture the Castle (1948). During the American interlude, the Beesleys became friends with writers Christopher Isherwood, Charles Brackett, and John Van Druten. In Smith's memoirs, she credits Alec with making the suggestion to Van Druten that he adapt Isherwood's Sally Bowles story Goodbye to Berlin into a play (the Van Druten play, I Am A Camera, later became the musical Cabaret). In her memoirs, Smith acknowledges having received writing advice from her friend, the novelist A. J. Cronin.
Smith is best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956) (which was adapted into the Disney animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians). Her novel I Capture the Castle also has a devoted following (a film version was released in 2003).
Smith died in 1990 after naming Julian Barnes as her literary executor, a job she felt would not be much work. She was cremated. Her ashes were scattered in the wind. Barnes writes of the complicated task in his essay "Literary Executions", revealing among other things how he secured the return of the film rights to I Capture the Castle, which had been held by Disney since 1949 (Barnes, 2003). Smith's personal papers are housed in Boston University's Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, and include manuscripts, photographs, artwork, and correspondence (including letters from Christopher Isherwood and John Gielgud).
List of Works
Plays
- Autumn Crocus (1931)
- Service (1932)
- Touch Wood (1934)
- Call It A Day (1935)
- Bonnet Over the Windmill (1937)
- Dear Octopus (1938)
- Lovers and Friends (1943)
- Letter from Paris (1952)
- I Capture the Castle (1954)
Novels
Autobiography
- Look Back with Love: a Manchester Childhood (1974)
- Look Back with Mixed Feelings (1978)
- Look Back with Astonishment (1979)
- Look Back with Gratitude (1985)
The Hundred and One Dalmatians
Pongo, the canine protagonist of The Hundred and One Dalmatians, was named after Smith's own pet Dalmatian, the first of nine. Smith got the idea for her novel when a friend remarked at her own dalmatians: “Those dogs would make a lovely fur coat!”
References
- Barnes, Julian. (2003). Literary Executions. In: Arana, Marie The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work : A Collection from the Washington Post Book World. New York: PublicAffairs.
- Grove, Valerie (1996). Dear Dodie: the life of Dodie Smith. London: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-5753-4.
- Smith, Dodie (1979). Look Back With Astonishment. London: W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-02198-4.
- Smith, Dodie (1985). Look Back With Gratitude. London: Muller, Blond & White. ISBN 0-584-11124-X.
- Smith, Dodie (1974). Look Back With Love: A Manchester Childhood. London: Heinemann. ISBN 0-434-71355-4.
- Smith, Dodie (1978). Look Back With Mixed Feelings. London: W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-02073-2.
- ^ 1901 England Census, Lancashire, Stretford, District 3, Pg 1-2
- ^ Alan Crawford, "Heal, Sir Ambrose (1872–1959)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 12 Aug 2007
External links
